E Commerce – Changing Business Trends
Business Managers of today are living in challenging times. Business targets had never been stiffer, work pressure and managing the complexities of competition is keeping them on their toes all the time. Today, success or failure of a business and the Organisation is dependent wholly upon the Organisation’s ability to be flexible and to respond […]
Effective Corporate Governance Has to be Practiced at all Levels of the Organization
Some Recent Scandals Involving Corporate Governance The recent months have seen a spate of scandals involving corporates pertaining to corporate governance. From the Indian IT (Information Technology) bellwether, Infosys, to the hottest startup and Unicorn (startups that are valued at more than a Billion Dollars) and the TATA group to name a few, the corporate […]
Paid Or Organic Search ?
Most Business Organisations both big and small have realised the necessity of having a presence on the internet. Many Organisations limit themselves to setting up a Company website and provide contact information. Those who realise the potential of being able to tap the customers online go one step forward and provide online services. Whether the […]
Consultative Selling – A Perspective
Consultative selling has been one of the most recent selling concepts that have evolved in the marketing field today. As Organizations have become customer oriented and service oriented, they have begun to realize that trying to sell their products or services to the Customers is not enough anymore. The salesmen are no longer just agents […]
What is Auditing, Its Types, Purposes, and Some Current Issues
What is Auditing? Auditing is the process of assessment and ascertaining of financial, operational, and strategic goals and processes in organizations to determine whether they are in compliance with the stated principles in addition to them being in conformity with organizational and more importantly, regulatory requirements. Indeed, among the objectives of auditing as mentioned above, […]
With the advent of the internet and big data analysis, organizations have been able to use relationship marketing and database mining as a powerful marketing tool. This combination of the internet, technology and relationship marketing is referred to as customer relationship management.
Customer relationship marketing uses direct marketing, relationship marketing and database mining to create useful customer relationship marketing strategy. Direct marketing serves to deliver product communication as well as the product themselves to individual consumers. The relationship marketing theory gives the foundation to customer relationship management. The database mining serves as the technology platform to store and use consumer related information.
The biggest advantage of the internet from relationship marketing is the interactivity. Organization through email and online chat can establish customer relationship and data collected from this interaction serves as base for future product offering and other personalized services.
The development of relationship marketing is closely associated with the way marketing has evolved. Organizations often, to achieve economies of scale restore to standardization and mass customization. The products were sold on the basis of interpersonal relationships. In the last couple of decades, with the increase in competition the focus has moved to differentiation. To achieve this differentiation it is important to understand consumer needs and requirements. Thus marketing moved from mass appeal to customer focused marketing.
The main focus of relationship marketing is to retain customers and make them frequent buyer. The existing customers are the main focus of relationship marketing. The reason for targeting existing customer base is that there is no customer acquisition cost, lesser extent, of discount or vouchers, reduced price sensitivity, increase probability of referral and assured revenue growth.
Now within a defined existing customer base, organizations need to develop strategies to maximize return on relationship investments. The existing customers are divided into three broad categories like most valued customers, most potential customers and no value customers. The most valued customers as the name suggest are frequent buyers and their loyalty is highest towards the company. So companies need to develop strategy to retain them. For the most potential customers' companies need to develop strategies under which they become frequent buyers.
The concept of developing strategies through usage of the internet and other digital platform for customer relationship management is called as electronic customer relationship management.
The activities likely to get covered in customer relationship management are:
The internet is used extensively for relationship marketing by integrating customer database and web site. The key benefits of e-CRM are as follows:
The customer relationship management provides key support to marketing activities through the following:
A customer lifecycle management from an organization perspective contains selection, acquisition, retention, and an extension of the customer.
Selection: at this stage organization defines customers for whom marketing strategies will be developed. This also includes developing marketing strategies for customer acquisition, retention and extension.
Acquisition: at this stage organization attempt to form relationships with new customers at minimal acquisition cost. This includes targeting high potential and value customers.
Retention: at this stage organization develops strategies to retain the existing set of customers. This includes identifying product offering based on customer profile.
Extension: as this stage organization develops strategies to improve buying behavior of existing customers. This includes upsell, cross-sell, re-sell and lead generation.
Organizations execute following strategies to implement e-CRM:
Increase Web Traffic: here the aim is to attract more and more visitors to the e-commerce website. But the focus is to attract quality visitors who are likely to make purchases. This increase visibility of the website can be done through online or offline promotion.
Satisfactory Web Experience: the newcomers to website should find the experience of navigating through the website satisfactory. They should be able to get the desired information and browse the website for extended periods for sell activity to happen. There should be enough incentives for consumers to make the first purchase.
Profiling: companies should be able to capture maximum consumer information during the purchase action. The online forms should be easy to operate for its completion.
Communication: companies need to build relationship through communication. This is done by sending periodic email highlighting current happenings of the website. This also includes showcasing specific customer information after logging in, for example, purchase history, related products etc.
Virtual Groups: companies promote the development of virtual groups where products and services are discussed. This group can help in resolving consumer queries and also serve in lead generation.
Privacy: Companies should not get over board with regards to consumer information. They should not share the information without prior consent and knowledge of the consumer.
It is very apparent that to create differentiation and retain a loyal customer, companies need to invest in the relationship market. The internet provides an alternate and effective way through which this can be achieved.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Mapping Customer Behaviour and Pattern is the starting point of E Marketing
February 12, 2025
