CRM 100 MARKS PROJECT

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

Operations marketing (relationship management) is a complete web-based business management application ideally featured to assist you in managing your executive and continuing education programs. CRM enables you to have a relentless focus on your customer (for open enrollment and custom courses) with its full CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool set. COM’s customer interaction management, direct email marketing management, and sales coaching and management tools are complemented by its comprehensive reporting structure to provide the labor saving features and information you need to engage your prospects and customers in a personalized and attentive fashion so as to ensure long-term profitable relationships.

Customer and Operations Management with CRM are designed for organizations with limited resources, infrastructure and time for an expensive and large-scale technology implementation. Customer and Operations Management with CRM can be fully operational within hours. Once operational you will immediately begin to experience dramatic improvements in the effectiveness the efficiency of your sales and course management activities.

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There are no complex or cumbersome queries to write and rewrite in order to gain access to the data you need to respond to key business questions. Customer and Operations Management with CRM provides the information required by marketing and sales managers to identify and create the path on which to migrate prospects to leads, leads to students, students to repeat students, all with a simple point and click. Because COM creates a collaborative communications network, information on prospects, changes to program requirements, rescheduling of instructors, etc. will all be shared among the team members instantly.

During the same week you install Customer and Operations Management with CRM, you will be empowering associates in all departments with the information and tools to communicate, streamline course management and marketing processes, and manage individual and team efforts. You will also be making your students and companies feel important and loyal, giving you an edge over competitors.

Customer and Operations Management with CRM is a leapfrog innovation to traditional course registration software. It provides a platform for a customercentric operation with significant efficiencies in its imbedded business processes. COM enables you and your associates to convert the data in your course management business processes into intelligent and intuitive views that provide powerful marketing and sales information, customer relationship management information,

and

performance

measurement

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information.

Customer and Operations Management with CRM accomplishes all of this with the point and click of a mouse, without the need to write or rewrite complex database queries. COM’s technology platform is not anchored in a personal use database application or small business web page technology. It is robust "industrial strength" Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft ASP.net. Because this technology foundation is widely used in institutions of all sizes, IT shops can be comfortable modifying the application, if the need ever arises.

Endless hours are consumed by the many tedious communications activities related to: marketing messages, sales messages, course schedules, instructor logistics, student pre-work assignments, task management, etc. Customer and Operations Management with CRM provides an extensive array of tools to enable you and your team members to be more effective and more efficient in you operations. You will begin to measure your return of your investment in COM immediately.

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A strategy employed by an organization in which a continuous level of engagement is maintained between the organization and its audience. Relationship management can be between a business and its customers (customer relationship management) and between a business and other businesses (business relationship

management).

Relationship management is a focus of the financial and investing industries as a way to identify potential cross-sales of products and services.

Relationship management aims to create a partnership between the organization and its audience rather than consider the relationship merely transactional. Consumers who feel that a business responds to their needs are more likely to continue using the products and services that a business offers. Additionally, maintaining a level of communication with consumers allows the business to identify potential sources of costly problems before they come to a head.

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OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY



To understand and identify the



followed by the retail stores. To study the various CRM techniques adopted by organized retail firms

 

and stores. To study the benefits of CRM to the retailers and customers. To provide the effectiveness of loyalty program adopted by retail stores.

Relationship Management Practices

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The research methodology adopted in CRM in retail is a descriptive research technique taking organized retail stores as the sample population and sample size. The sampling technique used in the survey is non - probabilistic judgmental sampling using a structured questionnaire, interviews and observation methods to collect data from the customers.

RESEARCH DESIGN

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A. PRIMARY DATA: The source for primary data was collected through indepth interviews and questionnaires from customer relationship managers of selected shopping malls & retail factory outlets like Big Bazaar, Marks & Spencer, Reliance, Value Mart, Pantaloons, Shopper Stop, Reebok& Adidas factory retail outlet of Mumbai.

SECONDARY DATA: Secondary data was compiled from information published on the official websites, published annual reports, company policies, news paper articles, journals, web resources, media coverage in leading local financial publications/magazines, etc.

