GUSKOMPINdo RELATIONSHIP

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Customer Relationships on the Internet

 Customer Relationships on the Internet

CRM on the Internet E-commerce really isn’t a new game. It’s an extension of the game we’ve been playing since the dawn of commerce—the game of creating, maintaining, and expanding customer relationships.

Kristin Anderson’s grandfather, whom we wrote about in the Preface, never knew about ecommerce.

However, if Carl T. Anderson were running a grain elevator today, he would find the Internet to be a powerful tool for communicating with co-op members, watching the market for pricing trends, scheduling shipments, and completing sales.

To play the game of business in this century, it’s important to know what e-commerce can do for you and how it’s changing customer expectations. Working with the touchstone of your CRM strategy, you’ll be able to use new rules and the new tools offered by e-commerce to satisfy your customers.

The Internet can enable your customer relationship management

strategy in three ways.

Level 1: Getting information out to customers.

The Internet can provide an avenue for getting information about your business and your products and services to your current and potential customers. At its most basic level, this means letting them know you are there and how to reach you in the “real world.” It can be as simple as a Web-based brochure that describes your products and services and tells customers where you are located and how to reach you by phone.

With half of American households wired to the Internet, and the

numbers growing throughout the United States and the world, you should expect your customers to search the Web for information about you and your products and services. From a CRM standpoint, it’s helpful to think about this level of Internet activity in two ways, passive and active.

Whether you intend it or not, whether you create it or it comes from another source, we’re willing to bet dollars to donuts that you have a presence on the Internet. A search of the Internet may reveal your passive presence in any number of ways. Here are just a few:

• Electronic Yellow Pages, such as www.SuperPages.com

• Conversations in an online chat or on an industry or association-based bulletin board

• References in articles

Level 2: Getting information back from customers.

The next level of sophistication means you not only provide information

to your customers, but also learn more about them and from them. The Internet allows you to collect all sorts of useful and sometimes not so useful data about your customers. Sometimes this means customers respond to questions and provide you useful information. In other cases you may be able to collect information that’s very useful to your business without interfering at all with the customer experience.

Level 3: E-commerce sales.

At its highest level, you can use the Internet to deliver products and services to your customers. You can have mutually rewarding relationships with customers you never see, meet, or speak with! Your entire relationship can successfully exist in cyberspace. With the technology available today, you can sell your products over the Internet, respond to customer questions, offer additional products and services based on previous purchases, and evaluate customers’ satisfaction with your offerings all without ever dealing with them in person. Leveraging the Internet can free up resources to deliver higher levels of value to customers in new ways. As organizations yearn to move beyond the traditional world of bricks and mortar, the call goes out: “Let’s get on the Internet and sell stuff.” We encourage you to walk before you run—or

drive—on the e-commerce highway. Even if you launch all three levels at the same time, consider them in a linear fashion. It’s important to know what information is already out there about you—or about your industry or service segment. And before you start charging credit cards and shipping products, it’s vital that you have systems and processes in place to receive and answer customer questions and concerns.

Choosing the Right Vehicle

Having a presence on the electronic superhighway doesn’t require that you purchase a brand-new Lexus, but you should not assume that the cheapest model with no options will do the job. Choosing the right e-commerce vehicle for you and your customers is a three-step process.

Step one is to go back to your customer relationship management strategy. Refresh your memory. Ask yourself three questions:

1. What am I trying to accomplish with CRM?

2. What kind of experience(s) do I want my customers to have?

3. What information do I need to get to or from my customers

to enable delivery of an exceptional customer experience?

We suggest that you keep a written copy of your CRM strategy at hand as you work through the next two steps of the process. Make sure every decision you make along the way is aligned with your overall CRM strategy.

Three Rules for Success on the Road to E-Commerce

Now you’re ready to rev up your e-commerce vehicle(s), whether e-mail, your Web site, or a sophisticated real-time interaction. Here’s where many of us get distracted from our view of the forest by all those really cool trees out there! Throughout your e-commerce implementation, keep your focus by remembering three rules for success:

• E-commerce doesn’t need to cost big bucks.

• Keep it current. Customers expect Internet data to be more current and       up to date than any of your print materials.

• Strive to keep it personal.

E-Commerce Need Not Be Expensive

A simple page an electronic brochure that says you’re out there in “space” and directs them to your “place” is better than no presence. Carol found a lovely bed and breakfast in Marion, S.C. while searching the Web for a hotel near Darlington for a planned visit to the spring NASCAR race. She made reservations over the phone and sent the deposit by “snail mail” because the B&B didn’t accept credit cards, but it turned out to be the perfect place 30 minutes from the racetrack, homey, with opportunities to meet and visit with other race fans that she wouldn’t have had at one of the big chain motels.

Keep It up to Date

This is not about being on the cutting edge of technology. This is about updating electronic information the same as you update information elsewhere. It takes more attention, though, because it’s “out there” somewhere. It’s not like your bricks-and-mortar presence: you walk though your facility, you handle papers, you see signage and realize it is wrong and needs to be changed and updated. But, just as we may forget to listen to our own voice mail message to test it, we forget to cruise and test our e-commerce connections. For example, a local restaurant still hadn’t changed its Web information to the new area code, even two months after the old area code stopped working. The Web page invited guests to call the restaurant for reservations, but any potential customer who tried would get a “that number is no longer in service” message.

Make It Personal

Think about how each aspect of your Web site will either enhance or detract from the customer experience. Another way of thinking about it is to ask this question: Will what you’re asking your customer to do make their lives better or easier in some way? For example, Amazon.com allows Carol to add items to a “Wish List.” That way when her parents or favorite aunt are looking for a gift idea, they can log onto the site and always find a list of things she would love to receive. They enter their credit card information and their gift is shipped directly to her doorstep. It’s the equivalent of the bridal registry, even when you’re not getting married! From the customer’s standpoint, it’s easy: Carol can add things as she is browsing—and her parents don’t have to worry about going to the store, finding something they’re not sure she will like, and then shipping it 1500 miles from North Dakota to Texas.