MKT610 - Customer Relationship Management

If the customer management strategy is poorly designed and implemented, how does Information Technology affect CRM practices? Does technology make things better or worse? Discuss.

_________________________________

The emergence of multiple channels for interacting and transacting with customers has been a boon for CRM vendors, service providers and consultants. Consider banking. When I was a little ‘un, banks operated out of branch networks which they owned. Not only that but they closed at 3.00pm to balance the books. I remember those days well because my old man was a banker and was always home for dinner. What do we have now? Bank-owned branches, mobile service providers, internet banking, telephone banking, kiosks, remote ATM’s, franchises… and so on. Technology innovations including e-commerce and m-commerce have changed the face on retail banking.

It’s the same in many other sectors. Retailers transact through physical stores, concessions and e-stores, and service customers through call centres, and self-service technologies. Channels that were intermediated became disintermediated are now trending towards reintermediation.

Channel innovation for selling, service and marketing purposes has made the task of customer experience managers more complex. Customer often interact with one channel when they are acquired, a different channel when they buy, and yet another channel when they require service. This is not a world that my dad was familiar with. It is massively more complicated in the demands made upon managers.

My question is this. How much difference has technology made, and how much more can technology contribute to the delivery of excellent multi-channel customer experience? The tech firms tells us that customers want and value a consistent, seamless customer experience. Customers don’t want to call a customer service agent in an outsourced call centre to find that there is no record of a transaction. They don’t want to receive an offer in the mail, and go to a distributor who is not aware of the offer and therefore cannot fulfill. The holy grail, the tech firms tell us, is a well-implemented, technology-supported, customer management strategy that delivers a 360 degree view of the customer and a 360 degree view for the customer. Where is the evidence? Is this what customers want?

Has technology improved customer experience? If so, how? You can argue that self-service online allows customers to maintain have 24/7 accessibility to service, and to maintain control over their data. But is that all?

Perhaps technology is only one part of the solution. If your customer management strategy is poorly designed, if implementation is poor, does technology make things any better or worse?