Relationship marketing is emerging as the core marketing activity for businesses operating in fiercely competitive environments. On average, businesses spend six times more to acquire customers than they do to keep them (Gruen, 1997). Therefore, many firms are now paying more attention to their relationships with existing customers to retain them and increase their share of customer’s purchases. Worldwide service organizations have been pioneers in developing customer retention strategies. Banks have relationship managers for select customers loyal customers, redeemable bonus points for increased customised services to their heavy users, and Service sector have personalized services for their regular customers

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Developing a core service around which to build a customer relationship, Customizing the relationship to the individual customer, Augmenting the core service with extra benefits, Pricing services to encourage customer loyalty, Marketing to employees so that they will perform well for customers

Key word: relation in retail

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CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL VIEWS

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategy for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with your customers and potential customers. It helps you improve your profitability.

CRM enables you to focus on your organisation’s relationships with individual people – whether those are customers,service users, colleagues or suppliers. Some of the biggest gains in productivity can come from moving beyond CRM as

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a sales and marketing tool and embedding it in your business – from HR to customer services and supplychain management.

A CRM system helps your business grow because it tracks the history of customer interactions. Why is this important? Because tracking is everything. From calls made and emails sent, to meetings held, presentations delivered, and even the next steps needed to close the deal or grow that customer account. To run smoothly, your business needs customer relationship data that’s automatically updated, with instant access for employees, and provides a full history of all communications, meetings, and documents shared.

With a CRM system, your business has one place to store every customer, every lead, every service request, all of their contact info, preferences,and history so your conversations are always personal, relevant, and up-to-date. All available on mobile, desktop and through powerful reports & dashboards.

Marketers can also use CRM to better understand the pipeline of prospective sales making forecasting simpler and more accurate. You'll have clear visibility of the path from enquiry to sale, available wherever & whenever you need it.

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Try to imagine, for a moment, being unable to tell family and friends apart or to distinguish them from strangers in a crowd. This is a real circumstance for some people, such as a woman, featured in this video, who suffered an injury in her work as a fire fighter and who now experiences “face blindness” because of her injury. There are even people who, although they’re otherwise healthy, live their entire life without being able to tell one person from another by just looking at them, as most of us are easily able to do. One such person, Tom Uglow of Google’s Creative Lab, has written a blog post illustrating how he must use clues to guess the identity of people he knows very well. For someone who really can’t recognize the faces of family, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances, everyone looks like a stranger.

For any business, the interactions between associates and employees, on one hand, and customers and prospects, on the other hand, tend to become numerous, scattered, and fleeting. As a business grows, its possible relationships go well beyond what we human beings can comfortably maintain as far as truly personal relationships. A business’s leaders have to find ways to maintain and develop the business’s relationships with its customers and prospects, and to the extent that a business lacks such customer relationship management, it suffers something a little like “face blindness.” Every contact the business has with a prospect or a customer remains like a first and only meeting with stranger.

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Customer relationship management, defined in one way as “the practice of building a strong relationship between a business and its customers and potential customers,” requires developing within a business the internal functions or abilities it must have, if it’s even to be capable of developing and sustaining relationships with prospects and customers. The business, as a whole, gains social abilities only to the extent that its leaders see what’s missing and give the business new organization.

Fortunately, they don’t have to invent better systems of customer relationship management from scratch. inter link ONE has experience and software tools that will help. Successful companies are focused on implementing customer-centric processes and technologies to optimize customer relationships. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is ranked as a top priority for organizations striving to enhance profitability, revenue growth and customer satisfaction. Companies can now acquire and serve customers across a wide range of channels.

As a result, increased competition and readiness mandate executives to gain a 360-degree customer understanding to facilitate satisfaction and acquisition. An understanding of the potential value and profitability of acquiring, satisfying and retaining customers requires knowledge-based solutions that identify key

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customer requirements. The new insights surrounding customers can make the difference between winning and losing in today's global economy. CRM is an enterprise business strategy encompassing a broad range of processes and functions, including call center management, sales force automation, ecommerce, field service and e-mail management. At Think Analytics, the CRM market is viewed in two segments: o

CRM front-office operational processes; and

o

CRM analytical business processes.

