Next Generation Customer Relations

Many in the industry have speculated about CRM is dead or merely in a process of development. As a model, which originally had its roots in the main "front office" functions of call center systems, help desk applications, and Sales Force Automation.

Reviewing the developments we see Siebel and state (now Amos) offering solutions to the consolidation of function across the front office operation with SAP and Oracle, which takes care of finance, supply chain management and what we know today as e - business. This will ultimately lead to the long awaited Oracle-Siebel agreement, so the front and back office operations, which must operate under the same roof, a database and a common set of end-user tools.

So we can see the original function of CRM was to streamline business processes, functions and processes and thus increase cost savings. CRM solutions have been offered to companies that operate a call center or sales organizations to reduce inefficiencies, standardize processes and monitor the development of the company. Specifically CRM systems can allow executives to track customer service and assist in-coming communication and provides information on the ongoing development of marketing and sales activities. The focus of these solutions were essentially automate all processes for handling customer from the company's viewpoint, but it could be argued that the customer in a manner not appear explicitly in the equation. What these solutions have failed to do was show companies how to: --

- Treated effectively with customer problems

- Answer questions and provide information quickly and efficiently

- Helping customers to solve their own problems themselves

In light of the above, the primary shift in focus of CRM is the customer. What is being advocated is the idea that in order to take care of the customer (who is indeed the lifeblood of your business) systems should be able to make the customer maximum control of their business with the organization.With this focus on customer engagement, the Allen Boned, a leading industry analyst suggested that the new generation of CMR will be centered around three priority themes, which he calls the three Cs. Below is a list of these items

- Customer experience - this refers to the idea that there should be commitment at all customer contact points within the organization.

- Content - It is about using systems that allows information content to be at the fingertips of consultants and clients.

- Collaboration - Collaboration here is the social network that has an increasing influence on knowledge sharing among customers and customer loyalty.

He argues that the adoption of this focus on these issues has the potential to improve and streamline processes within the organization, while providing customers greater control over their business and make better use of self-service applications, thereby reducing call. These priorities have emerged in response to the growing interest in Web 2.0 technologies, wakes, RSS and social networks that already have begun to create a streamlined communication between customers and the organization, but also faster sharing of information between internal employees.

With these priorities, we can see that the future focus of CRM will be customer-oriented technology. The advice of analysts to ensure success is to build on these priority areas of business planning way before the new technology is applied. Practically, this means talking to customers and find out what they need to maximize the use of self-service applications and use better information on customer needs, already deduced account records, marketing data, blog posts, etc. In other words "spring clean" your existing CRM systems before introducing new ones.