CRM SOFTWARE PACKAGES: Building Customer Loyalty

With e-mail newsletters becoming popular among corporates and desktop users,
channel partners are increasingly using it to keep in touch with their clients.
Most websites have a link that invites visitors to subscribe to a newsletter.

However, such initiatives should be backed with a good customer relations
strategy to make it effective. It is seen that currently, partners just push the
information down to customers. If a user tries to contact the sender of these
newsletters, either no one responds or the communication dies down after an
exchange of one or two e-mails.

WHY GO FOR CRM

Partners who want to build a long-term customer relation, should invest in
customer relationship management (CRM) software packages. Newer technologies
have provided partners with various tools to interact with their existing or
potential customers.

CRM software helps partners to keep a track of their customers and boost
revenues by increasing buyer loyalty. With it, companies can gain greater
efficiency in operations, reduce operating costs, retain customers and increase
revenues. These packages also increase the interaction level between partners
and customers.

THE PRICE FACTOR

The global CRM software market is a $3 billion business, lead by Siebel
Systems, SAP, Oracle and PeopleSoft. There are other tier-two vendors like
SalesLogix, Onyx, ACT!, GoldMine, SalesNet and SalesPro.

Analysts state that the Asian market for CRM applications is expected to grow
to $739 million by the end of 2005. However, western CRM providers, some of them
large and prominent in USA and Europe, have been disappointed by the lack of
return on their Asian investments.

The reason for this is that the Indian market is very price conscious. Most
customers don't like to shell out the high software license prices, which is a
major hurdle for CRM vendors.

MAJOR CRM PLAYERS

SalesLogix is one of the few CRM companies to embrace Windows, web as well as
wireless technologies and provide access to customers anytime, anywhere. Its CRM
packages are modular, customizable and scalable. These are fully integrated with
Microsoft Outlook and uses e-mail communications to keep track of contacts.
Partners can create custom HTML e-mail templates, then personalize and send them
using the Mail Merge feature.

ACT! for Windows is a CRM/contact management solution, which features a
multi-user pack for companies having around 10 users. It has a powerful built-in
sales system, which allows partners to create sales opportunities and track them
through the various sales stages.

Information on product, pricing, quantity, probability of completing the sale
and sales stage can be entered for each opportunity, and then later used for
reporting and analysis.The company's latest CRM version also allows partners to
have HTML e-mail templates for personalized e-mail marketing.

SalesPro is a web-based CRM system, hosted by an application service
provider, available for a monthly rental. It is also currently available as a
free personal service for individual users, such as popular web-based e-mail
services.

Another low-cost software is the Desktop Sales Manager, which is claimed to
be equivalent to the best of CRM software available. It allows partners to track
details of their sales opportunities using lists, checklists, checkboxes, dates
and text fields.

TOO MUCH HYPE

The CRM packages market is currently going through the cycle of
hype­boom­bust­steady growth, which is typical of new technologies. This
leads to many vendors over-selling and under-delivering during the stages of
hype and boom.

When expectations are raised sky-high, they are mostly unmet. People then
start questioning the effectiveness of the technology itself. A point to be
noted is that customer loyalty cannot be won by buying expensive CRM software.

A survey of nearly 700 companies, conducted by research firm Gartner in 2003,
indicates that 42% of CRM software licenses purchased were yet to be installed.
That is turning software into shelfware!

The problem is that many partners/enterprises deploy CRM systems without
first developing an effective customer strategy. Other common problems found are
that data is not in an electronic form, there's too much of duplication, its
branches are not networked and they have currently only summarized data.

The channel is recognizing the importance of well-planned customer strategies
and are aligning their technologies accordingly. With the right solution,
partners can deploy a successful sales, marketing and customer service strategy
to improve their profitability.

Ashok Dongre is an independent consultant.