CRM front-office solutions have been a primary focus for organizations; and unfortunately, very little emphasis has been placed on customer analysis. And even though many companies have successfully implemented CRM front-office capabilities to provide new and immediate customer interaction channels, these same companies are missing the value generated by analyzing new and existing customer

information.

Without Customer Relationship Analytics (CRA), organizations lack the ability to discover meaningful correlations, patterns and trends required to recognize return on investment from CRM front-office investments and existing customer data.

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IMPLEMENTATION

Implementation process. CRM manages to reduce operating costs through a workforce management system. This helps to maximize skills and thus reduce cost. These reduced costs enable an organization to achieve greater efficiency. If cost reduction is management's objective then the CRM implementation should be carried out in such a way that this is achieved. Throughout the process maximum reduction in costs should be adhered to in order to meet this particular CRM goal.

Aiding the Marketing Department:

Another goal of CRM is generally aiding the marketing department in all its efforts. This includes marketing campaigns, sales promotions etc. If this is fixated as one of the goals of CRM, then it should be communicated to those involved. This goal is fundamental as it boosts sales indirectly thereby increasing the profitability.

Customer Relationship Management has no longer remained as a science of customer satisfaction but has moved towards being an integral part of corporate strategy. Customer service, delivery methods and price have become more predominant factors influencing customer decision-making. Companies are

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adopting latest tools and techniques for enhancing customer value through sophisticated CRM programs. CRM applications have significant relevance in the services sector in general and retailing in particular.

CRM is emerging as a core marketing activity for business in fiercely competitive environment. Therefore many firms are paying more attention to their relationships with existing customers to retain them and increase their share of customers‟ purchases. Service organizations are shifting their focus from “transactional exchange” to “relational exchange” for developing mutually satisfying relationship with customers (Jain at al., 2005). The need for mutual benefit through relational exchange has also been explained in many studies. Morgan and Hunt (1994) and Groonroos (1994) emphasized relationship marketing as set of activities towards developing and enhancing customer relationship for mutual exchange and fulfillment of promises. Strengthening relationship is reported to have a significant impact on profitability and customer life time value.

Fox and Stead (2001) have described customer relationship management as the establishment, development, maintenance and optimization of long-term mutually valuable relationships between customer and organizations. They further mentioned that successful CRM focuses on understanding the needs and desires of the customer and is achieved by placing these needs at the heart of the business by integrating them with the organization‟s strategy, people technology and

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practices. The scope of CRM is very wide and includes different aspects like customer satisfaction, service quality, relationship quality, trust, loyalty, commitment, customer retention etc. The shift from transaction marketing to relationship marketing has not been sudden. Levitt (1986) introduced the concept of augmented product stressing that consumers are interested in the total buying experience not just the core product. Researchers have linked increased CRM expenditure to greater customer satisfaction (Srinivasan and Moorman, 2005). Customer satisfaction is also linked with increased customer loyalty, reduced customer complaints (Bolton and Forenell, 1992) and shareholder value (Anderson et al., 2005). In the current era of hyper- competition, marketers are forced to be more concerned with customer retention and loyalty. As several studies have indicated, retaining customer is less expensive and perhaps a more sustainable competitive advantage than acquiring new ones. Marketers are realizing that it costs less to retain customers than to compete for new ones (Rosenberg and Czepiel, 1984). Long time customers tend to be less price sensitive and provide free word-of-mouth advertising. Customer expectations have also rapidly changed over the last two decades. Fueled by new technology and growing availability of advanced product features and services, customer expectations are changing almost on daily basis. Consumers are less willing to make compromises or trade-off in the product and service quality. In the world of ever-changing customer expectations, cooperative and collaborative relationship with customers seems to be the most prudent way to keep track of their changing expectations and appropriately influencing it (Sheth and Sisodia, 1995).

