Who Should Lead CRM Efforts?

Customer relationship management, promising the optimization of client dealings across all touch points, has taken hold in organizations large and small. Conventional marketing, direct marketing and database marketing are viewed as components of CRM, as are sales, service, product development and just about anything else a company does.

CRM initiatives might blossom from almost anywhere in an organization. They tend to have their beginnings in:

– Information technology. Vendors have created systems that often are focused on implementing only one aspect of CRM, such as sales automation, marketing automation or campaign management. If CRM begins in the information technology, it is less likely to gain ground across the organization. An IT initiative is viewed as an IT initiative.

– Customer service. This is one of the most prominent client touch points. CRM may be focused on the quality of one-to-one communications and experiences in call centers, but in the customer service area it’s less likely to have an effect on large numbers of contacts.

– Electronic marketing. CRM is new, as is e-marketing. The latter enables mass customization and one-to-one contacts that support CRM. This channel allows maximum customer interaction, with special attention paid to clients’ value, needs and preferences. The challenge for most organizations has been the small numbers that e-marketing now represents.

– Sales. If the company has a sizable sales force, this group will have significant responsibilities to customers, and in the end will understand them best. Thus CRM can be thought of as managing all dealings with a salesperson’s customers.

– Conventional marketing. Many marketers often lay claim to CRM because it sounds like what they’ve been doing all along: communicating with customers to maximize and understand lifetime value.

CRM belongs in all areas of a company. Unfortunately, business organizations rarely work together readily. There always are departments and divisions with contradictory goals and diverse objectives, particularly regarding something as large and controversial as the management of customer relationships.

CRM requires strong leadership and ongoing commitment, and needs a primary owner for successful implementation.

Deciding where it belongs isn’t an easy issue. The decision could be based on who had the idea first or spoke the loudest, who has the most funding, who has the “majority” of customer interaction or who controls the systems and data.

Obviously, none of these are ideal, and all could lead to less than encouraging results. If managing customer relationships falls into one area – whether that be marketing, sales or service – the other departments are likely to retract their support and enthusiasm for the initiative. Top-down and enterprisewide commitment is required for CRM to have a lasting impact on an organization. And that means, at least initially, customer relationship management will require a department of its own.

The New Team

This involves establishing a stand-alone unit that’s responsible for optimizing customer relationships at all points of contact. It’s a job no single department could handle.

So what would a customer relationship department actually do? Basically, it would serve as a liaison and advocacy group for customers. Moreover, it would ensure that all areas of the organization are prepared to implement CRM strategies.

This department would be responsible for:

– Identifying unique customer segments and their needs, attitudes, product affinities and loyalty drivers.

– Developing a core of customer knowledge and educating the organization about the unique needs of customer segments.

– Defining the best contact strategy for each customer segment and sub-segment, based on their unique behavior, channel preferences and long-term potential.

– Creating customer interaction centers, where clients can choose the channels they prefer to do business through – phone, Internet or in person.

– The interaction of sales, service and marketing groups with customers.

– Making investment decisions that are relative to customer relationship programs and processes.

– Identifying tools and technologies required to share information about customers at all touch points.

The department should be a cross-functional group, with skills in:

– Customer valuation.

– Client interaction and integrated communications.

– Customer information management.

If you put all that together, doesn’t the CRM department become way too large? It could, but the solution is to identify those who can lead the charge and serve as liaisons to implementation teams in the existing departments.

Finally, while appropriate goals and individual skills will contribute to the customer relationship group’s efforts, corporate support is crucial. This will include financial backing for resources and systems initiatives, as well as ongoing endorsements of CRM programs.

Once the customer relationship department is formalized, we will likely see many more successful companywide client relationship efforts.