Companies look to CRM

By Staff Writer for Gartner
Johannesburg, 02 Jun 2009

Companies that fail to invest in customer relationship management (CRM) strategies to save money in tough times will be at least 12 months behind once the global economy recovers, says global research firm Gartner.

Gartner analysts say lessons learned from previous downturns show that 40% of companies will use the current economic slump as an opportunity to generate post-recovery growth via effective use of CRM strategies.

Tough times

“Just because times are tough and budgets are being cut, companies should not think that means no CRM investment,” says Scott Nelson, managing vice-president at Gartner. “Companies need to think in terms of spending smarter, not spending less.”

Nelson says there is no such thing as true "zero cost strategy", as money has often already been spent on CRM systems and there are ongoing care and maintenance expenses. He says CRM success can be secured without spending more money on technology.

According to Gartner, companies can design effective strategies around investments in call centres, Web sites, marketing systems and sales force automation to generate success from a customer standpoint.

Five steps

Gartner has identified five cost-effective strategies that companies can undertake that will generate positive results from a CRM strategy point-of-view.

The research firm advises companies to set up accounts on various social media Web sites to interact with customers. Secondly, it points out that analytic tools help companies study business models and customer behaviour changes. The company says a down economy provides an opportunity for companies to review their segmentation strategies and profitability.

Another consideration, according to Gartner, is process redesign. Process is often an overlooked part of CRM and in many cases CRM technologies have merely taken out old, broken processes and made them run more efficiently, states Gartner. The firm claims now is a good time to study customer processes. The last step involves addressing some of the organisational issues that get in the way of serving customers.