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Buttle (1998) and Silverman (1997) opined that companies are aware of the need to manage customer referrals. Delighted customers have engaged in referrals leading to increase sales (Biyalogorsky et al., 2001). It will be imperative for retail companies to focus on developing long term relationship with their customers. One of the determinants of the success of the relationship marketing strategies of a firm is how the customers perceive the resulting service quality. It is the perceived quality that is the key driver of perceived value. It is this perceived value, which determines the strength of company customer relationship (Berry, 1983). Kotler and Keller (2005) further explain the concept of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) in terms of the present value of the stream of future profits expected over the customers‟ life time purchases. Peppers and Rogers (2005) have pointed out that while return on investment gives an indication on how well the firm creates value from its investments, return on customer quantifies how well company creates value from its customers. CRM enables companies to get a better grip on the customer equity and offers a realistic indicator of the worth of the

customers.

LIFE WITHOUT CRM — MORE ADMINISTRATION, LESS SELLING An active sales team generates a flood of data. They can be out on the road talking to customers, meeting prospects and finding out valuable information –

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but all this information gets stored in handwritten notes, laptops, or inside the heads of your salespeople. Details can get lost, meetings are not followed up promptly and prioritising customers can be a matter of guesswork rather than a rigorous exercise based on fact. And it can all be compounded if a key salesperson moves on. "How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose."Bill Gates On top of this your customers may be contacting you on a range of different platforms – phone, email and social media. Asking questions, following up on orders or complaining. Without a common platform for customer interactions, communications can be missed or lost in the flood of information – leading to an unsatisfactory response to your customer.

Even if you do successfully collect all this data, you're faced with the challenge of making sense of it. It can be difficult to extract intelligence. Reports can be hard to create and waste valuable selling time. Managers can lose sight of what their team are up to in reality, which means that they can't offer the right support at the right time – while a lack of oversight can also result in a lack of accountability from the team.

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IDENTIFY AND CATEGORISE LEADS

A CRM system can help you to identify and add new leads easily and quickly and categorise them accurately. You can create customised pitch documents in less time, cutting down on response time and enabling sales teams to move on to the next opportunity.

With complete, accurate, centrally held information about clients and prospects, sales staff can focus their attention and energy on the right

Increase referrals from existing customers By understanding

your

customers

better, cross-selling

and

up-selling

opportunities become clear – giving you the chance to win new business from existing customers. With better information you'll also be able to keep your customers happy with better service. Happy customers are likely to become repeat customers, and repeat customers spend more – up to 33% more according to some studies.

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Improve products and services A good CRM system will gather information from a huge variety of sources across your business and beyond. This gives you unprecedented insights into how your customers feel and what they are saying about your organisation – so you can improve what you offer, spot problems early and identify gaps. CRM and

the

Cloud

Computing Revolution Perhaps the most significant recent development in CRM systems has been the move into the cloud. Freed from the need to install software on hundreds or thousands of desktop PCs and mobile devices, organisations worldwide are discovering the benefits of moving data, software and services into a secure online environment. Work from anywhere Cloud-based CRM systems such as Salesforce mean every user has the same information, all the time. Your sales force out on the road can check data, update it instantly after a meeting or work from anywhere. The same information is available to anyone who needs it, from the sales team to the customer service representatives.

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Reduce costs CRM can be quick and easy to implement. A cloud-based system doesn't need special installation and there's no hardware to set up, keeping IT costs low and removing the headache of version control and update schedules.

Generally, cloud-based CRM systems are priced on the number of users who access the system and the kinds of features you need. This can be very costeffective in terms of capital outlay, and is also extremely flexible – enabling you to scale up and add more people as your business grows. Cloud-based CRM platforms such as Salesforce are flexible in terms of functionality, too - you're just paying for the range of features that are useful to you.

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BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT Objective: Business Relationship Management aims to maintain a positive relationship with customers. ITIL Business Relationship Management identifies the needs of existing and potential customers and ensures that appropriate services are developed to meet those needs.

Processes These are the Business Relationship Management sub-processes and their process objectives:

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Maintain Customer Relationships 

Process Objective: To ensure that the service provider continues to understand the needs of existing customers and establishes relationships with potential new customers. This process is also responsible for maintaining the Customer Portfolio.

