Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 8): Organisations that succeed with customer relationship management (CRM) recognise that value must first be delivered to customers before there is any hope of developing an enduring and symbiotic customer relationship, leading to high lifetime value and lower costs to attract new customers, according to Australia-based independent technology analyst firm Ovum.

In a report entitled “2015 Trends to Watch: CRM” released today, Ovum principal analys in Customer Engagement practice Jeremy Cox said underpinning successful CRM was strategy that is informed by deep insights into the customer and all the forces shaping their expectations, behaviours, wants, and needs.

“Simply bolting on CRM software can only lead to disappointment. The objectives are different in the public and not-for-profit sectors, but the same fundamental principles apply,” said Cox.

He said successful organisations develop a coherent underlying sense of purpose that has the customer at its heart.

Cox said this spans and impacts the entire organisation, creating and delivering value to customers in order to earn their continued support.

“Only in this way can organisations become truly customer-adaptive, which means being able to sense, respond, and adapt at the right speed to remain persistently relevant to their customers in an era of accelerating change and market volatility,” said Cox.

He said the rapidly changing business landscape was increasingly impacting ICT strategy and investment.

Cox added that industry ICT suppliers must understand enterprises' needs at the country and industry levels to ensure that their product, marketing, and sales strategies are aligned to customer requirements.

Cox said the top CRM trends to watch in 2015 will include the following.

  • Real-time decisioning and predictive sensing capabilities will generate relevant and personalized customer interaction.
  • Increases in cloud-based industry-specific objects, workflows, and best practices will make cloud-based CRM more attractive.
  • An explosion of apps, IoT, and wearable devices will form part of the new customer engagement mix.

Cox said to be successful with CRM, firms need a genuine customer-centred philosophy and values that drive the right behaviours.

“The individual with the ultimate responsibility for creating the right conditions for this to happen is the CEO, not the VP of marketing, sales, or service,” he said.

 

 

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