UNIT – 4

 E-CRM: Meaning, Evolution and Benefits

 Meaning of E-CRM:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a way to identify, acquire, and retain customers –
a business’ greatest asset. By providing the means to manage and coordinate customer
interactions, CRM helps companies maximise the value of every customer interaction and in turn
improve corporate performance.

E-CRM, or Electronic Customer Relationship Management, is an integrated online sales,

marketing and service strategy that is used to identify, attract and retain an organisation’s
customers. It describes improved and increased communication between an organisation and its
clients by creating and enhancing customer interaction through innovative technology. E-CRM
software provides profiles and histories of each interaction the organisation has with its
customers, making it an important tool for all small and medium businesses.

 FEATURES:

E-CRM software systems may contain a selection of the following features:

i. Customer management:

Provides access to all customer information including enquiry status and Correspondence

ii. Knowledge management:

A centralised knowledge base that handles and shares customer Information

iii. Account management:

Access to customer information and history, allowing sales teams and customer service teams to
function efficiently

iii. Case management:

Captures enquiries, escalates priority cases and notifies management of unresolved issues

iv. Back-end integration:

Blends with other systems such as billing, inventory and logistics through relevant customer
contact points such as websites and call centres

v. Reporting and analysis:

Report generation on customer behaviour and business criteria

 Benefits of E-CRM:

Implementation of an E-CRM system enables an organization to streamline processes and

provide sales, marketing and service personnel with better, more complete customer information.
The result is that E-CRM allows organizations to build more profitable customer relationships
and decrease operating costs.

Direct benefits of an E-CRM system include:

i. Service level improvements:

Using an integrated database to deliver consistent and improved customer responses

ii. Revenue growth:

Decreasing costs by focusing on retaining customers and using interactive service tools to sell
additional products

iii. Productivity:

Consistent sales and service procedures to create efficient work processes

iv. Customer satisfaction:

Automatic customer tracking and detection will ensure enquiries are met and issues are managed.
This will improve the customer’s overall experience in dealing with the organisation.

v. Automation:

E-CRM software helps automate campaigns including:

(i) Telemarketing

(ii) Telesales

(iii) Direct mail

(iv) Lead tracking and response

(v) Opportunity management

(vi) Quotes and order configuration

  Working of E-CRM: (A changing Perspective)

In today’s world, customers interact with an organization via multiple communication channels
—the World Wide Web, call centres, field salespeople, dealers and partner networks. Many
organizations also have multiple lines of business that interact with the same customers.

 E-CRM systems enable customers to do business with the organization the way the customer
wants – any time, via any channel, in any language or currency—and to make customers feel that
they are dealing with a single, unified organization that recognizes them every step of the way.

The E-CRM system does this by creating a central repository for customer records and providing
a portal on each employee’s computer system allowing access to customer information by any
member of the organization at any time. Through this system, E-CRM gives you the ability to
know more about customers, products and performance results using real time information
across your business.

Implementation of an E-CRM System:

When approaching the development and implementation of E-CRM there are important
considerations to keep in mind:

i. Define customer relationships:

Generate a list of key aspects of your customer relationships and the importance of these
relationships to your business.

ii. Develop a plan:

Create a broad Relationship Management program that can be customized to smaller customer
segments. A suitable software solution will help deliver this goal.

iii. Focus on customers:

The focus should be on the customer, not the technology. Any technology should have specific
benefits in making customers’ lives easier by improving support, lowering their administrative
costs, or giving them reasons to shift more business to your company.

iv. Save money:

Focus on aspects of your business that can contribute to the bottom line. Whether it is through
cutting costs or increasing revenue, every capability you implement should have a direct
measurable impact on the bottom line.

v. Service and support:

By tracking and measuring the dimensions of the relationship, organisations can identify their
strengths and weaknesses in the relationship management program and continually fine tune it
based on ongoing feedback from customers.

 Technologies of E CRM

Technology: VoIP: Cuts costs and erases location barriers while improving customer service.
Reducing costs and converging channels like voice, email, and Web chat may also help to extend
VoIP's growth curve. "Voice over IP allows the contact center manager to manage all of these
interaction types over one network

Technology: Web Services and Services Oriented Architecture: Provides an increased span
of flexibility. The industry is already beginning to see how Web services can positively affect the
way applications work together, according to Denis Pombriant, managing principal at Beagle
Research Group. "Many major vendors...have programs in place to help them extend their own
application functionality by incorporating other third-party applications through Web services
into their suites," he says. "We're going to see that approach becoming increasingly important.

Technology: Speech Applications: Self-service applications, with the aid of VoiceXML, can
help organizations--especially contact centers--strike that happy medium between slicing costs
and satisfying customers. 

Technology: Social Networking: Helps employees uncover possible relationships that may
increase chances of completing sales transactions. Sealing a sales deal is often about who
you know, and that is why social networking earns a slot important. Social networking
tools help salespeople to figure out who knows whom at a customer or prospect's
organization.

Technology: Wireless Connectivity and Applications: Allows mobile professionals to stay

better connected, improve productivity, and even close deals.

Technology: Presence Technologies (RFID, POS):  It can locate customers and personally
tailor messages that may help to extend the business relationship.