Identify Service Requirements 

Process Objective: To understand and document the desired outcome of a service, and to decide if the customer's need can be fulfilled using an existing service offering or if a new or changed service must be created.

Sign up Customers to Standard Services 

Process Objective: To capture customer requirements and agree service level targets with customers who request the provision of existing standard services (no modifications to existing Supporting Services are necessary in order to fulfill the customer's needs).

Customer Satisfaction Survey 

Process Objective: To plan, carry out and evaluate regular customer satisfaction surveys. The principal aim of this process is to learn about

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areas where customer expectations are not being met before customers are lost to alternative service providers.

Handle Customer Complaints 

Process Objective: To record customer complaints and compliments, to assess the complaints and to instigate corrective action if required.

Monitor Customer Complaints 

Process Objective: To continuously monitor the processing status of outstanding customer complaints and to take corrective action if required.

NATURE AND SCOPE OF CRM The Customer is King! This credo is more powerful, relevant and true today than ever before. In a truly customer driven economy, success depends on a company's ability to be with the customer on a round the clock basis… satisfying all their product and service specific needs. Simply stated, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is about finding, getting, and retaining customers.

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Customer Relationship Management is one of the hottest and most talked about topics in the industry today and for good reason. Industry analysts recently reported that CRM expenditures will grow grows year on year basis

CRM is all about building long term business relationships with your customers. It is best described as the blending of internal business processes: Sales, Marketing and Customer support with technology. CRM solutions empower businesses to more efficiently and effectively manage the activities that affect their relationship with their customers. The ultimate goal of CRM is to meet and exceed customer expectations, create a positive customer experience and build customer loyalty.

CRM changes all of this and represents a continuing evolution in managing front office operations. With CRM, traditional departmental applications for sales, marketing and customer service are consolidated into a single unified system capable of managing the entire customer life cycle. This approach allows employees throughout an organization to have immediate access to a complete profile of important customer information. Organizations who are implementing CRM solutions feel confident that providing access to this level of

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information will assist their sales and support staff in better understanding the needs and buying patterns of their customers.

CRM (customer relationship management) is an information industry term for methodologies, software, and usually Internet capabilities that help an enterprisemanage customer relationships in an organized way.

CRM is at the core of any customer-focused business strategy and includes the people, processes, and technology questions associated with marketing, sales, and service. In today's hyper-competitive world, organizations looking to implement successful CRM strategies need to focus on a common view of the customer using integrated information systems and contact center implementations that allow the customer to communicate via any desired communication channel.

What exactly is the definition of Customer Relationship Management? Ask a dozen professionals, get a dozen different definitions. Here's a general overview: 

CRM is used to learn more about your key customers needs in order to develop a stronger relationship with them.

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

Customer Relationship Management can be defined as a companies activities related to increasing the customer base by acquiring new customers and meeting the needs of the existing customers. CRM is about building partnerships with your customers. It uses internal business processes from Sales, Customer Service and Marketing.



The philosophy of CRM is the recognition that your long-term relationships with your customers can be one of the most important assets of an organization, providing competitive advantage and improved profitability



The most important part of CRM is the "customer-focus".

CRM uses technology, strategic planning and personal marketing techniques to build a relationship that increases profit margins and productivity. It uses a business strategy that puts the customer at the core of a companies processes and practices. It requires this customer focused business philosophy to support effective sales, marketing, customer service and order fulfillment.

Regardless of company size or industry, businesses have begun to recognize the value and importance of customer retention and are embracing new technology for automating customer service and support. For the new millennium, it seems that the customer has finally become King

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CHAPTER 3 RETAIL SECTOR AND ROLES

Retail industry is going through a paradigm shift in its structure, composition and practices in India. Emergence of organized retailing in the recent past has strongly influenced the lifestyle of every consumer. Increasing levels of competition and spiraling demands of customers are posing serious challenges for retaining customers. Be it a traditional grocery store from unorganized sector or a chain of retail stores from organized sector, each one of them is finding out innovative and superior ways to attract and keep customers for market share and profitability. Managing effective relationships with customer is the key to achieve sustainable

competitive

advantage

in

today’s

business

environment.

