A fragmented Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) market

70% of Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) applications have been custom built, which explains why the Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) market is fragmented, only slowly consolidating and characterised by lots of churn, said Gartner VP Ed Thompson at a 'vendor landscape' presentation at the analyst's 2008 Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) Summit in London.

Gartner tracks some 300 out of an estimated 800 Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) vendors every year, 25-30 of which merge or are acquired during the course of the year, he added. These companies operate in more than 50 submarkets, with major areas including analytics, sales, marketing, field service, information infrastructure, customer service and ecommerce.

Thompson said that SAP and Oracle (Siebel) own about a quarter of the 'off the shelf' market each, but predicted that Microsoft, whose Dynamics Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) offering is growing at 100% a year in terms of customer numbers, will be in the vendor top five when 2007 figures are published shortly.

In terms of the user experience, perhaps only 4% of customers can demonstrate a genuine return on investment from Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) initiatives.

In terms of the user experience, perhaps only 4% of customers can demonstrate a genuine return on investment (ROI) from Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) initiatives, mainly because most companies fail to benchmark projects and real success stories tend to be anecdotal.

Thompson said that hot areas of the main markets over the next three to five years will be:

> Sales: software as a service (SaaS) salesforce automation (SFA), lead management, Web 2.0, ecommerce, sales performance management, pricing management and social networking.
> Customer service: collaborative and community intelligence, knowledge-enabled service resolution, feedback management and web self service.
> Marketing: web analytics and advert management, word of mouth and communications, customer datamining, marketing resource management and marketing performance measurement.

A hot technology ticket
Industries where Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) is a hot technology ticket at present are banking (retail and wholesale), wireless, wireline, high-tech industries, pharmaceuticals, travel and hospitality. 'Warm' (emerging) markets include utilities, insurance, automotive, consumer goods, medical equipment and the media.

Thompson explained that Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) spending correlates “very strongly” with GDP growth. The low ebb for the Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) market was in 2003, he said, when the most popular areas were mainly cost driven, such as self service and business process outsourcing (BPO).

As things stand, Gartner believes that Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) in 2009 will be about analytics, communities and mobile.
Thompson explained that any renewed focus of demand within cost-driven areas such as self-service and BPO would therefore be an indicator of a major economic downturn in the UK. At present those indicators are not strongly suggesting a sustained downturn.

As things stand, Gartner believes that Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) in 2009 will be about analytics, communities and mobile, he said.

Thompson went on to outline the 10 “most critical uncertainties” in the future of software development between now and 2016, and their relevance to the Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) market.

These included SaaS delivery; the shift of economic power and and skills to emerging ecnomies; the operational ability of organisations to absorb new technologies; the control shift from IT experts to users and consumers; the increasing virtualisation of business; new software licensing schemes; realising the promise of service-oriented architectures (SOA); universal fast and simple access to information (eg, the Google model); and open source displacing commercial software (in emerging economies in particular).

Source: http://www.mycustomer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=133613

Technorati Profile

Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) in Airlines companies

An airline passenger may check in through one of three contact media –telephone, kiosk, or face-to-face at a check-in desk. Whichever channel isselected, the process will be identical. The passenger will present the necessaryinformation to the agent, kiosk interface or Interactive Voice Response (IVR)system for the booking to be retrieved from the departure control system.

Information from the customer service system and the frequent flyer applicationhas been consolidated into the data warehouse. Business intelligence and datamining tools have categorized the passenger as a “valuable customer” with apredicted high lifetime value. In addition, the customer service system containsa report that the passenger recently travelled on a long-haul sector in a seat witha broken in-flight entertainment system. Extracts from the data warehouse arereplicated in an online customer database designed specifically to support the decision systems in realtime.

At the time of check-in the passenger’s identity is passed to the decisionsystems to identify any “special” action which needs to be taken. Due to thestatus of the passenger and in recognition of the customer services incident,it is decided that the passenger should be upgraded to first class. Thedecision system will automatically implement the upgrade via the departurecontrol system and generate a prompt to explain why.

At the time of check-in the passenger is automatically upgraded to first classand is given the reason, either verbally by the check-in agent, as a prompton the kiosk interface, or as a synthesized message generated by the IVR.To complete the customer service loop, a letter is automatically generatedafterwards to apologize for the incident and reinforce the action taken.

In a similar way, should the passenger use Italian as their first language,the automatic check-in processes can be personalized to communicate inItalian. A customer-centric approach can be built up around all customercontacts and transactions, not just those in service recovery.

The decision systems may analyze contact histories to identifythe most effective channel for targeting certain customers and target customersthrough the channel with the highest proven success rate. The decision systemsmay also analyze travel trends to segment those customers most suited toa specific promotion and use these as the target audience for a campaign.Complaint information may be used to instigate service recovery actions byoffering additional rewards through the loyalty system, or by upgrading atraveller on their next flight or visit.

Customer super processes

Existing customer processes will be modified and enhanced to become“customer-focused” based on the different rules and prompts dynamicallyderived from the decision systems. The processes in themselves are unlikelyto change, but their behavior will alter.

Customer recognition

All of the systems and processes combine to optimize customer recognition.At all contact points, customers should be seen as individuals. They shouldreceive personalized mailings and personalized greetings at check-in and otherassisted contact channels. Their preferences for booking, payment, channel andservice will be honored. Online forms should be pre-filled, and personalizedmessages and offers targeted to specific individuals. Ultimately service recoveryactions will reward customers for their value and their continued loyalty.

Source: A blueprint for customer relationshipmanagement in the travel industry perpared by IBM Travel and Transportation

Technorati Profile