 VOICE PORTAL

A voice portal (sometimes called a vortal) is a Web portal that can be accessed entirely by voice.
Ideally, any type of information, service, or transaction found on the Internet could be accessed
through a voice portal.

A mobile user with a cellular telephone might dial in to a voice portal Web site and request
information using voice or Touchtone keys and receive the requested information from a special
voice-producing program at the Web site.
Voice portal interaction may involve audible speech, speech recognition or a telephone keypad
interface. Depending on the user's needs, voice portals automate call routing to access
information from a variety of sources (flat file, multidimensional databases and web page
content, for example) or to live agents.

Avaya, Cisco and Genesys are among the leading providers of customer premise-based
enterprise voice portals.

 WEB PHONES - What is a Mobile CRM? Web phone in CRM

Mobile CRM, or Mobile Customer Relationship Management, is a CRM tool designed for
mobile devices including smartphones and tablets. By connecting through mobile CRM, you
allow your sales team’s access to customer data through a mobile CRM app or through a web-
based browser with cloud CRM. A key benefit of using mobile CRM is to allow your sales force
to access real time data while out in the fields meeting prospects and customers.

Mobile CRM (Customer Relationship Management) delivers a full CRM experience on

smartphones, tablets, and other internet-enabled devices. It enables sales, marketing and
customer service teams to access and manage key information in real time, wherever they are.

What then is the business case for mobile CRM?

Sales teams benefit from efficiency savings, reduced admin overheads and anytime, any-device
availability of shared data from the cloud.

Marketing teams can talk to customers in completely new ways, creating personalised
experiences and tracking social media activity with familiar, easy-to-use tools.

Customer service teams can pick up cases more quickly, track them across channels and resolve
them using the knowledge of the whole organisation.

IT teams gains a whole development platform for mobile apps, with built-in integration to a
back-end CRM system

Implement your mobile CRM

1. Internal buy-in

Before you implement a mobile CRM app, it is important that you get internal buy-in from the
sales force. Your sales teams are the ones that will be using the smart phone application daily
and in order to get their buy-in, you need to implement extensive in-house training on how to use
the application in the form of user guides and training programs as well as explaining the key
benefits of what they can achieve by working with the mobile CRM.

2. Provide the device

People love getting things for free and one of the easiest ways to get your sales team to adopt a
smart phone CRM is to provide the device itself to your sales force and include the application
pre-installed. Although most CRM mobile apps are supported by iOS, Android and Blackberry,
make sure that you check with the provider before giving it to your sales force.

3. Mobile app usability

Your sales force will rarely need access to complete functionality on their CRM mobile app to all
the same data and reporting they would access via their desktop. Start out by providing only
basic access that the teams use on a day to day basis. For example, writing and sending an email,
scheduling a meeting and/ or updating contact information.

Features

Manage your synchronised and shared calendar

Update leads, opportunities and contacts from the database.

Access dashboards and generate reports

All the data is updated in real time and can be accessed by all the departments in the company.
Sales representatives can focus on selling and on nurturing the customer relationship with all
available resources and in a more cohesive way with the Marketing teams.

 BOTS - What is a Bot

A bot is a software application that is programmed to do certain tasks. Bots are automated, which
means they run according to their instructions without a human user needing to start them up.
Bots often imitate or replace a human user's behavior. Typically they do repetitive tasks, and
they can do them much faster than human users could.

Bots usually operate over a network; more than half of Internet traffic is bots scanning content,
interacting with webpages, chatting with users, or looking for attack targets. Some bots are
useful, such as search engine bots that index content for search or customer service bots that help
users. Other bots are "bad" and are programmed to break into user accounts, scan the web for
contact information for sending spam, or perform other malicious activities. If it's connected to
the Internet, a bot will have an associated IP address.

Bots can be:

Chatbots: Bots that simulate human conversation by responding to certain phrases with
programmed responses

Web crawlers (Googlebots): Bots that scan content on webpages all over the Internet

Social bots: Bots that operate on social media platforms

Malicious bots: Bots that scrape content, spread spam content, or carry out credential stuffing
attacks

Importance of Bot in CRM

It’s difficult not to see artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots transforming these platforms and
enabling sales and marketing teams to better respond to their customers. 

Enable Bot-to-Bot Scheduling Across Your Teams

Promote Self-service CRM

Automate Customer Support Services

Improve Lead Scoring

Stave off Data Loss by Field Sales

Improve CRM Workflow

Shopify, an e-commerce platform provider, recently acquired Kit CRM, whose Kit Chatbot
sends out marketing text messages for online stores and could create a future in which bots drive
customer engagement through a CRM interface. If the bot market follows the compelling pricing
of Kit CRM, this technology will be available to a range of customers.

 VIRTUAL CUSTOMER REPRESENTATIVE

Virtual customer service comes with a wide array of capabilities using a combination of pre-
recorded messages, as well as artificial intelligence and speech recognition software to
accurately determine your customer’s needs. Gone are the days of customers becoming stuck
in endless phone tree loops; these days, customer conversations with virtual customer service
systems are almost as natural as a conversation with a live operator.

Today’s programs are capable of understanding a wide range of languages, accents, and
colloquialisms and have a sophisticated decision-making AI framework to deliver the best
possible customer service experience. Here are just a few capabilities that employ the use
of interactive voice response (IVR) technology:

Hours, directions, store locations, and holiday closure information:  Even if you have
employees able to answer and direct calls, you can help reduce their workload by offering
your customers an initial array of automated IVR options to answer their most basic
questions. These features are available 24/7, whether your business is open or closed.

