Customer Relationship Management Systems

Customer Relationship Management Systems

October 19th 2016

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can benefit an organization by increasing their sales, improving productivity, and promote customer retention. The top five CRM systems include Salesforce, Pegasystems, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SAP, and Oracle CRM. However, implementation errors that companies frequently make are lack vision, unsuitable vendor, lack of leadership, low user adoption rate, and lack of business strategy. Business strategy and management is the key to successful interpretation.  

Tirtawisata, Martin

martin.tirtawisata@sjsu.edu

Introduction

With the ever-growing competition for customer satisfaction and retention, Customer Relationship Management has become a critical role for a company’s success. Employees that interact with the sales process will have to eventually adapt to the new environment of CRM. It is estimated by 2017 that CRM will increase to a total value of $36.5B^[1] in the worldwide market share. It has a compound annual growth rate of 15.1%^[2] from 2012 to 2017 and developed as a company’s priority system. This year, during the phase of its revolution, CRM has become a demanded strategy. In the predictions for 2016 by CIO magazine, “CRM software will become even more social”^[3], “Mobile CRM will become a must-have”^[4], and “Integration will be the name of the game.”^[5] A Gartner strategic assumption also revealed that CRM would be the “core of which will be an intelligent system”^[6] as it passes 2018.

Significant impacts of CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems is an application that helps firms establish relationships with their clients. 85.7%^[7] uses it out of the top 10%^[8] companies, and 80.6%^[9] out of the 60%^[10] of middle size businesses. The customer has been the pinpoint focus for business as companies grew more competitively. The important reasons why organizations should adopt CRM are due to customer retention,^[11] increase sales,^[12] and improve productivity.^[13] 

A study by the 2014 Global Customer Service Barometer, conducted by American Express illustrated factors of customer retention. In the study, 74%^[14] of consumers were more comfortable to spend on companies that provide customer experience positively. The business, as a result, can retain their customers as companies recognize the importance of rewarding their profitable customers through CRM. Also, through the integration of CRM and social media, loyal customers are likely to create awareness about the company’s reputation. The statistic shows that the mean Facebook user has “155 friends”;^[15] Twitter has 208^[16] followers per user on average, and LinkedIn has an average of 930^[17] connections per profile. Through these social media, 53%^[18] of the customers share their positive experiences. A single customer can reach up to 1,293 people at once from these three social media, regardless of others. Customer retention is not the only benefits of a well-planned CRM however; it also increases the sales of a company.[pic 1][pic 2]

Mobile CRM has brought prospects for business by reaching sales target through a growing mobile usage. A survey conducted by Software Advice across various users of CRM from different fields shows that 81%^[19] of CRM users use multiple devices to access the software. Also, research done by Innoppl Technologies revealed firms that have mobile CRM enabled achieve 65%^[20] their sales quota while firms without mobile CRM suffered a 22%^[21] sales quota. Salespeople can access real-time data between customers from anywhere through the integration between mobile electronic devices. Moreover, CRM allows the sales team to provide better customer service. With the use of CRM, customer satisfaction reached up to 47%^[22] and also resulted in sales revenue increasing up to 45%.^[23] It provides companies with management tools that tracks down customers purchase history; increasing their upsell and reducing time wasted by shortening the sales cycle. In addition, a well-executed CRM implementation can increase the percentage on return of investment. A study done by Nucleus Research shows that the average returns from CRM rose from $5.60^[24] to $8.71^[25] for every dollar spent. With higher ROI, companies can generate greater revenues with a lower rate of expenditures. Customer Relationship Management does not only benefit sales, however, it also prospects a company’s productivity in managing their customer. [pic 3][pic 4]

An organization’s productivity is gained through the seamless effort of implementing the CRM. Low CRM rate of adoption will only lead counter-productivity instead, which is why “it’s critical that CRM tools be easy to learn and use.”^[26] A recent study by Forbes on two insurance companies, Garanti Pension and Life installed Microsoft Dynamics CRM on their system and used it to gain full aspect on their customers. It resulted on a “25% in sales efficiency.”^[27] With an easy adoption rate of CRM system, companies won’t have to waste years for their employees to understand the CRM system. Also, automation of social media feeds with CRM reduces time spent on researching trends. Through the integration of CRM application with social media, “the information comes to you instead of having to search for it.”^[28] Salesforce and SAP provides excellent integration between the application and social media feeds. The combination of social media and CRM improves a company’s productivity due to its high-automated level of news feed.

Top Five CRM Systems

There are numerous CRM systems available but the five systems that dominate the world market shares are Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, and Pegasystems. These five applications are highly suitable for a medium to a large service business that allows integration between Microsoft Word, Outlook, and across various platform devices. Each company differentiates its competence by delivering unique needs to their customers.  

Salesforce is currently the leading CRM system within the industry and shares their expertise of CRM with other businesses. ADP, a human resource management software company, gave credit to Salesforce for assisting 10,000^[29] staff in connecting with their customers. According to Dan Page, Vice President of Sales Automation, “Salesforce lets all of our employees get the insights they need.”^[30] With Salesforce prospecting CRM products, ADP enabled itself to manage 600,000^[31] customers and have their clients well managed. In addition, Salesforce has also benefitted ADT by increasing their sales leads for their customers. With thousands of customers within their breach, “Salesforce helps us close more leads and build more meaningful customer and employee connections.”^[32] Customers are a company’s lifeblood, and their relationship for ADT is important. ADT spreads over 200^[33] locations and successfully maintain its customer’s relationship through Salesforce integrated CRM system. Besides Salesforce, SAP also provides services customer relationship management systems. [pic 5][pic 6]