Web-based CRM
Will MVI Solutions's Web-based Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) have a tangible impact on your company? This leading-edge
application allows you to provide great customer service, organize
your company's work flow and provide impressive tools for your
clients without requiring your employees to learn difficult
new systems - on a 60 day "Free Trial."
How It Works
The CRM system is a database-driven, customizable application
that can be accessed by all your staff at one time from any
Internet connection. It can best be understood as a combination
and integration of three unique features:
- Client Information - All vital
client information in one convenient location.
- Ticket System - System for creating and
tracking work requests.
- Custom reports - Unique information
about your clients stored and viewable anytime.
With these three unique features you have the ability to provide complete Web-based customer support:
For many companies, "Web-based customer support" means nothing more
than having an e-mail link or form on their Web site. By contrast, the
Trouble Ticket System
we've included with CRM is a fully automated web system that ensures
that vital support requests do not get mixed in with other e-mails or accidentally
deleted. The Trouble Ticket System keeps your clients happy for many reasons.
Customers are notified via e-mail each step of the way, throughout the duration
of their request. At any time, they can log in and check the status or update
their request. A record of their comments and your staff's responses are conveniently
kept for them, allowing them to easily monitor progress and review the status
of their request. For the customers, this is an efficient way to make requests
and resolve issues without having to experience endless phone calls and e-mails.
For management, this is an effective way to review a history of customer requests
and how employees are handling them.
More About Web-based CRMs
Quest for Efficiency
In their quest for efficiency and cost-effectiveness, large enterprises are asking for a sophisticated mix of customer contact offerings, incorporating the Internet as well as more traditional channels. And that market demand is accelerating technology development.
Research firms envision a CRM landscape populated with "customer interaction hubs" capable of handling all messages, no matter how they are communicated. With a single system, it will not matter whether any given transaction is conducted via email, self-service or any other means.
The CIH (customer interactive hubs) are not only about the information, it is also about processing all messages through a central location, leveraging the central information.
Such a central system would incorporate business rules, workflow rules, data management processes and so forth.
Deployment Down the Road
Full implementation of the CIH is about five years away, MVI Solutions is already headed toward offering more integrated, centralized customer-service technology. MVI Solutions is among the IT giants taking the first steps toward establishing such a hub.
The ability to deploy consistent customer service across most channels is what people are looking for today. We're seeing demand for collaboration and synchronization ... linking information collected through all customer interactions, regardless of contact channel. Customers are interested in additional information-sharing capabilities and deeper analytics.
Contact Center's Role
Different components of CRM can be deployed to interact with the customer. MVI Solutions has implemented a multi-channel contact center with a single data model, stored once in real-time, adding that the key is offering a single view.
The CIH is a few steps ahead of contact centers, which manage the different modes of communication separately. They may have a central knowledge base, but all channels are different for them.
Although the technology to integrate all channels is available, there are crucial questions. Will it be in one system? Will it be invisible to the end user? Yes, and MVI Solutions has that [capability] today -- just not necessarily implemented in that many systems yet
Also problematical is whether companies -- especially large enterprises -- can be persuaded to replace their costly legacy systems. Who will be the first users of CIH, they are likely to be the usual suspects for first adoption: large organizations seeking competitive advantage.
The technology and manufacturing sectors tend to be more amenable than other industries to providing customers with Web-based self-service and e-mail options. It depends on how computer-savvy the user is. However, that varies by industry.
Among the adventurous are telecom and wireless providers, as well as government agencies. The retail sector has been quick to accept service by e-mail, while the regulatory-conscious financial service sector prefers other alternatives.
Increased efficiencies and better service will be more cost-efficient in the long run. In the near term, the telephone remains the dominant -- and most expensive -- customer-service channel, but as more companies shift to the Web, costs will continue to drop.
CRM and PRM
CRM
Whether stand-alone PRM software or comprehensive Web-based CRM software is a better strategy depends on the role that partners and resellers play in generating a company's sales. If you do 20 to 30 percent of your business through partners, a web based CRM software focus makes good business sense. Partners are one of multiple channels through which the company markets. When seeking to maximize all customer touch points, the only way to optimize across a set of activities is to standardize. If you segment a channel, then you cannot optimize all channels.
PRM means collaborative selling, collaborative marketing, collaborative service and collaborative commerce. If you think of PRM, it encompasses all of these ... really a collaborative version of all of CRM. A single focus for customers -- a standard, integrated channel. This is particularly important for companies in the throes of integration initiatives.
PRM
Standardization across channels is unnecessary for some businesses. When do you need consistent brand? For retailers and service providers. If you look at a manufacturer with a small set of customers, the questions are different: How do we help and inform partners and make the sales experience easy and efficient? How do we differentiate ourselves?
For manufacturers that make 80 to 90 percent of their sales through distributors, PRM is indeed the better choice. For these businesses, streamlining the processes and collaborating with your partners can reduce costs and give you competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Also, considering PRM software as a subset of CRM software can complicate the purchase decision, it involves different sets of stakeholders and a focus on the bigger picture.
But combining the two does not add complicating factors to the mix, such a view might reflect a misplaced focus. If [you are] trying to streamline [the] purchase of software, then you are optimizing the wrong thing. The focus should be on how to service customers. The opportunity for ROI is making sure all customer touch points work in concert.
It is not yet clear whether PRM will go to the small vendors struggling to find a place in the sun or become an add-on for the industry sluggers. At present, MVI Solutions is the leader in PRM customer count. On the other hand, MVI Solutions is getting strong competition from ERP (enterprise resource planning) software vendors. From the standpoint of transactions, ERP software vendors have the upper hand. PRM Software vendors are carving out a slice of the manufacturing arena.
To maintain CRM software market share, MVI Solutions is investing heavily in vertical software. The company has taken baseline horizontal products and tailored them to be specific to different types of customers, including high-tech manufacturers, numerous types of service providers and the public sector. A strategy of pre-wiring PRM software for vertical industries would allow companies to have quicker ROI, he explained.
Although it is still too early to tell whether PRM software is destined to be a sector in its own right or become integrated in the offerings of major CRM software vendors, it is likely that the financial returns promised by PRM technology will ensure its future. And the questions surrounding its continued existence may be more about form than substance.
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