Perform surveys: If you need to complete a customer satisfaction survey after a purchase or

service, or you want to poll your customers about future offerings, IVR software can provide
the framework for your survey as well as written transcripts with your customer’s responses.
Provide multilingual customer service: Virtual customer assistance programs are able to
rapidly respond to the ever-increasing reality of language diversity, so that your company can
provide the best possible service to all of your customers.

Calendar management: Virtual customer service systems can work with your customers to set
up appointments during their customer service call and even generate text or email messages
to your employees as well as confirmations to your customers.

Virtual agreements: Virtual customer assistance can even save your employees time by
obtaining formal verbal consent for agreements or contracts after moving through specific
data points.

With all these features and more, a virtual customer service program can significantly enhance
your company’s responsiveness to customers and increase the efficiency of communications,
all while saving your employees time and money. As this technology continues to grow and
evolve, the options available to business owners will keep expanding at a phenomenal pace.

Utilizing virtual customer service technology can help you expand the capabilities of your
customer service employees without increasing their hours or hiring additional staff. This
technology can help answer your customer’s questions while your business is closed or the
phone lines are busy, and it can alleviate workflow by taking care of many repetitive tasks.

virtual agent

A virtual agent (sometimes called an intelligent virtual agent (IVA), virtual rep or chatbot) is a
software program that uses scripted rules and, increasingly, artificial intelligence applications to
provide automated service or guidance to humans.

Virtual agents are most commonly used by organizations in their customer service functions to
answer routine customer queries, fulfill standard requests and/or handle simple problems. For
example, virtual agents are often used for initial customer interactions with call centers or click-
to-chat features on websites.

Virtual agents are also used in some organizations to handle employee-driven needs. For
example, virtual agents are commonly deployed within the IT function to provide help desk-type
services, such as employee requests for resetting computer passwords. They can also be used in
organizations to guide employees through work tasks or processes.

Virtual agent vs. virtual assistant

Virtual agent and virtual assistant are more closely aligned terms and, thus, more likely to be
used interchangeably. However, many associate the term virtual assistant with Apple's Siri,
Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant -- all platforms that draw on the internet and other
technologies to perform internet searches and digital tasks, such as updating calendars or
checking weather forecasts in response to a user's request. The term virtual agent, on the other
hand, is more commonly associated with organizational use, where agents are put to work
assisting customers or employees.

Virtual agent benefits

Virtual agents can deliver a number of benefits to the organizations that use this technology,
including the ability to:

expand to round-the-cloud automated service for customers, as well as employees, without

having to hire full-time workers.

respond more quickly and more consistently to customer inquiries or employee requests by
scaling the virtual agents to meet anticipated needs.

better ensure compliance with standards as virtual agents follow only programmed set of actions.

Such benefits, while each individually important, together also help organizations deliver not
only better user or customer experience but also deliver that improved experience at a lower cost
and with more consistency than by adding more human agents.

Moreover, virtual agents, by handling the routine and mundane requests, can allow human agents
to focus on the more complex tasks that require more skills and critical thinking. This, too, helps
organizations improve customer experience by helping ensure human agents are available to take
on those tasks more readily rather than if their time was focused on handling the rote requests.

 CRM PORTAL - What is CRM portal?

CRM portal is the abbreviated form of Customer Relationship Management Portal. CRM portal
is a technology platform to help organizations manage their customer relationship management
practices and programs.

A CRM portal is an extension to a CRM system. A CRM portal is a way to open up the CRM
system to people who are not CRM system users. This allows them to work with and get
information from the company in an efficient way, regardless of the time of the day.

CRM portals usually ask the user to log in. When this is done, they are connected to the CRM
system, and have access to those items that the portal is set to allow.

In CRM, it is important to record information about each ‘touch’ that your company has with its
prospects and customers. The CRM portal makes this possible for each portal interaction. You
are able to track who enters the portal, as well as the information and actions they initiate. This
helps enrich the data collected about each person.
A CRM portal usually has two basic functions. One is the ability to create and update records
(which usually, but not necessarily, are records in the CRM system). The other function is to
provide access points for a variety of information that is relevant to the person logging in. This
access is controlled based on who the user is, what their relationship with your company is, and
the settings of the CRM Portal.

Using the Portal

The CRM portal will ask the user to log in, and based on CRM system data, provide the access
that is authorized and relevant to that user.

Customer Portal, a Partner Portal, and an Employee Portal.

A Customer Portal may allow “Self-Support.” A customer with a problem can search the
company’s knowledge base to see if they can find a solution. If an answer is not found, they
would be allowed to create a new Customer Support Ticket. They also might be allowed to enter
new information about an existing ticket and see status and resolution of Support Tickets that
were previously entered.

In addition to items such as Customer Support Tickets, data from other sources, like accounting
or order entry, can be made available. Usually access to other materials are provided, such as
Frequently asked questions or FAQs, literature, downloads, and company news.

The idea is to provide a means for those constituencies outside the CRM system to interact with
your company and to get the materials that they need, without involving a customer support
agent or a sales person.

