Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Research Paper

Introduction

In former decades, the procedural evolution has considerably impacted upon the banking sector. Branch based operation was a common practice for banker for over 200 years. However after 1980 things have started to change at a rapid pace as the technology advances and with the arrival of new and upgraded applications and technologies whole system of banking have revolutionized. Technology has affected many business sectors and in different way for each, banking is one of them. This revolt in technology, the remote based access transfer channels and payment methods have taken the place of conventional methods. . ATM substituted cashier tellers, cellular phone characterized by the call centers substituted the bank branch, net substituted the mail, electronic cash and credit cards substituted old-style cash transactions, above all collaborative television in future will substitute face-to-face dealings and transactions.
In current years, Majority of banks have shifted in the direction of marketing positioning and the embracing of association banking doctrines. The main instigator for accepting marketing philosophies was competitive stress that ascended from the relaxation of the monetary services market. This fundamentally bare defrayal banks as well as the selling banking to augmented rivalry and headed towards muddling of limitations in several traditional product marketplaces. The bank should need a comprehensive assessment of its clients through quite a few methods that comprise of their information. If bank would be able to track client conduct, managers can have improved insight, a predicative forthcoming conduct and client prejudgments. The information and applications can support the bank to handle its customer rapport and continue this relation to propagate and advance. Most segments of the financial services business are endeavoring to practice CRM methods to accomplish a range of results .

Importance of CRM in banking sector

CRM is a thorough business approach to classify the bank’s greatest profitable clients and potential clients, and offer time and consideration to increase account dealings with banking sector. India has experienced a swift modifications followed by sequence of essential improvements. Customized marketing, reinterpreting, flexible assessment making, and tailored service provided through the innumerable sales networks that the bank uses. For understanding, a crusade managing in a bank is accompanied with data excavating jobs such as reliance analysis, group profile investigation, perception explanation, aberration finding, and data picturing. Critical corporate choices with this crusade are made by digging out effectively the formerly unidentified and eventually logical and actionable information from huge records. The model established solutions what are the different client sections, who is more expected to retort to a provided offer, which are the clients bank expected to drop or lose , who is most possibly expected to fail to pay on credit cards , what are the risks connected with mortgage aspirants. Lastly, a group profile examination is also used for enlightening the discrete features of each group, and for the purpose of modeling product predisposition, which must be executed so as to upturn the sales.
The concept of CRM is aimed at facilitating the businesses to make a valuable usage of Human capital and technology in building up long term and trust based relation with customers and to understand the pattern of behavior shown by each customer. It is very crucial for businesses to improve their process and delivery time. It enables the businesses to deliver improved client service, make customer support call centers extra proficient, cross trade products more successfully, assist sales staff to finalize the deals in faster manner, streamline marketing and sales practices, ascertain new clients, and escalate customer profits. It doesn't occur by merely purchasing software and fixing it. In order to ensure CRM to be actually operative an organization essentially need to select what type of client data management is seeking and it also must choose what management aims to do using the information from the data. For instance, several financial organizations save track of clients' life phases to be able to market suitable banking products that may be the loans or IRAs to customers at the perfect time in order to fulfill their requirements. Subsequently, organization also needs to aspect into all of the diverse ways to obtain data about clients who do profitable business with the organization.
For instance a company may tend to communicate with its customers in a number of ways. These ways entail mail, call centers, advertisement campaign, mobile sales, electronic and print marketing efforts. Compact CRM methods bond each of these ideas. This collected information runs among operational structures and methodical systems that may support to categorize these archives for patterns. The Company’s experts will then be able to examine the data to acquire a general view of individual client and identify zones where improved services are desired. In CRM system the listed below information is very crucial to ensure smooth running of process engine : -

Feedback to campaign

Delivery and success dates
Purchase and sale dates
Account data
Web recording data
Service and maintenance records
Demographic information
Web transactions data
CRM and Sales in Banking Sector
The main factor to acquire success in CRM is to impart training to relevant staff and enable them to cultivate a cooperative and value based culture for clients. The extensive information about the clients is useless if the frontline sales people are not skilled with required expertise to deal with clients.
The information about clients is very imperative in training staff, they should be trained accordingly to be able to meet the needs and wants of customers without being mentioned by them. For instance if a teller starts to feel that he/she is not just carrying out transaction but serving the needs of the clients, the job will become much easier and customers will also be satisfied with the services. A satisfied and a happy client is always a prospective client and will bring many new clients to the company as well.
If the staff is skilled enough to be able to recognize the philosophy practiced by the bank towards customers, the staff members will then strive to create new opportunities and prospects. For instance, a client continuously credits additional payments to compensate for the written checks, an intelligent and astute representative tend to observe such pattern therefore he will propose the idea of consumer loan option. This example can be elaborated at an advance level. The banking experts might use a model system to reveal all those customers with similar behavior pattern. This is how technology helps to capitalize on the opportunity to generate new sales.
Nowadays new and advance tools are available to make best use of CRM to convert theory based opportunities into actual sales revenues. As a matter of fact, one bank cannot capitalize on all of the available opportunities therefore smart choice should be made keeping in view the expected success.
The information which helps in understanding the behavior of customers especially the transaction pattern, similar data can also be very useful in designing strategies to acquire profitability and increased revenues in terms of product, branch and customers. The incorporated CRM have wide range of capability to enhance the overall customers satisfaction and build long lasting, trust based relationship with customers.
The leading element in CRM integration is to incorporate its concept in the minds of employees and to attain attention of each employee to the ultimate goals and objectives of the company. It is very essential to make CRM part of company’s goals and also to set supplementary rewards and bonuses for the employees performing well with CRM concept.
The message of unconditional commitment to CRM should be carried to each employee from managers to frontline staff to customers and in marketplace for branding the financial services provided by the bank. However CRM is always evolving and improving therefore the only attractive obstacle is to upgrade and install the system accordingly. To achieve maximum profitability from CRM it is very crucial to integrate bank’s online and electronic system and also the profitability system with CRM. The banks who lack advance level of integration until now can still take a fresh start to accumulate the ingredients for CRM incorporation. A workable counselling and ingenuity can play an important role in starting the glorious journey to have successful tomorrow .

