The Russia Journal

A fresh approach to building strong customer relations, Customer Relationship Management, is rewiring the way many high-tech companies are thinking about running their businesses, particularly in the telecommunications sector.

Using a synthesis of software, hardware and management know-how, CRM is designed to facilitate coordination between various company divisions to achieve maximum customer satisfaction.

Moreover, the approach stresses that customer satisfaction should be a concern throughout the entire buying process – from first contact to post-purchase service support and product-quality assessment.

The cycle is a self-reinforcing one, as advocates say, and as the accompanying diagram (below) indicates.

In the first phase, labeled as Contact Management, a company makes contact with the customer, usually as a result of certain marketing efforts. Contact Management involves marketing and market research, as well as an analysis of how marketing and sales departments work.

The phase is completed once the potential customer turns into an actual customer. Then Sales Force Automation begins. When goods and/or services are delivered, customers expect them to come in full volume and on time. Customers also expect to have the opportunity to track an order during the process and to receive support from the company should problems arise.

Sales Force Automation does this handling and monitoring contracts, coordinates delivery of goods and services to customers, and offers logistical tracking and support.

The third phase of CRM is called Customer Support. It deals with such issues as handling customer questions, complaints and repair requests, maintaining databases of queries and solutions, providing analysis of anomalies and offering ways to control and manage technical support.

Modern trends in this phase are primarily represented by the creation of the "Help Yourself" systems that allow customers to resolve their problems without having to call company specialists. These include things like online FAQs and service manuals.

The final stage of CRM is called Quality Management, which deals with developing new versions and models of goods based on customer complaints and suggestions. The circle closes with this phase, as the new goods and services developed are used to attract new customers.

Successful implementation of CRM requires a harmonious combination of the following three directions:

•Developing a purposeful strategy and business philosophy, which enables a company to rise to continually improve customer relations and satisfaction;

•Training personnel to embrace this strategy and implement it;

•Developing methods and mechanisms to aid personnel will help to implement the strategy.

Today, there are many sophisticated CRM computer program, but one should not think that approach will work without preparing personnel.

It is necessary to formulate goals and objectives. It is also necessary to form a harmonious team of knowledgeable and self-motivated people who are specialists in business, technology and management and are able to readily adopt new ideas. Then it is necessary to elaborate specific tasks for each stage, and finally, to choose methods, instruments and software.

Regarding software, CRM has been luckier than Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP. Unlike most of the ERP software, CRM programs are oriented toward modular architecture, which allows for flexibility and avoids the complicated process of restructuring the company's business to bring it into line with the purchased software.

Online customer support is essential for such companies today, and the only way to realize it lies with the use of modern means of communication, such as the Internet, mobile telephones and automated systems.

Professional system integrators now offer sophisticated products with inheritable databases, monitoring systems, mobile telephones, OLE and DDE.

Nowadays, customers are getting increasingly demanding. Now that there is the Internet, television and mass advertising, it is quite easy to find suppliers of all conceivable goods and services.

Naturally, consumers are getting increasingly discriminating. Therefore, the proper management of relations between a company and its clients has become a very important direction of business.

Marina Anshina is head of development and systems support at TopS, a company specializing in systems integration.