 CUSTOMER CHURN

Customer churn refers to the percentage of customers that ended the use of your company's
product or service during a set period of time. It's typically calculated by dividing the number of
customers you lost in a quarter by the number of customers you started that quarter with.

Customer churn is calculated by the number of customers who leave your company during a
given time period. In a more down-to-earth sense, churn rate shows how your business is doing
with keeping customers by your side.

 Causes of Customer Churn

Reasons for customer churn can be personal and unique to each customer, but they usually fall
under a few common categories:

1. Price
Price is a common objection for salespeople and customer success managers alike. If customers
find a more cost-effective solution to the problem they want to solve, they may churn. This is
why it's important to establish value and customer onboarding and education so customers feel
that the purchase is worth the cost.

2. Product/Market Fit

Poor product/market fit is a common reason for customer churn, and speaks to the need for close
sales and customer service alignment. If salespeople are hustling to hit quota and aren't
incentivized to sell to good-fit customers, the result will be churn within a few months of
purchase when the customer realized they can't achieve their goals using your solution.

3. User Experience

If the user experience with software or applications is buggy, glitchy, or otherwise difficult for
them, they'll be less likely to use it on a regular basis and build expertise with it, making it more
likely that they'll stick around.

4. Customer Experience

Finally, if a customer's experience connecting with other aspects of your brand -- your marketing
content, social media channels, customer support team, and account managers -- isn't positive,
they may be likely to churn. Customers want to feel welcomed and valued by communities they
support, and if they don't have positive experiences interacting with your company, they won't
want to stick around.

 WAYS TO REDUCE CHURN

1. Analyze why churn occurs

Simply find out why customers decided to leave.

The easiest way to do this is to talk to the customer.

And by “talk”, I mean really talk: getting your customers on the phone is the best option. This
way you can demonstrate that you genuinely care, and you can find out what went wrong
instantly.

In fact, communicating with the customers does miracles in analyzing churn. And you need to be
actively using all channels for that: phone, e-mail, website, live chat, and social media. The
valuable feedback on how well you serve your customers is just a phone call, an e-mail or a
survey away.
2. Engage with your customers

Another way to prevent churn is to actively engage your customers with your product.

Give your customers reasons to keep coming back by showing them the day-to-day value of
using your products, by making your products, services, offers, etc. a part of their daily
workflow.

So, how can you do it?

For starters, provide ample and versatile content about the key functional benefits of your
product and offer regular news updates, such as announcements of deals, special offers or
upcoming upgrades.

Again, you should engage with your customers on all channels.

The customer journey gives you a clear picture of all customer interactions across all channels,
devices and touchpoints throughout every stage of the customer lifecycle, and be present with the
right content at the right place and time.

Another method comes in the form of social listening – the process of finding and contributing
to conversations about your company online by seeking out brand mentions, specific keywords
or phrases and comments. This will help you keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in
terms of customer satisfaction.

And, finally, don’t forget about the good-old feedback. For example, ask your new customers
what their first impression of using your product was. This will help you better understand the
initial impact that your products are making.

3. Educate the customer

This churn-prevention trick naturally flows from the point above.

You have to provide enough good quality educational or support materials, which will
help increase retention and reduce churn. Offer free trainings, webinars, video tutorials, and
product demos – whatever it takes to make your customers feel comfortable and informed.

In other words, you have to not only to give them the tools that work, but also offer the training
on how to use these tools at a maximum profit. In this way you will demonstrate the full
potential of your products and services, and ensure that customers have a successful onboarding
and implementation.

4. Know who is at risk

The best way to avoid churn is to prevent it from happening in the first place, right?
There is always a group of customers that is more likely to leave than others – so it’s in your best
interests to know who is balancing on that dangerous edge. This way you can reach out to them
in time to make them stay.

Knowing all this will help you become more proactive in preventing churn.

Also, after analyzing the reasons for churn, you become aware of certain actions, or maybe the
lack of actions, that your churned customers made. This knowledge can help you foresee if
someone, who is behaving similarly, is likely to leave your company soon.

5. Define your most valuable customers

As sneaky as this might sound, you’d better separate the most valuable customers from the rest
and go an extra mile to make sure that at least they are getting what they have signed up for.

Why? Well, let’s be honest, these are the customers you want to keep the most. Valuable
customers have to be taken extra care of because they bring in the biggest revenue.

A history of your interaction with the customers can show how deeply they are involved at each
stage, whether they had any problems with the product, and whether these issues were dealt with.

So, what you can do is segment your customers into groups of profitability, readiness to leave,
and their likelihood to positively respond to your offer to stay. In this way you can better predict
customer churn.

6. Offer incentives

Another advisable tip is to offer incentives, such as discounts and special offers, to those
customers who were identified as likely to defect.

Not sure how effective this tactic is?

Offering incentives and discount offers is widely regarded as the most effective tactic in
reducing churn.

Bottom line – you should not be wasting money on customers who are not likely to bring you
substantial revenue.

7. Target the right audience

No matter how sophisticated your retention tricks are, they may all go down the drain if you are
attracting the wrong audience.

What I mean here is – if your first interaction with the customer is about “free” and “cheap”,
then you risk attracting people who are not looking for the value you provide. These “freebie”
collectors are the most likely to leave.
It’s better to target those who appreciate the long-term value of products and see investing in
good quality as an advantage. You’d better focus on those.

