Putting the 'Relationship' Back Into CRM Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Many managers believe that the strategy to capture value through relationship marketing is always to focus on the "great" customers and eliminate the "poor" ones. But there's much more to best practice relationship direction than minimizing costs to function and maximizing sales on individual customers. The authors identified three significant ways the present practice of CRM fails and studied people who were in emerging, existing and terminated relationships with companies.

First, companies forget that their relationships are not just with consumers, but with individuals who live complex and rich lives. Second, because relationships come in different shapes and sizes, businesses need to be cognizant of the requirements of varied forms of relationships beyond the loyalty ideal. The authors provide guidelines for companies who want to boost the entire value of their customer relationships. They suggest that firms analyze and first catalogue the varieties of customer relationships they have, then produce a portfolio of relationships, optimizing those they have and identifying which ones of that are new to focus on.

Businesses then need to decide which metrics to utilize to track the well-being and performance of those relationships, correcting as they go. For most firms, the transition to a relationship-based approach will demand an important shift in practice and mindset. Customize CRM alternatives to the particular kinds of relationships the firm is handling, supervisors will have to enlarge the kind of data gathered by their CRM systems and retrain customer-facing workers to be sensitive to the relational clues they receive and send.

Putting the 'Relationship' Back Into CRM Case Study Solution

PUBLICATION DATE: April 01, 2011 PRODUCT #: SMR385-HCB-ENG

This is just an excerpt. This case is about SALES & MARKETING