Introduction
Organizations have developed methods to appeal to the consumers of their goods and services as a result of the increasing competition in the market. A corporation must find strategies to sustain a competitive advantage in order to survive in the market and remain relevant. Customer relationship management, or CRM, is one of the key components of ensuring that a business connects with and keeps in touch with its key customers. The two sides' connection has an unrivaled amount of power, and they both depend on one another. While customers gain from high-quality products, businesses can expand indefinitely thanks to consumer-driven innovations can benefit from quality products and services. Through CRM, needs and expectations of consumers are attained. Companies must turn away from centralising their operations in their products and consider putting the consumer at the integral part of their services to reach effective CRM. As such, the essay will focus on the strategic challenges associated with CRM initiatives; the essay will analyse customer needs and expectations that prompt organisations to develop CRM. Finally, the paper will provide an analysis of ethical issues that need to be focused on the management of consumer data used in CRM.
Operational, Analytical and Strategic CRM: Do They Exist
Operational, Analytical and Strategic CRM
Customer relationship management continues to gain significance in the corporate world today. In fact, CRM cannot be surpassed or lest the company crumbles down. Operational customer relationship aims at analysing the interactions of a group with its clients with the aim of making sure that those customers help the organizations help the company to run various operations in the company smoothly (Becker et al., 2009). Analytical customer management refers to the mining of customer information to help the administration in making decisions that concern the improvement of customer interactions and their value. Information obtained from customers should be treated with care and should be handled professionally and confidentially so that customers can be confident about the organization with their data. Strategic customer relationship management, on the other hand, is customer-centric and focuses on winning and keeping profitable customers. It involves the development and implementation of plans to ensure value is added to the relationship with customers (Almotairi, 2009).
The three concepts must be handled altogether to ensure customers are integrated fully into the organization. The main aim of customer relationship management, whether strategic, analytical or operational is to provide the needs and expectations of customers are attended to coherently to ensure proper relationship (Gupta et al., 2016). The life cycle of a customer in the organization must be enhanced in all ways possible since the more the connection is active, the more the customers are in a position to place the organisation in the positive limelight. The fact that many corporations utilize the dynamism in the three concepts is not news (Almotairi, 2009).
CRM Initiatives
CRM initiatives fall among the first aspect a business should think about in equipping its operations with a customer relationship management. The efforts refer to the mechanisms that have been put forth to ensure that management of customer relationships is handled coherently. An organizational must gain enough and substantial internal support to ensure that customer relationship management projects are started and driven towards completion (Teng et al., 2007). Notably, CRM is not only about maintaining customer relationships or even generating new leads. Neither is it just about fixing the challenges that customers encounter. It is about creating sustainable initiatives that make the customer happy all the time building brand loyalty. CRM initiatives should be developed as the change in consumer behaviour and trends arise. Moreover, initiatives can depend on technology to come up with newer customer-centred strategies that can keep customers longer in the customer lifecycle. Some of the initiatives used in CRM include aligning sales and marketing goals with the needs of customers, conducting of online surveys, considering live chats with customers and creating a method of rewarding loyal clients (Peltonen, 2015).
Challenges Associated with CRM Initiatives
CRM initiatives are not abrupt mechanisms to manage the customer relationship with the organization. CRM initiatives should be viewed as a systematic process to develop solutions that can control the feelings expectations and behaviours of consumers. Hence, customers should not think of trying to manage their customers from an online perspective, even before they have had personal interactions with the customers as it could be interpreted that the organization is hiding some crucial information from the customers (Almotairi, 2009). CRM initiatives must also be conducted when the company has ample information about their existing customers. Without prior knowledge or data about them could confuse as the organization tries to respond to their complaints and comments. Therefore, businesses should ensure they have a warehouse to store customer data since it is helpful in tracking the customer lifetime value in the operations of the organization. Since initiatives are an on-going process within the company, it is appropriate if an organization ensures it evaluates or assesses the performance of their CRM initiative systems (Pedron et al., 2016).
Consumer Needs and Expectations
In the current age, consumers of products and services are more educated and more connected with others through the digital platforms. Gone are the eras when consumers were given a poor reception. For a business to thrive in modern day businesses it must pay more attention to the customer rather than the product they are providing. Organisations should allow the consumers to be the people who can talk about the product and not the organization since the user are the customers themselves (Tahir, 2013).
So many strategic issues affect CRM initiatives. Notably, CRM strategies are only in effect if they deliver positive outcomes. When positive results are not realized the whole process leads to a loss of resources. Channel use is a massive challenge in the execution of CRM initiatives. Often the channel that the organization that the organisation may wish to use to communicate with critical customers may not be the preferred mode of communication to the customer, hence the initiative of CRM may not get complete eventually leading to misplaced outcomes. On the other hand, if the organisation uses multiple channels to reach its customers there is a likelihood that the customers will find the many information nagging and therefore will eventually fail to maintain the relationship with the corporation and thus creating hiccups in the CRM initiative (Cambra-Fierro et al., 2017).