8. Give better service

it is the most obvious method of keeping customers by your side. In fact, poor customer service
is the leading case of customer churn. According to a Customer Experience Impact Report by
Oracle, the two main reasons of why customers leave the company are incompetent and rude
staff and unbearably slow service.

9. Pay attention to complaints

Complaints are like tips of the icebergs – they suggest that the bigger part of the problem is
hidden from the view.

So, you’d better take complaints seriously and act on them, and in this way prevent customer
churn, because, as Strauss & Seidel claims, dissatisfied customers whose complaints are attended
to are more likely to remain loyal, and even become advocates, than other average customers.

10. Make your best people deal with cancellations

To save a customer who is about to churn is certainly not mission impossible.

But you will have to call on your best sales experts to achieve good results in keeping them.

Find out who your best, most vocal and convincing B2B sales reps are and give them the task to
talk to those who decided to leave, and in this way – prevent customer churn. At this point, you
can certainly make use of their charisma and experience in dealing with difficult situations and
dissatisfied customers.

Sometimes it only takes a good listener who is eager to walk in the customers’ shoes to change
things around. According to the customer satisfaction survey conducted by Customer Service
Group, the majority of respondents said that being heard and respected are more important than
having their issue resolved.

11. Offer long term contracts

Finally, how time to implement the product and see the benefits of using it. And once they see
the benefits, they are more likely to commit to the product.

Conclusion

Now that we have established that you simply cannot afford to lose customers, it is better to
focus on being a keeper. That means that your customers have to clearly see why it is better to
keep you and stay with you instead of leaving.
  CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

What is Customer Satisfaction ?

Business always starts and closes with customers and hence the customers must be treated as the
King of the market. All the business enhancements, profit, status, image etc of the organization
depends on customers. Hence it is important for all the organizations to meet all the customers’
expectations and identify that they are satisfied customer.

Customer satisfaction is the measure of how the needs and responses are collaborated and
delivered to excel customer expectation. It can only be attained if the customer has an overall
good relationship with the supplier. In today’s competitive business marketplace, customer
satisfaction is an important performance exponent and basic differentiator of business strategies.
Hence, the more is customer satisfaction; more is the business and the bonding with customer.

Customer satisfaction is a part of customer’s experience that exposes a supplier’s behavior

on customer’s expectation. It also depends on how efficiently it is managed and how promptly
services are provided. This satisfaction could be related to various business aspects like
marketing, product manufacturing, engineering, quality of products and services, responses
customer’s problems and queries, completion of project, post delivery services, complaint
management etc.

It is necessarily required for an organization to interact and communicate with customers

on a regular basis to increase customer satisfaction. In these interactions and communications
it is required to learn and determine all individual customer needs and respond accordingly. Even
if the products are identical in competing markets, satisfaction provides high retention rates. For
example, shoppers and retailers are engaged with frequent shopping and credit cards to gain
customer satisfaction, many high end retailers also provide membership cards and discount
benefits on those cards so that the customer remain loyal to them.

Higher the satisfaction level, higher is the sentimental attachment of customers with the specific
brand of product and also with the supplier. This helps in making a strong and healthy customer-
supplier bonding. This bonding forces the customer to be tied up with that particular supplier and
chances of defection very less. Hence customer satisfaction is very important panorama that
every supplier should focus on to establish a renounced position in the global market and
enhance business and profit.
Why Dissatisfaction in Customers ?

When the suppliers are unable to entertain customers or their business strategies fail to build a
good relationship with customers, they probably end up with customers’ dissatisfaction. There
can be many reasons for the customers to become dissatisfied. Some of these reasons are:

Taking example of India, most of the population here are vegetarian. They do not require a
bigger space in their refrigerator for deep freeze option. But still, following foreign trend of
making refrigerators most of the manufacturers are providing huge capacity deep freezers. If the
people are not able to use this space or option, it is waste for them. Obviously they feel
dissatisfied with this.

The eating tradition in India is very much different from other countries. In Europe, people
usually eat continental food and they have habit of appetizing the main course with bread, so
they usually keep a small plate (normally called quarter plate) in the left hand side so that the
bread is available to eat in between with left hand. In India, people prefer ‘Roti’ (Indian version
of bread) and they like to eat it with right hand so they want the small plate to be kept on right
hand side. But in India, most of the good restaurants are influenced by European traditions and
keep on serving the small plates on left hand side on the table. This creates uneasiness for the
people to eat food which leads to dissatisfaction.

Problem also occurs when the customers get wrongly customized products. This is because of
the communication gaps between supplier and customers and forcing the customer to become
dissatisfied due to this.

 SIGNIFICANCE

1. Reduces customer churn

In today’s capitalistic world, there are always new and existing competitors to be aware of. This
is important because your customers will always have somewhere else to buy similar products or
services.

Retaining customers is a vital piece of the customer service puzzle. By doing everything in their
power to help customers, your team will produce numbers that help the company stay
competitive while also boosting customer loyalty and repeat business.

2. Boosts customer loyalty and recurring revenue

Higher customer loyalty is also an indicator of customer satisfaction levels. Happy customers
will continue to make repeat purchases (or keep their subscriptions), ultimately boosting your
bottom line. 
Customer satisfaction is one of the top ways you can measure potential repeat purchases and loss
risks. When customers are satisfied with your products or services, they stick around and spend
more.

