Customer Management

Lower-quartile performers Lower-quartile companies (for example, low CMAT scorers) are likely to operate a classic product organizational model with strong product management disciplines and a focus on product sales. There will be a limited focus on the overall proposition, and their ... [full story]

The Organization's Maturity and Competence in CM Management Figure 16.3 shows the ROI planned for a number of companies at different stages of customer management maturity. How CM investment pays back varies by the company's CM maturity. Companies that manage their ... [full story]

The Size of the Investment: The 4:1 Rule The data from four business cases from different international companies tracked over three years showed the remarkable similarity in ROI across three very different businesses and a close match for the fourth. Note that ... [full story]

Benefits as a Percentage of Turnover Few companies that track benefits from CM projects find a relationship between the level of benefits and a particular percentage of turnover. The best one will get are ranges. Some idea of the possible benefit ... [full story]

Identifying the Main Benefits This chapter does not cover the detailed building of business cases. Instead, it provides some rules of thumb for calculating the scale of the benefit that can be achieved. Our insights have come from analysis of: various reports ... [full story]

An integrated approach is required to create maximum value These studies show that it makes sense to work with a system approach, and specifically across the CMAT model, rather than to work deeply in one area to the exclusion of others. ... [full story]

The Correlation between Customer Management and Business Performance is Clear In our report 'The customer management scorecard: the state of the nation' [1], we discussed several approaches that have influenced and shaped our thinking and can help create customer value. These ... [full story]

The Business Case for Customer Management Neil Woodcock, Michael Starkey and Merlin Stone There is a strong correlation between business performance and customer management (CM). Most benefit is gained from viewing CM as a system, or value chain. On some commonly ... [full story]

Trends in Customer Contact Channels and Media In this section we investigate changes in media usage in the UK and United States, and from our own research provide some insight into what companies say about their future use of media. The overall ... [full story]

Demand-side promiscuity (and control by customers) Customers are quicker and happier to switch between suppliers. They are more positive about changing suppliers: they embrace it, often seek it, and are confident about it. They are more demanding of their existing products ... [full story]

Supply-side complexity Companies are faced with many choices in customer management. The larger the company, the more complex the choices. The choices include: Product and product variations (although products are becoming more similar). Product marketers have done a good job of providing ... [full story]

Customer Management Spend is Increasing Gartner predicts [1] that worldwide spending on CRM will reach US $76.3 billion in 2005, up from the US $23.26 billion achieved in 2000. Licence revenue will continue to be around 16 per cent of this ... [full story]

Trends in Customer Management Neil Woodcock, Michael Starkey and Merlin Stone Global CRM spend is forecast to increase dramatically in the next five years. Consumers are steadily becoming less loyal, or at least happier to switch suppliers. Direct mail, telemarketing, face-to-face ... [full story]

Customer Management Activities Here, direct insurers scored higher on average (47 per cent) than the intermediary (36 per cent) and business-to-business insurers (35 per cent). It was remarkable how many times the minimum score of 0 per cent appeared for the ... [full story]

Analysis and Planning The spread of the scores here was comparable with the spread of the total scores: on average 39 per cent with a maximum score of 63 per cent and a minimum of 17 per cent. Almost all insurers ... [full story]

Direct Insurers Score Best The scores varied a lot, as was mentioned above. One would expect insurers with direct contact with retail customers ('direct insurers') to have a higher score than intermediary insurers. Direct contact makes it both more important and ... [full story]

General Results CMAT-R not only gives general CRM achievements (total score), but it also sub-scores on the eight CRM related areas, which makes it possible to see how the scores in these areas compare with each other. The CMAT model has ... [full story]

The Dutch Insurance Industry CMAT Study Hans Neerken and Roland Bushoff Introduction In the final quarter of 2001, BSN Nederland (a leading Netherlands business school which provides a general MBA and also an insurance-specific MBA), IBM Nederland and QCi carried out CRM ... [full story]

Consider outsourcing business processes Consider outsourcing of information management business processes when appropriate or beneficial. Having a robust framework for determining whether to outsource information management activities is a best practice in which the majority of organizations assessed to date indicate they ... [full story]

Understand privacy Understand privacy and its implications in all relevant geographies as both a threat and an opportunity. This best practice contains a number of facets. From a narrow viewpoint, privacy implications can be seen as the legal constraints and processes that ... [full story]

Account for third-party data (intermediation) Take into account the impact intermediation has on your information management capability and be proactive in anticipating and resolving problems associated with exchanging data with this third party. Intermediation, where a third party sits between an organization ... [full story]

Build a customer infrastructure that supports recognition and welcoming of customers Build an infrastructure and set of processes that enables recognition of when a new customer has conducted a first transaction with the organization, and then trigger appropriate welcoming activity. Such practice ... [full story]

Customer preferences The gathering and use of customer preference data is a recent but powerful phenomenon whereby organizations invite their customers to advise them on preferences around communications frequency/ channel/ timings and so on. When gathered and implemented in a robust ... [full story]

Customer lifetime Organizations should recognize the potential length of lifetime of new and existing customers as well as their short-term value when allocating marketing budget and priorities. This should ideally be translated into an allowable cost per sale, which is a ... [full story]

Customer worth An organization should be able to determine the worth of individual customers; combining sales margin, sales and marketing costs, management costs, logistics and service and so on. Armed with this information, an organization is able to make very robust ... [full story]

Use customer data to understand customer worth, lifetime value, preferences and retention drivers Use the customer data you hold to improve the customer interface(s): Understand and determine individual customer worth across your customer base. Use lifetime value data as key feeds into marketing ... [full story]

Collect transaction history data Organizations should hold and provide appropriate access to a minimum of three years of transaction history in a form that enables detailed analysis. Three years typically represents two or more sales cycles, although industries such as automotive may ... [full story]

Define a single customer view Build a detailed understanding of the issues around the 360-degree view of the customer prior to making commitments to build such a view. This recommendation does not assert that an organization should already have built such a ... [full story]

Obtain resources to support the plan Ensure that the resource requirements of customer information management and usage are sufficient to support the enterprise plan. Build into the requirements that this is a specialist area where employee development and sourcing may be ... [full story]

Create an enterprise customer information management plan Ensure that an enterprise plan for management and use of customer information is in place. All key stakeholders, with representation from marketing, sales, customer service, finance, operations and IT as a minimum, must feed ... [full story]

Best Practices Taking the scale and scope of the customer management issues noted above, Acxiom and QCi jointly developed a series of best practices encompassed in an approach designed to support a chief information officer in developing an enterprise plan for ... [full story]

Information Management and Usage Findings In order to evaluate the area of information management and usage more thoroughly, the analysis sections listed below are further defined and individual best practices are clustered by section as follows: vision and strategy; investment; resourcing; information content; information usage; information management; technology ... [full story]