Another challenge associated with CRM initiatives is the timing of those strategies. Most of the time the plan may fail to deliver the desired results due to conducting the effort at an ineffective period. Although the strategies of CRM should be done stepwise, a challenge comes in with the entry of new consumers in the business enterprise when a CRM strategy is being implemented. The approach may be disadvantageous to the organization since they will have to customize each plan according to a single consumer. As such, the process may incur enormous costs that organisations may shy from the bearing (Frow et al., 2016).
Besides, the gathering of information from the consumers can be tricky since most consumers may be inquisitive of their data due to the fear that their info may be exposed to the wrong people. Moreover, customers may be unhappy with the organization that obtains information from them without their conscious (Shah, 2015). Notably, as much as customers may want to be part of a team, they will always try to protect their personal information. Also, creating a customer database is not an easy task, as it requires computer hardware, data software, analytical programs and highly qualified personnel. That being the case, it can cost the company a lot of revenue in an investment they are uncertain (Tahir, 2013).
Another strategic issue concerns the management putting high regard to its products rather than its customers. A corporation may put a lot of stress on the product itself thinking of how they can improve it for the customer and only end up losing their customers. CRM strategies always require an enterprise to put consumers at the centre of their organization so that they can be the ones to provide information concerning the areas in which the product needs improvements (Abbas & Hafeez, 2017).
Ethical Issues in CRM
The purpose of any strategic consumer relationship management is to ensure a collaborative approach to analysing the needs of the customers and going ahead to implement the necessary changes in the bid to meet their expectations. Managing customer needs and expectations is vital to retain the employees in the customer lifecycle process (Khodakarami & Chan, 2014). Consumers have different needs and expectations that they usually expect the organization to fulfil. One of the customer expectations from the team is that a company will always put the necessary information about a product wherever they want to find the information. Though consumers love variety in the market, their brand loyalty is achieved when they can obtain information about a product they like from the organisation before their purchase. In that case, institutions should ensure they have a customer service representative in their website to enter into a live chat with customers who go to the company`s website to seek for information before carrying out a purchase (Shaon & Rahman, 2015).
There are often two levels of customer expectations that consumers always need them fulfilled. Consumers have desired and sufficient expectations. The desired expectations are the anticipations that the customers expect from their interaction with a particular company while adequate expectations are those outlooks that an organization find acceptable to be conducted by the organisation. Some consumers like to feel personal contact, and therefore they need a follow up on their experiences regarding a product or service (Steel et al., 2013). In fact, most consumers find advertising, sales promotion and marketing messages a nuisance and they instead prefer that the company makes a follow up of their experiences about a product rather than perform advertisements that offer neutrality to all consumers. The key to ensuring constant contact is ensuring that the organization meets with consumers personally and takes them through the production of the commodities or services they use so that they can boost their confidence (Gupta et al., 2016).
The expectation of customers is also to be listened to by the organization in which they are connected to through the products and services they purchase. Whenever customers have an issue with the product they have purchased from a company, they expect to be given a response within the shortest time possible. When such a situation arises, it is the role of the organization to use strategic customer relationship management through listening carefully and acting quickly. A level of confidence is created when customers feel that their need has been satisfied within the short period (Teng et al., 2007).
At all costs, customer relationship management is not without ethical principles. Ethics comes in when the organization ensures it withholds any information they have garnered from consumers. An establishment must prove to be confidential with the information they receive from clients. Customer data collected for CRM must be managed through secure, verifiable methods. While storing data retrieved from customers, there must be an agreement between the two parties so that the customer is aware of the process (Reimer & Becker, 2015). Furthermore, customers should be given a chance to make alterations concerning their personal information whenever they find it necessary. A company should uphold the privacy of consumer data. Such data must be stored in a place that is inaccessible to everyone in the organization (Teng et al., 2007).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the use of operational, analytical, and strategic CRM is used by most organizations collaboratively and comprehensively to ensure the success of the team in maintaining competitive advantage. While operational CRM keeps customers in the loop of services and operations that occur in the organization, analytical CRM helps in garnering data from consumers that is crucial in managing consumer relationships. Strategic CRM proves significant in ensuring information obtained from consumers is used stepwise in satisfying their needs and expectations. An organization at the age of information technology must utilize customer relationship management as consumers have become more knowledgeable and therefore they require more attention from the organization they relate. As if not enough, organizations should seek to utilize the available digital platforms that can help them in gathering customer data, storing it, and retrieving it whenever they are conducting CRM.
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