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8 - 10 April 2002
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Florence, Italy
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GartnerG2 - Developing a CRM Strategy
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Jennifer Kirkby, Research Director, GartnerG2 | | |
Tuesday 9 April 2002
What is a customer relationship management (CRM) strategy? A common question with wildly differing answers. Speaking at Symposium/ITpo in Florence today, GartnerG2 research director, Jennifer Kirkby, said there is a lot of confusion between a CRM business strategy and a CRM implementation strategy. "A CRM strategy is a blueprint for how you are going to achieve the ideal customer base, but to do this you need to revisit the marketing strategy," she said.
In a CRM strategy, the enterprise needs to think about how they are going to build in "feel-good factor" for the customer so they stay longer, buy more, recommend the company more often and are more likely to pay a premium price.
To achieve this, Kirkby believes new skills and capabilities will be need in analysis, metrics and service. New technology will be requires, customer contact processes will need to be revamped, staff will need to behave in new ways, and data will need to be managed to a much greater degree. "However," said Kirkby, "a plan for building these is not the customer strategy; it is the roadmap for building enabling capabilities. The one supports the other, and the enterprise should write the top-level roadmap into the CRM strategy without confusing the two."
The customer base needs to become a company asset, and financial analysts are starting to value it as such, although only ten to 15 percent of companies know this.
GartnerG2 recommends:
- Find all the elements of strategy in current plans so they can be pulled together
- Establish your market position against requirements and competitors
- Make the brand the "company DNA" to deliver the proposition
- Segment the market for share of wallet and lifetime value
- Value your customer-base potential, not just on current profit
- Establish the motivating factors for customer loyalty - where do you need to excel and where can you cut costs?
- Develop skills in the new areas of customer relationship building - service, contact strategies and relationship models. Understand what technology enables you to do.
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