3. Increases employee satisfaction

When your team is happy, they’re much more likely to provide great customer service than when
they’re frustrated. Learning and implementing what your agents need to be more productive
makes the entire process smoother for everyone involved.

Removing any barriers to your agents’ tasks creates a better flow of work and a more clear way
for you as a leader to identify what’s working and what’s not. This ultimately leads to a better
CSAT score when your agents can resolve issues quickly.

In a recent survey say that a supportive work environment is the most important thing they need
to do their job well.

Another morale-booster is rewarding your employees for improving CSAT scores. By creating

an environment where they are accomplishing set goals, agents will feel happy and engaged.
This will help improve employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention. 

4. Encourages brand advocacy 

Customer satisfaction and loyalty are important for brand advocacy. Whether you want them to
or not, customers talk about their experiences with your company. But unhappy customers tell 15
people on average about their bad experience.

5. Helps you stand out from the competition 

In some cases, it can be extremely difficult for customers who are trying to get help to find the
right person or to get a hold of a human at all. This frustration for customers creates a very poor
experience and a decrease in customer satisfaction and loyalty. That’s why positive CSAT scores
are important to stay competitive. 

Being more accessible to your customers is an excellent way to create benefits for your
customers as well as your company. While other companies are difficult to reach, you can be the
standout by offering an omni channel customer service experience. For example, having a live
chat option, being responsive on social media, and/or a human simply to answer the phones.

6. Provides upselling and cross-selling opportunities

Positive customer satisfaction leads people to return to your company for another purchase. This
provides salespeople with more opportunities to cross-sell complementary products or upgraded
services to increase sales revenue. The customer will be more likely to buy because they’re
already happy with the product and customer service. 
7. Benefits other departments

Your agents are the front line for your current customers. They are the people who speak to
customers — happy or not —  to identify their needs. You have the ability to take the feedback
you receive from these customers and share it with other departments.

For example, if you work together with the marketing department, you can help them better
understand the pain points of the customers to inform marketing campaigns. This way they can
create marketing messaging that explains how your product or service solves potential or
existing customers’ problems. You can also tell the sales team what people tend to complain
about after they’ve purchased so they can preemptively reduce buyer’s remorse.

 COMPONENTS

Customer satisfaction is a complex concept that is influenced by various factors, some of which
include:

Quality of products or services: The customer's perception of the quality of the products or
services they receive is a key component of customer satisfaction.

Reliability: Customers expect the products or services they receive to be reliable and to perform
as advertised.

Timeliness: Delivering products or services on time and within the agreed-upon timeframe is
critical to customer satisfaction.

Convenience: Customers appreciate it when products and services are delivered in a convenient
and hassle-free manner.

Responsiveness: Customers expect quick and effective resolution of any issues or problems they
may encounter with products or services.

Empathy: Customers want to feel understood and valued, and empathy from the company and
its employees is a key component of customer satisfaction.

Fair price: Customers expect to receive fair value for the money they spend on products or
services.

Communication: Clear and effective communication with customers is essential to building

trust and maintaining a positive relationship.

Personalization: Customers appreciate when companies offer personalized experiences that are
tailored to their specific needs and preferences.
Overall, customer satisfaction is a multi-faceted concept that is influenced by a range of factors,
and companies need to consider all of these components in order to effectively meet the needs
and expectations of their customers.

 Measuring Customer Satisfaction

For improving customer satisfaction it is essential for the supplier to measure it. It is purely
believed that if anything is not measurable then it is not authentic. Customers are the most
important asset for any organization as they are only responsible to drives the business.
Measuring customer satisfaction helps in identifying specific customer information which is
needed to run business smoothly. Following are the information and details that could be
generated after measuring customers’ satisfaction:

A) Business Related: 

Measuring customer satisfaction helps an organization to identify the efficiency of its business
strategies and marketing tactics and encompasses if the organization is customer focused or not.
It also provides analyzed details on how many numbers of customers have defected, how much
loss the business has incurred and up to what extent the profit is decayed due to customer defect.
A customer is usually dissatisfied when his expectations are not met or the commitments from
supplier are not fulfilled reasonably and within the given time span. This becomes a serious issue
for the customers as the delay will obvious affect their image too. The customer usually shares
these problems and issues with other customers which hiders the business of the supplier. Some
of these unsatisfied customers launch complaints but most of the other customers simply defect
to other suppliers without even informing which creates a big void in the business processes of
supplier because they did not get chance to analyze the reasons of customer defection. Loss of
customers is directly proportionate to loss of business and profitability. If an organization is able
to measure business related aspects of customer satisfaction then they become capable to bridge
the gaps between them and customers to enhance more customer satisfaction among their peer
customers.

B) Customer Related: 

By measuring customer related aspects of customer satisfaction following details can be entailed:

How many total numbers of customers have defected?

Specifically which customers have been defected?

Reason why they have defected and where exactly they have defected?

Measurement of customer satisfaction always helps a supplier to analyze appropriate reasons of

lost of customers and take measures to avoid this. It also provides analyzed information about the
business loss in the coming future. This actually helps the supplier to be profitable because cost
involved in acquiring a customer is comparatively higher then the cost involved in retaining an
existing customer.