Understanding and responding to cognitive and emotional expectations serve as the core for developing, nurturing and sustaining lifelong relationships with customers. CRM has been widely accepted and practiced as the most effective marketing technique involving human and technical dimensions. It involves an all round customer centricity and commitment of the entire organization to align its people, process and technology to serve customers. The present paper provides insights into behavioral dimensions of CRM in retailing and proposes valuable implications for professionals.

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In the pre development era, buyers ruled the market. As these buyers were short in number and customers were more. The choice available was very less. Later stage by stage development has changed the complete market scenario. Now customers have a wide range of choice. These customers are now considered as the King in the market. To persuade and convince this King is an important part of marketing. Building and maintaining a healthy relation with this King will determine the stand in this competitive market. Thus customer relationship management has an important role. CRM’s main aim is to develop long-term trusting relationship with customers, distributors, suppliers and other parties in marketing environment. Building a healthy relation with the customer is usually, integral to small business units, like an owner of small corner shop, small shopkeeper who has direct knowledge of all regular customers and become familiar with their needs, likes, dislikes, bonding a loyal relationship. Customer relationship management is a process whereby the seller & buyer join a strong personal, professional, mutual profitable relationship overtime. This is nothing new, what is new is that in today’s market place emergence of internet & associated influx of global customers paired with reduced human interaction makes it impossible to build relationship with customers in traditional way. CRM is implication of attained information, technology, process and enhance a healthy relation with the customers.

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The Indian retail business has shown tremendous phase of dramatic growth and is one of the most promising industry today. Retail industry in India has become modern which can be seen from the fact that there are multi storey malls, huge shopping centers and sprawling complexes which offer food, shopping and entertainment, and all under the same roof. Shopping in India has witnessed a revolution with respect to the changing consumer buying behavior. Customer has become a smart shoppers. They don’t want to pay more for identical brands, especially when service differences have diminished. In today’s scenario where customer has become king there customer relation management has become an essential element of retail industry to secure the loyalty of customers. The purpose of this study is to analyze the several components of Customer Relationship Management used by retailer of Mumbai to attract the customers and to gain their loyalty.

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Figure Completing the CRM vision

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We're not saying that the last decade's investment in CRM has been wasted. Quite the contrary: what began as a solution for providing more efficient customer transactions evolved into a process by which companies could foster more meaningful customer interactions (see Figure 2). This was the right direction to take. However, companies haven't reached the end of the CRM road. Today, the challenge is to take this evolution one step farther - to focus on building lasting and profitable customer dialogues at all interaction and transaction touch points to build customer and brand value. Figure Evolution of CRM

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As CRM evolved, many companies assumed that just bolting on new technology (e.g., client/server, call centers, salesforce automation software, data warehouses, etc.) or adding new services would enhance customer relationships. This assumption was as pernicious as it was false. After all, you can't sell what people don't want to buy, no matter how efficient and service-oriented your sales channel. And as for gathering customer insights, be careful what you wish for. Many companies faced the unsettling paradox of having advanced data availability and analytic techniques that quickly outpaced their ability to absorb and apply the information. They were left with sophisticated tools that offered little real value.

The belief is that the third wave of CRM will bring about the ultimate transformation of customer experiences - not just by strengthening sales and service or even promoting interactions with your customers - but by creating a series of "intelligent conversations" that build over time into a long-term, meaningful dialogue. In this next evolutionary phase of CRM, information will be exchanged and acted on in real time. Consumer history will be recorded (and remembered) and the expectations of both parties will be met. Naturally, not every conversation will be profitable. But the series of conversations and the

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ongoing knowledge transfer will continue to grow, creating a memorable and differentiated customer experience, and, in the long run, a profitable relationship

ROLE OF MARKETING IN CRM "CRM IS ONLY A TOOL, ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING".

