In the Internet economy, the customer is king, but that may not be apparent to consumers who are frustrated by confusing Web sites and dissatisfied with phone support.
That's where customer relationship management (CRM) comes into play, and it's turning out to be a critical component of any successful e-business. CRM tools may be in their infancy, but forward-looking businesses are already looking to implement the next generation, which will extend crm to mobile consumers.
The first step an e-business can take in building a solid CRM system is to Web-enable its call centre. This can include synchronising Web pages so support reps can help customers navigate, enabling live text chats, and automating e-mail responses. Analysts at market research firm Datamonitor say that the return-on-investment of doing so is substantial. In fact, they say that close to eight percent of so-called abandons ÃÆ'Ã,¢Ã¢,Ã,¬"potential sales cut short because of customers' frustration with sitesÃÆ'Ã,¢Ã¢,Ã,¬"can be salvaged.
Apart from the positive economic effect that Web-enabled call centres promise, analysts expect a positive effect on workers, too. The additional skills required of call centre employees is expected to lead to greater job satisfaction and less turnover. The automation of repetitive tasks may be replaced by speech recognition technology, which will alleviate boredomÃÆ'Ã,¢Ã¢,Ã,¬"the primary cause of high call centre employee turnover rates. -People will feel less like automatons and more like salespeople with a career path," says Steve Morrell, program manager at Datamonitor.
With a predicted one billion mobile phones and an estimated half-billion Internet accounts in use by the year 2003, the stage is set for mobile CRM (M-CRM) delivered to smart phones and hand-held devices. This is expected to be especially big in Australia and Japan, which already have strong tele-cultures.
According to Klasnic, the trend's continued benefits include improved sales force automation and post-purchase support. Before Mobile CRM takes off, though, some knotty issues concerning bandwidth, privacy, and display size need to be solved. Companies such as Clarify, Lucent, Oracle, and Siebel Systems are currently exploring the possiblities of M-CRM.