It also helps the supplier to identify the value of their products and services according to the
customers’ perception. If customer is dissatisfied with products and services then there is a need
for supplier to check the performance and quality of the product and services so that other
customers could not complaint regarding the same.

It can also analyze the exact need and requirement of customer so that measures are taken
accordingly to satisfy each and every customer.

C) Suppliers Related: 

Following are the supplier’s specific information that could be generated while measuring
customer satisfaction:

It helps the supplier to conclude about his own image, strength and weak points.

It helps the supplier to identify his area of perfection and competency so that they flourish in
monopoly of specific products and services.

It helps in encompassing the organization’s position according to the benchmark possessed in the
market by competitors.

The best way to improve customer satisfaction is to first measure it and then apply methods to
enhance it. It helps the supplier to always keep a check on allover business processes by
identifying strong and weak aspects and creating strong bond with all their customers to enhance
business.

 Methods of Measuring Customer Satisfaction

Managing customers’ satisfaction efficiently is one the biggest challenge an organization face.
The tools or methods to measure customer satisfaction needs to be defined sophisticatedly to
fulfill the desired norms. There are following methods to measure customer satisfaction:

1.Direct Methods: Directly contacting customers and getting their valuable feedback is very
important. Following are some of the ways by which customers could be directly tabbed:

Getting customer feedback through third party agencies.

Direct marketing, in-house call centers, complaint handling department could be treated as first
point of contact for getting customer feedback. These feedbacks are compiled to analyze
customers’ perception.

Getting customer feedback through face to face conversation or meeting.

Feedback through complaint or appreciation letter.

Direct customer feedback through surveys and questionnaires.

Organizations mostly employ external agencies to listen to their customers and provide dedicated
feedback to them. These feedbacks needs to be sophisticated and in structured format so that
conclusive results could be fetched out. Face to face meetings and complaint or appreciation
letter engages immediate issues. The feedback received in this is not uniformed as different types
of customers are addressed with different domains of questions. This hiders the analysis process
to be performed accurately and consistently. Hence the best way is to implement a proper survey
which consists of uniformed questionnaire to get customer feedback from well segmented
customers. The design of the prepared questionnaire is an important aspect and should enclose
all the essential factors of business. The questions asked should be in a way that the customer is
encouraged to respond in a obvious way/. These feedback could received by the organizations
can be treated as one of the best way to measure customer satisfaction.

Apart from the above methods there is another very popular direct method which is surprise
market visit. By this, information regarding different segment of products and services provided
to the customers could be obtained in an efficient manner. It becomes easy for the supplier to
know the weak and strong aspects of products and services.

2.Indirect Method: The major drawback of direct methods is that it turns out to be very costly
and requires a lot of pre compiled preparations to implement. For getting the valuable feedbacks
the supplier totally depends on the customer due to which they looses options and chances to
take corrective measure at correct time. Hence there are other following indirect methods of
getting feedback regarding customer satisfaction:

3.Customer Complaints: Customer’s complaints are the issues and problems reported by the
customer to supplier with regards to any specific product or related service. These complaints
can be classified under different segments according to the severity and department. If the
complaints under a particular segment go high in a specific period of time then the performance
of the organization is degrading in that specific area or segment. But if the complaints diminish
in a specific period of time then that means the organization is performing well and customer
satisfaction level is also higher.
4.Customer Loyalty: It is necessarily required for an organization to interact and communicate
with customers on a regular basis to increase customer loyalty. In these interactions and
communications it is required to learn and determine all individual customer needs and respond
accordingly. A customer is said to be loyal if he revisits supplier on regular basis for purchases.
These loyal customers are the satisfied ones and hence they are bounded with a relationship with
the supplier. Hence by obtaining the customer loyalty index, suppliers can indirectly measure
customer satisfaction.

 Factors affecting Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is the overall impression of customer about the supplier and the products
and services delivered by the supplier. Following are the important factors that could affect
customer satisfaction:

 Department wise capability of the supplier.

 Technological and engineering or re-engineering aspects of products and services.
 Type and quality of response provided by the supplier.
 Supplier’s capability to commit on deadlines and how efficiently they are met.
 Customer service provided by the supplier.
 Complaint management.
 Cost, quality, performance and efficiency of the product.
 Supplier’s personal facets like etiquettes and friendliness.
 Supplier’s ability to manage whole customer life cycle.
 Compatible and hassle free functions and operations.

 CUSTOMER LOYALTY AND RETENTION STRATEGIES

 CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Whether a particular customer is satisfied after purchasing a product/service depends upon his
expectations in relation with the performance of offer. Generally, satisfaction is a personal
feeling of happiness or disappointments resulting from comparing expectations and performance
of the product/service. If the performance does not exceed customer expectations, the customer
is dissatisfied. If the performance matches the customer expectation, the customer is satisfied. If
the performance exceeds expectations of customer, the customer is highly satisfied or delighted
and becomes loyal towards business.
According to Keki R. Bhote,”Customer satisfaction is but a milestone on the long, hard road to
customer loyalty and lifelong retention. Customer loyalty is the flip side of the same coin called
company profit”.

 CUSTOMER LOYALTY GRID

With the help of Brian Ward’s customer loyalty grid, we can easily understand, what customers
really want and what make them feel happy and loyal.