Future Trends

Future Trends
The advancement in the field of technology has modified the marketing strategies of companies in marketing its offerings to target customers. The most leading technologies are internet and cellphone applications. CRM needs to be used more than just a technology but considered as a preferred tool to streamline the workflow. One of the subcategory of CRM is E-CRM, it facilitates the company to have close and instant contact with customers by utilizing all possible channels of communication. The most viable means of communication used by any company are internet for customers, suppliers and external stakeholders, whereas intranet is installed for ensuring smooth flow of information within company. E-CRM is basically a web based technique to contact customers.
Internet has made frequent contact between customers and company possible, hence the information about the customer is very much reliable and can be used as a tool to improve and develop relations with customers. Internet delivers a rapid flow of information, suggestions and complain and hence a consistent mode of communication between the company support team and the customer. Companies become more interactive and affect the buying decision of the customers. Internet is increasingly used as a strong medium for promotional and advertisement purpose for existing as well as upcoming products .
The perfect and balanced combination of management commitment, application, software and hardware make up E-CRM. There are two types i.e. analytical and operational. Analytical type is related to collection of relevant data about the customers and it involves specialized technology and software to process this data. It mainly involves keeping record of demographic database of customers buying behaviors and to use this data to create new business prospects. The operational type is commonly known as “touch point”, it provides platform to get in touch with customers easily and quickly. The traditional means of communications are mails, fax, telephone call or face to face interaction with customers. The data containing detailed information about the customers satisfaction and loyalty helps in determining the input cost involved in attracting, wining and holding long term relation with customers. The basic motive of E-CRM is to upgrade the service provided to customers and to hold valuable customers. In addition to all obvious advantages, an important characteristic of E-CRM is that it continuously encourages and motivates customers to continue doing business with the same company and to remain loyal in long term .

Sales in Banking through CRM and e-CRM

In past few years, it has been observed throughout the banking sector that new applications as well as tools in the IT has brought major positive changes. The overall working has greatly improved and a number of manual tasks have been automated. The banks are creative competitive edge through offering fast and efficient services to their customers through utilizing such applications and tools that include customer relationship management. The IT side of CRM is known as e-CRM. The e-CRM has brought closer the banks to their customers on individual basis. This means that the bank can individually track each and every customer and offer its services accordingly in order to keep the customers satisfied according to their needs. Banks which have already shifted to e-CRM have been successful in implementing and maintaining good customer relations and have increased their business. The bank that uses e-CRM is the one that does the actual frontline business with its clients. E-CRM system is practically the effective tool that presents an on-time customer based services as well as appropriate bed for the nourishment of a good customer based service. It also offers a smooth road towards winning a decisive victory in the competitive battle. Discussions on the electronic CRM can be concluded from a fundamental change in commercial paradigms and beliefs. If e-CRM has been applied successfully, it could cause conscious management through automated means which in turn would lead to an increase in organization's revenues through efficiently taking information while strengthening organizational knowledge to enable resource allocation as well as finding effective solutions through customization. Such situation is evidenced by the banking sector mainly since customer is dynamic effect for the banks as well as society expects from the banking system, to try indirectly attracting deposits as well as allocating them appropriately into the applicable and useful economic activities in order to bring a return for credit associations and banks. However, they also move towards all aspects of the social and economic progressions in order to step efficiently to meet the mass customization and customer needs while adopting itself with the needs of the society. Customers are considered as the core of a bank and it is therefore a fact that all efforts are put with the sole purpose to attract attention of customers and meet their needs. Consequently, in competitive market among the banks, those banks which are most successful in terms of business are the ones that increase their customer loyalty with the bank. Conversely, regarded to enhance sensitivity of customers in banking sector to delivery of bank’s services, customers also want better as well as more desired services always. Since constant communication as well as information technology progression, the banking sector has been faced by the new concept of the Electronic Customer Relationship Management or simply e-CRM .

References

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