Project Report On "Customer Relationship Management"
Project Report On "Customer Relationship Management"
Introduction
All these changes have made today’s producer shift from traditional marketing to
modern marketing. Modern marketing calls for more than developing a product,
pricing it, promoting it and making it accessible to target customer. It demands
building trust, a binding force and value added relationship with the customers.
Aims of CRM
The CRM is a new technique in marketing where the marketer tries to develop long
term relationship with the customers to develop them as life time customers. CRM
aims to make the customer climb up the ladder of loyalty.
The company first tries to determine who are likely prospects i.e. the people who have
a strong potential interest in the product and ability to pay for it. The company hopes
to convert many of its qualified prospect into first time customers and then to convert
those first time customers into repeat customers. Then the company tries to convert
these repeat customers into clients – they are those people who buy only from the
company in the relevant product categories. The next challenge for the company is to
convert these client into advocates. Advocates are those clients who praise the
company and encourage others to buy from it.
The ultimate challenge is to convert these advocates into partners where the customers
and the clients work actively together to discover ways of getting mutual benefit.
Thus in CRM the key performance figure is not just current market share but share of
life time value by converting customers into partners.
In CRM the company tries to identify that small percentage (20%) of key account
holders who’s contribution to the company revenues is high (80%). So from this point
of view, CRM is also known as KEY ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT.
Ø A satisfied customer in 10 years will bring 100 more customers to the company.
Ø It costs 7 time more to attract a new customer than to serve an old one.
Ø 20% of the company’s loyal customers account for 80% of its revenues. (Pareto’s
principle).
1. Every part of the company’s marketing effort should be geared towards building
lifetime relationships.
customers.
4. The company should always be flexible to bend its rules and procedures in the
client’s favor.
5. The company should communicate with its customers even when it is not trying to
sell something.
6. The company can communicate and develop stronger customer bonding by
7. The company should try to know all its customers including their lifestyles,
8. The company should make it a point to deliver more than what is promised.
In textile industry one company sell its product to another company. For example a
yarn manufacturing company sell to fabric manufacturing company. A fabric
manufacturing company sell fabric to apparel company. The main customers of the
companies in the textile industry are the wholesalers. And the final product is sold to
the wholesalers and retailers. In this industry the customers are few and profit margins
are high. So CRM is very much necessary and relevant in this industry. There is a
high degree of uncertainty on the part of the buyers, the likelihood of customers
seeking a relationship is increased. If the firm loses its customer it would be major
loss to the firm. The product in the textile industry is complex and quality is an
important factor. One of the major values the customer expects from vendors is
quality. No customer will tolerate average quality. According to GE’s chairman John
“quality is the best assurance of customer allegiance and strongest defense against
competition and the only path to sustained growth and earnings.” If the product is not
of good quality the customer will not be satisfied and the firm may lose its customer.
Moreover there is a scope of customization in the product. The seller has to customize
the product according to the need of the customer. Customization is changing the
product according to the need of the customer in order to satisfy him.
There are four key steps for putting one to one marketing program to work –
To launch a one to one initiative the company must be able to locate and contact a fair
number of customers or at least a substantial portion of its valuable customers. It is
crucial to know the customer details as much as possible, not just their names or
address, but their habits, preferences and so forth.
Customers are different in two principal ways, they represent different levels of value
and have different needs. Once the company identifies its customers differentiating
them will help the company to focus its efforts to gain the most advantage with the
most valuable customers.
Ø It costs seven time more to attract a new customer than to serve an old one.
Ø 20% of the company’s loyal customers account for the 80% of its revenues.
With the available literature we can summarize CRM in the words of various authors
as follows-
According to Shani and Chalarani – Customer Relationship Management
marketing can be defined as “ an integrated effort to identify, maintain and build
up a network with the individual customers and to continuously strengthen the
network for the mutual benefit of both parties, through interactive, individualized
and value added contracts over a long period of time.
In the words of Lekha “ CRM aims at delivering better products and value to the
customers through better understanding of his needs.”
Conceptualization
A firm in textile industry has to maintain good relations with its customers. They have
to retain the customers for a long time to avail the benefit of their relations. The
customer relationship management is one of the effective tool to identify, establish
and maintain relationship with the customers. With the help of this research we are
going to identify the importance of CRM in textile industry.
The textile industry is basically manufacturing based industry. Through this study we
are going to identify the importance of CRM in the textile industry. How it is
benefited from CRM? Is their any relevance of implementing CRM? And what role
does information technology can play in CRM?
2. To find out the impact of CRM on the profitability of the organization.
Research Methodology
A research design is simply a plan for study in collecting and analyzing the data. It
helps the researcher to conduct the study in an economical method and relevant to the
problem.
Research design
Secondary data – secondary data are those data which are primarily collected by the
other person for his own purpose and now we use these for our purpose secondly.
Data collection
Findings
§ The needs of the customers are clearly defined and the products are customized
according to the needs of the customers.
§ Customer’s comments and complaints are welcomed and resolved quickly and
positively. Comments and complaints are taken through face to face interviews.
§ The company provides credit facility to its customers up to 90 days. If the
customers pay within 7 days they are given 4% cash discount.
§ The average sale per customer has increased by 15% and customer’s response to
the marketing activities is also improving. Customer retention is also
improving.
§ The factors which have an impact on the CRM are – organization culture,
support from top management, interpersonal skill of the sales personals and
working environment of the company.
Analysis
The customers of the COMPANY are the wholesalers. It is because the number of
retailers is very large as compared to the wholesalers. So it is not possible for the
company to approach to the retailers. Therefore the company sells to the wholesalers
and then wholesalers sell to the retailers.
Customers are encouraged to give suggestions and complaints so that the company
can improve its working and services. If the customer’s complaints are not resolved
the customers will be dissatisfied and the company may lose its customers.
To get the information about the customers and to measure the satisfaction the
company conducts surveys. Because of the expertise needed in the research the
company give this work to research agencies like AC NILSON.
The company gives credit facility to its customers to increase the sales volume. If the
company do not sell on credit the customers may switch over to other companies.
The company maintains frequent communication with the customers. As soon as the
product is ready or a new product is launched the information is provided to the
customers. Communication is also necessary to maintain the interest of the customers
in the company.
The company gives concession to its regular customers so as to retain its most
valuable and profitable customers.
The company regularly reviews the business process in order to eliminate non value-
adding activities, to reduce the cost and to make the whole work efficient and
effective. If the internal customers are not satisfied and there is lack of coordination
among the departments then it will affect the external customers also.
Conclusion
From this study it can be concluded that the customer relationship management in
Company is satisfactory. The company is using various CRM practices like
customization of the product, maintaining interaction with the customers regularly and
providing good quality product etc. Customer relationship management has a certain
impact on the profitability of the company. Average sale per customer has increased
15% over the last two years. Customer response rate towards marketing activities is
also improving. There are various factors affecting the customer relationship
management like working environment of the company, support from top
management and coordination among the departments of the company. Information
technology is not used as much as it should be. The company is using traditional tools
of CRM like quantitative research, personal interviews. The company should modern
tools like data mining, contact center, e-CRM and web based survey tools.
3. As no work has been done earlier in this regard so scarcity of secondary data is
also there.
Suggestions
There should be more and more emphasis given by the company for
satisfying the customer up to a apex limit and by providing the utility of
every penny of his money.
There should be more use of information technology.
The company should be flexible to bend its rules and procedures in the
clients favour.
The company can communicate and develop stronger customer bonding by
providing social and financial benefits.