Let us discuss each zone in detail:

1. The Zone of Indifference (Unstated/expected)

Zone of indifference includes all the basic expectations which are to be fulfilled by the business.
Customers generally expect that they should be treated as valuable and important with respect. If
business does not perform according to their expectations, they feel insulted, which cause
dissatisfaction. If business meet this basic and obvious need, business can hope for is
indifference.

2. The Zone of Satisfaction (Stated/Expected)

This is the zone where customers actually tell what’s their need? and what’s important to them?
Here, business listen them very carefully, as this is the fist step to customer loyalty. Meeting
their needs and expectations will cause satisfaction and whereas not meeting their needs and
expectations will cause dissatisfaction. For example, a customer might expect discount on a
purchase, but knows that he has to specifically ask (or negotiate) for it. It is an expectation,
simply because other organizations that the customer deals with provide this benefit.

3. The Zone of Delight (Stated/unexpected)

Here customer expects something extra from retailers, which is generally unexpected but if a
retailer meets his/her need, will definitely create a solid customer loyalty base. For example, a
customer might expect a product of high quality on reasonable price but this particular product
falls under premium price, here is the opportunity for retailer to delight his customer by meeting
his/her expectation.

4. The Zone of Loyalty (Unstated/Unexpected)

Exceeding customer’s expectations even if customer is aware, will create loyal customer. This
requires retailers to be really proactive in suggesting to customers new innovations that they can
really benefit from. Many customers will be even willing to pay extra for this. For example,
airbags in automobiles when first introduced were an innovation that saved lives, but customers
had no way of asking for this innovation, or expecting it, before it became known to them.

To get to the Zone of Loyalty, first meet the first three zones, because all zones are equally
important. If retailers meet basic expectations of customers and satisfy them with proper service
then it will create loyal customers.

 CUSTOMER RETENTION STRATEGIES

In simple words, customer retention means keeping the customers in the business.

Customer retention is a strategy to keep the customers of the business and retain their revenue
contribution. It aims at preventing customers to leave the business (popularly known as
defecting) and go the alternate brands or competitors.

Some important key points for customer retention

1. Train the sales staff to give special treatment and care to the customers.

2. Provide exceptionally good customer service.

3. Pay attention to the customers’ complaints.

4. Keep a watch on the buying behavior of the existing customer.

5. Give proper attention to the existing customers and preference should be given to them when
it comes to attending them at store.

6. Frequent customers of the business should be provided discount coupons or other such loyalty
programme.
7. Take feedback from the existing customers. Questionnaires can be sent and various surveys
can be conducted.

 RETENTION STRATEGIES

There are four ways in which any retailer can retain their valuable customers. These four
approaches are explained below:

1. Customer Loyalty Programme

A customer loyalty programme is a system whereby a customer has specifically signed up for a
programme. The customers may receive a plastic card with their name encrypted on it. These
cards can be used when they shop and these customers with cards are given some benefits.

Modern retail outlets of India which are still taking a shape and growing at an exponential rate
have already launched loyalty cards as a quintessential strategy. Big Bazaar has joint credit cards
with ICICI, Vishal Mega Mart has a joint Credit card with SBI, and Reliance has come up with
its own credit card. Lifestyle, for instance, has a loyalty programme called ‘The Inner Circle’.
Rewards programmes, such as ‘Club West’ from Westside and ‘First Citizen’ from Shoppers
Stop, are also in competition to attract and retain the customer.

Loyalty programmes help retailers by :

● Decreasing price competition

● Increasing switching costs

● Decreasing marketing costs

● Building trust and positive customer relationships

B) Special Customer Service

Customers are value maximisers. Therefore one way of retaining key customers is to provide
excellent customer service. e.g. to some of the key customers, providing one dedicated employee
as a key relationship manager is a good approach. Because customers have more choices today
and the targeted customers are most valuable to the company, customer service must receive a
high priority within the company for any contact or “touch points” that a customer has with a
firm.

Programmes designed to enhance customer service are normally of two types.

Reactive service is where the customer has a problem (product failure, question about bill,
product return) and contacts the company to solve it. Most companies today have established
infrastructures to deal with reactive service situations through 800 telephone numbers, faxback
systems, e-mail addresses, and a variety of other solutions.

Proactive service is a different matter: this is a situation where the manager has decided not to
wait for customers to contact the firm but to rather be aggressive in establishing a dialogue with
customers prior to complaining or other behavior sparking a reactive solution. This is more a
matter of good account management where the sales force or other people dealing with specific
customers are trained to reach out and anticipate customers’ needs.

C) Community building

A third approach for building customer retention is to develop a sense of community among
customers. Retailers normally consider a community of loyalty card owners and send them
invites informing them about sale and special promotions much in advance, e.g. Shoppers Stop
dedicates the first two days of sale for their loyal customer community. They also indulge in
creating an online community where the internet channel offers an opportunity for customers to
exchange information using bulleting boards.

D) Encourage Cross Selling and Multi Channel Usage

Research has provided insights on the repeat customer being even more loyal in case he is
positively inclined to cross selling and add-on selling initiatives of the retailer. Cross selling
refers to selling a complementary product or service in a specific transaction such as selling a
printer to a customer, when he has decided to buy a computer. Add-on selling involves selling
additional new products and services to existing customers e.g. Big Bazaar selling customers
furniture along with food items.

****************THANK YOU******************************