HEAD CRM & ERP, TATA INFOTECH

ROLE OF MARKETING IN CRM

To continuously attract and retain the most valuable customers, companies must act aggressively to increase the economic value of both their brand and customer relationships. In addition, they must sustain bottom-line performance in the face of skyrocketing marketing costs. To realize these goals, companies must continue their efforts to maximize their investments in the sales and service technologies that help reach, understand and interact intelligently with customers. But they must also extend this traditional scope of CRM to reach a higher standard of excellence in three distinct disciplines: analytical, creative and operational marketing.

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Once these improved marketing processes are linked with core CRM capabilities, companies will be able to drive seamless, consistent and real-time response across marketing, sales and customer service. The result will be a sustainable process that not only enables lasting customer relationships but also harnesses that elusive construct: superior brand value.

Analytical Marketing drives market segmentation and identifies your most profitable customers. Information from each customer interaction channel is collected, analyzed and used to develop predictions of your individual customer's behaviors.

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Analytical marketing utilizes those processes and sophisticated technologies that allow businesses to direct their overall marketing investment across the brand and customer. In a sense, analytical marketing tools are the "nuts and bolts" of the marketing engine.

Specifically, analytical marketing converts customer data, gathered at various touch points, into relevant insights that direct market segmentation activities and feed into more effective campaign design. Through predictive modeling, analytics lead to a more robust understanding of customers and markets and an improved ability to make strategic and operational decisions about customer treatment. The ultimate outcome is increased profitability, based on customer differentiation, and more informed decisions related to the development of product, pricing, promotion, packaging, and channels.

Without analytics, companies will keep investing in CRM without ever knowing where their money is having the greatest impact. In short, analytical marketing puts customer insights to work for the organization and prevents the company from delivering the wrong content to the wrong person at the wrong time.

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Creative Marketing relies on analytical tools and customer insight capabilities to improve marketing programs, optimize the overall marketing investment and deliver the brand promise. As the number of customer channels has exploded, so has the need for creative marketing, which involves all the activities associated with building and sustaining a compelling brand and ensuring that customer interactions reflect a satisfying brand experience.

In the past, creative marketing efforts have been applied to CRM efforts in much the same way as technology. It's been far too easy for companies to develop a host of messages - from ad campaigns to customer service representative scripts that are unintentionally inconsistent. Such inconsistent messages delivered via a number of different channels - when coupled with poor understanding of why brand and message consistency is so critical to the customer experience - often produce fragmented experiences that frustrate the customer who probably won't come back.

Fortunately, companies are changing the way they approach creative marketing. By integrating its processes with those of analytical and operational marketing, and by focusing on the total customer experience, creative marketing can now be used to build a unified brand across all of a company's online and offline

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channels. In other words, creative marketing is no longer considered an "afterthought".

Operational Marketing relies on customer insight information to personalize interactions, differentiate sales and service across segments, drive continuous improvement across customer interaction processes and generate revenue lift.

When these marketing disciplines work in tandem with your existing sales and service capabilities, your entire CRM effort becomes revitalized. Information becomes dynamic. Insights become powerful barometers of customers' likes and dislikes. Comprehensive marketing campaigns become targeted and compelling. The result is a customer base that is pleased with the unique and personalized interactions you provide. Customer loyalty rises, as does your brand value and, ultimately, your revenue.

Its efforts encompass all the activities of data mining and data warehousing, which continuously harvest customer information from a variety of contact points. Leveraged by creative and analytical marketing capabilities, this information is assessed and converted into meaningful insights that drive ongoing, personalized marketing efforts. The goal of operational marketing is to enable ongoing "conversations" with individual customers across all channels.

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CRM TO ICRM (Integrated Customer Relationship Management)

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is developing into a major element of corporate strategy for many organizations. CRM, also known by other terms such as relationship marketing and customer management, is concerned with the creation, development and enhancement of individualized customer relationships with carefully targeted customers and customer groups resulting in maximizing their total customer life-time value.

