CRM investment is wasted if the intelligence it delivers
fails to influence dispatched communications. How can businesses
ensure that money spent on CRM analytics actually begins to
benefit the messages that are delivered to customers and
prospects?
While the importance of getting targeted communications out of
the door has achieved mainstream awareness, there is still
considerable potential for improved return on investment from
CRM systems.
Too often, companies are compromising when it comes to
communicating with customers and prospects. The lack of
attention to the actual delivery of personalised messages to
customers or enquirers is making a nonsense of many companies’
marketing strategies.
Arguably, the need for sophisticated mail has never been
greater. Customer retention has become a major issue, with
today’s multi-channel environment making it easier than ever for
consumers to switch brand allegiance. Consumers are acutely
aware that the balance of power has shifted in their favour. It
is an accepted mantra that attracting new customers costs more
than retaining existing customers, and suppliers operate knowing
that bad service, or even perceived bad service, is more likely
to be met with defection.
Today, businesses of every size are realising that intelligent
marketing to existing customers can have a profound impact on
customer retention and customer growth. High volume prospecting
activity has given way to tailored, targeted communications to
existing customers – the first line of attack in the battle to
stem customer churn rates.
Building a relationship with the customer via the mailstream,
therefore, is becoming an integral part of any business
proposition. You need to make sure there are solid IT management
systems in place first, however.
To maximise the effectiveness of these customer communications,
it is necessary to integrate them with the appropriate business
processes they connect with, however disparate these processes
may seem to be.
It is the integration of key business processes and their
related information streams into CRM that defines and drives
Customer Communication Management (CCM). CCM harnesses the power
of specific business processes and ties them to the CRM
initiative – in order to create, develop, manage, and maintain
more effective customer communications.
CRM is fundamentally customer facing and outwardly focused. CCM
takes this to the next level, by capturing the external customer
information and linking it to internal business processes in
order to create a more comprehensive picture of the customer’s
behaviour in relation to the company. The goal is then to stay
in repeated contact with customers via a continuing stream of
out-bound messages that are highly targeted to individual needs
and structured to facilitate easy payment or customer action.
But, with so much channel-choice available, is mail still a
viable channel? Undeniably, yes. The EU Directive on Privacy and
Electronic Communications, in tandem with local telephone
privacy laws, places increasing limitations on unsolicited
prospecting. Mail, however, is often seen as a non-intrusive and
valued means of communication by both businesses and consumers.
What’s more, response figures remain steady.
Any fears about email displacing mail have long since been
dispelled. Contrary to popular belief, Internet users receive
more mail than non-Internet users and the difference between the
two groups is growing. The claim that a wired household is ripe
for substitution is unfounded. Wired households include
attractive consumers who will continue to receive mail along
with other media from businesses eager to get a greater share of
their wallets.
CCM can uncover opportunities for lower costs and higher
revenues both by developing customer relationships that are more
rewarding in every sense and by streamlining business processes
so they are less costly, more integrated and more effective. Put
simply, CCM is directly focused on determining the best and most
cost-effective way for engaging in a continual and profitable
dialogue with your customers.
Sophisticated data collection and analysis techniques are not
enough. Businesses must ensure that this sophistication
translates to customer-facing documents if the full value of the
mail channel is to be realised.
Source: David Jefferies, Marketing Director Pitney Bowes
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