Analyzing Customer Relationship Management case - Essay Example

?Analyzing Relationship Management case Introduction s are an integral part of any organization, company or business. s haveindeed remained this useful for years and there is no indication that the usefulness of customers to companies, organizations and businesses will cease any time soon. It is for this reason perhaps that the saying came about that the most important person to the survival of a company is the customer. This could not be any well said because in the absence of customers, banks, hospitals, schools, restaurants, stadia and even churches only remain pieces of architectural works that are not in any way productive. Without customers also, no company talks of profit. They would only perhaps be talking of charity. Customer relationship management is therefore an important component of any business and profit making organization. This is because customers determine the in-flow and out-flow of money in any business. This makes customers a very important and integral part of every business. Gifford (2002) argues that customer relationship management “concerns the relationship between the organization and its customers.” In order to ensure an effective customer relationship management in place, companies and businesses adopt all kind of interventions. The commonest is the use of social media team to steer the affairs of customer relations in the organization. This write-up seeks to strategize a plan that will be used by the social media team of PrintMark Consult in such a way that the plan inculcates the elements customer relationship management solutions. Strategic Plan for Customer Relationship Management Customer relationship management is something that cannot be done haphazardly. Indeed, to achieve a workable customer relationship management, one needs to put in place a lot of factors that would come together to form what would be known as a strategic plan. Perhaps the presence of a strategic plan for customer relationship management is one major different between a customer relationship management that works and one that does not work. By a customer relationship management that works, reference is being made to a customer relationship management that goes a long way to ensure that customers are pleased and that they make decisions out of what they have seen to continue doing business with a particular company or organization. In today’s contemporary business world, a lot of business managers have only being concerned with putting to practice any customer management theory they hear without taking time to research into what each customer management theory should be made up of. For a management that is geared towards enhancing customer relationship management for instance, such as a management would recruit all necessary components that make a strategic plan for customer relationship management workable and result oriented. Such as a strategic plan would inculcate the principles of social media team, which has been identified as one of the world’s most modern means of succeeding in customer relationship management. In the plan therefore, there are four levels of social generations for the company. These four levels may well represent five years whereby one of the levels is implemented in each of the years. The four levels of social generations are discussed below. Level 1 – Generation of Social Relationship – Year 1 Though customers are the major money makers for every business, it is important that business owners and customer relationship managers see customers as an integral and socially bonding part of their companies. Most often than not, customers are seen as a reserved part of the business. For this reason, the customer is seen to be useful only when the company is sure to make some earnings from them. It has however been proven that this is an unworkable principle for maximizing the impact customers can make in a business financially. Though customers do not have defined portfolios in the running of business expect when they are shareholders, customer relationship managers must learn to generate social relationship with customers. The first advantage here is that social relationships make it easier for customers to get along with companies. With social relationships, customers do not see themselves far from the company. This way, customers are likely to develop a sense of belongingness for the company such that they feel obliged to remain loyal to the company as far as doing business is concerned. Secondly, social relationship programs open the company up not only to existing customers but then it also exposes the company to new customers. In the first year of the strategic plan, the company shall start a social relationship outreach by expanding its social scope to generate as many social relationships with customers and other potential customers of the company as possible. This will be done by creating more social network accounts and connecting with as many people as possible. The company shall also use the opportunity to advertise on almost all known social networks so that its popularity among social network users will multiple. Level 2 – Generation Social Functionality – Year 2 As the social relationships are built among customers and new customers, steps shall be taken to give social members more room to operate. Indeed, after almost a year of being part of the social network by observing and watching the social programs and agenda of the company, opening the company up to social members to be more functional would certainly be the next best action to take. With social functionality, the urge for customers to feel belonging to the company will even be more strengthened. Customers will feel closer because they would see their own social activities reflecting in the social web of the company. The larger part of the advantage perhaps lies with new users of the social web of the company, who might have followed the company’s social activities for the past one year. These people will serve as the bigger gainers of the company because those of them who must have not yet taken the decision of becoming regular customers of the company would be convinced to be regular customers in the sense that they will realize that the company is giving them more room to operate. One other factor is that these people will have a feeling that in other for them to be more acquainted with the functions of the company to participate better in its social functionality program, they have to become regular customers. Due to the points discussed, in the second year of the strategic plan, the company shall open its’ self up more to its social folks. The relationship shall be from just friendship to a stage where the social partners will become functional in the activities of the company. This shall be done by opening the company up to customers to bring up their dream strategies, suggestions for chances, and also allow them to take part in polls that focuses on the company’s service to them. Level 3 – Generation of Social Colonization – Year 3 Colonization as used in this context is nothing different from the everyday meaning of colonization in literature. The difference however has to do with the approach of colonization. Certainly, as much as the social relationship program is geared towards enhancing customer involvement in the company, it is also targeted at achieving the fiscal growth of the company. This means that there must be conscious efforts to ensure that the social belongingness is translated into profits. The generation of social colonization would be the first step towards translating the social belongingness into profit. This is because social colonization shall seek to ‘enslave’ beneficiaries of the two social web programs discussed above in such a way that will benefit the company. This colonization shall be done purposely by asking social members of company to go through certain procedure continue enjoying the social benefits they have started enjoying. The company shall put in measures to as it is, ‘colonize’ as many of its social folks as possible. After the company as succeeded in getting as many people as possible coming on board the affairs of the company, the company shall colonize these people by making them register to become members of the company through the same social media they used to link up with the company. Signing up to company will be the only way they will gain access to the one time social functionality they enjoyed most. By signing up also, members will enjoy added benefits like receiving newsletters and news from the company. One guaranteed assurance that this stage of the strategic plan would work depends on efforts that is put in the first two levels to ensure that those levels are as appealing to the customers as possible and that customers would want to do everything possible to continue enjoying them. Without this, this stage may fail. With the first two levels well taken care of, social members who are hoped to be old customers and new customers are likely to sign up and continue enjoying services of the company. Level 4 – Generation of Social Commerce Ultimately, this shall be the last stage of the entire strategic plan and the final stage in ensuring that the social benefits enjoyed by old and new customers are maximized into profits. This stage shall however not used to collect any direct monetary proceedings from customers. The ultimate plan shall be to use this stage to maximize publicity and advertisement to customers. It shall also be dedicated to promoting the company in the eyes of the customers. Earlier before this stage, it is hoped that the company might have collected sufficient suggestions and ideas from customer. With the three years before this final stage, the customer relationship management team shall forward the suggestions and ideas collected from the customers and social network members to the appropriate quarters for onward scrutiny and implementation. If well managed and implemented, it is expected that the suggestions and ideas of the social members should put the company at a better stand in the sight of its customers by this time. If this happens, this final stage shall be used to inform, advertise or publicize to customers that the company has become the dream company they wished for. Then certainly; because the changes were requested by the customers, it is expected that they will welcome them in good faith and continue doing business with the company – or even better their buying behavior. The social colonization will make it possible for the company to keep formal records of its members. By the end of this generation, the company will be in a better position to plan to cover the specific socio-economic needs of its members. Again, the company can enhance its e-commerce system better: starting with members on the social block. The company will therefore be taking commercial advantage of its members at this stage. Assessment of the Business Environment Coming up with any business or strategic plan without really analyzing the business environment to know if the strategy would work is like building castles in the air. As a corporate requirement, it is important that the assessment does not only look at the positives but potential negatives as well. To this effect, the positive assessment is being presented first. Firstly, the social relationship program discussed has a very huge potential of succeeding because the use of social networks is fast becoming popular among all computer and internet users. Names like Twitter, Facebook and My Space are now household names among computer and internet users because they use these media every now and then. To use these social networks therefore mean that the company has a greatly possibility of reaching out to as many potential social members as possible. The second advantage is that as the company’s social and fan pages are disciplined every now and then on social network pages, this will be a major advertisement boost for the company. Even people who many not respond in terms of becoming social members of the company may want to research or learn more about the company. Finally, the company has a competitive advantage in the sense that its products and services are popular among a number of regular customers and the general public. Convincing people to go through all four levels of the strategic plan therefore has a better chance of succeeding as compared to how difficult the company would have had it if its popularity was not known. On the negatives or potential threat, the first and most outstanding factor that can be pointed out has to do with the fact that the levels may seem too complex and complicated for social members and thus not all of them are likely to follow the levels to the last stage. Unfortunately, if the last two stages of the strategic plan are not patronized by social members, the core aim of the strategic plan will be defeated to a very large extent. All stakeholders must therefore bring their expertise to bear by ensuring that the stages are made more and more appealing and lucrative to customers as the years go by. Again, implementation of the suggestions and ideas of customers may pose a major financial threat to the company. This is because the suggestions that are likely to come from customers can hardly be predicted though customers will be expecting that at the end of the day, their wishes are implemented. Apart from the financial threat, implementation will have to take a lot of technical expertise on the part of employees and managers of the company to ensure that the end products meet the expectation of the customers. Under no circumstance should there be signs of shoddy or partial or better still, reluctant implementation of suggestions and changes. Measurement of success using balanced scorecard Having realized the above strengths and possible threats, the next step would be implementation of the strategic plan. The implementation would however have to go alongside programs to measure the success of the strategic plan. In corporate world, there are several mediums by which strategic plans may be measured. One medium that is fast becoming more and more popular and efficient is the use of balanced scorecard. In this instance, the company shall have a personalized balanced scorecard that fits precisely, what has been drafted as a strategic plan. Though there are several templates among which the company could choose from, a specially made balanced scorecard is prepared to meet the needs of the company. The balanced scorecard shall be scored by marking (v) when a stated factor or goal is attained and marking (X) when the goal is not attained. The time bound shall be one physical year for each major level or stage on the strategic plan. The company shall use a balanced scorecard to monitor success and as a strategic management system. The diagram below represents how this will be done. Conclusion The realization of the customer management plan lies more in voting a lot of time and commitment into fulfilling the factors that have been prescribed. Paperwork will never be enough to bring about change. All stakeholders are therefore advised to take up their roles to ensure that no part of the strategic plan is sabotaged. REFERENCE LIST Gifford E. ‘customer relationship management’, Business Ball http://www.businessballs.com/crmcustomerrelationshipmanagement.htm.. 2002. Web. August 13, 2011 Read More