Industry leaders are now addressing how to transform their approach to customer management. Narrow functionally-based traditional marketing is being replaced by a new form of cross functional marketing - CRM. The traditional approach to marketing has been increasingly questioned in recent years. This approach emphasised management of the key marketing mix elements such as product, price, promotion and place within the functional context of the marketing department.

The new CRM approach, whilst recognising these key elements still need to be addressed, reflects the need to create an integrated cross-functional focus on marketing - one which emphasises keeping as well as winning customers. Thus the focus is shifting from customer acquisition to customer retention and ensuring

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the appropriate amounts of time, money and managerial resources are directed at both of these key tasks. The new CRM paradigm reflects a change from traditional marketing to what is now being described as ‘customer management’.

The adoption of CRM is being fuelled by a recognition that long-term relationships with customers are one of the most important assets of an organisation and that information-enabled systems must be developed that will give them 'customer ownership'. Successful customer ownership will create competitive advantage and result in improved customer retention and profitability for the company.

In many companies there is still confusion as to what CRM is all about. To some it is about a loyalty scheme, to some it is about a help desk. To others it is about a relational data base for key account management and for others it is about mass profiling the customer base without undertaking detailed segmentation. Relatively few organisations have implemented an integrated approach, which addresses all the key strategic elements of CRM. Only a small number of businesses have a clear idea what should be done with information technology in order to successfully implement CRM.

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INTEGRATED CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (ICRM) The development of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) marketing practice has made more and more people realize the importance of strong customer relationship in building sustainable competitive advantages in their market competitions and in generating sustainable profits in the long run. However, the currently popular CRM marketing practice often produces disappointing outcomes. Surveys after surveys, a surprisingly high rate of failure has been reported for CRM practices. The failure rate of CRM systems ranges from 50% to over 80%. The major CRM system developers received much lower Customer Satisfaction scores than companies in other industries did. The more popular this marketing practice gets, the more people who realize that the current CRM practice hardly manages customer relationship.

The current CRM practice was originated from a combination of database technologies and database marketing (analytical techniques), so unavoidably, it inherits database as its only focus. When it gets into the spotlight and becomes a major marketing practice, its inherited characteristics become its limitations. It incorrectly defines customer purchase and contact behaviors as customer relationship, restricts its marketing scope within a company's database and ignores customers needs by focusing on purchase correlation in a company’s database.

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Any good customer relationship management practice should start by answering the following 6 critical questions: 1.

What is customer relationship

2.

What drives customer relationship

3.

How to measure customer relationship

4.

Which customers should you build relationship with

5.

How to improve customer relationship

6.

How to develop effective customer relationship management strategies

However, no existing CRM system is able to answer (or is designed to answer) these questions. Without clear answers to these critical questions, how could a company know what customer relationship it needs to manage? How could it know if it has a strong relationship with its customers under market competitions and how could it know with which customers it needs to build strong relationship

To effectively manage customer relationship, one should follow the following rules:

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

Rule 1: Building strong customer relationship should be set as the primary goal of a company’s marketing practice and all marketing functions should serve to the enhancement of a company’s customer relationship;



Rule 2: Customer relationship should be defined and constructed based on customers’ basic needs. In the “Customer Centric” customer relationship management practice, needs construct value and value determines customer relationship;



Rule 3: Customer relationship should be measured and improved under market competitions. Customer relationship is competitive and a company should manage its Competitive Customer Relationship.



Rule 4: Customer relationship management practice should not be a sub-function of a company’s IT department. Customer relationship management should be an INTEGRATED part of a company’s marketing practices.

Integrated Customer Relationship Management (ICRM) is the latest marketing strategy, which has developed to meet the challenges raised from our daily marketing consulting services. It is our solution to overcome the limitations of the current CRM practice. ICRM provides a theoretical framework to define and to construct customer relationship based on customers’ needs under market competitions. ICRM also provides a practical guideline of a standard process for effective customer relationship management.

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ICRM is based on the very fact that by building a strong customer relationship, a company can build sustainable competitive advantages in the long run. Therefore, in ICRM practice, building strong customer relationship is set as the primary goal of a company’s marketing practices and it requires all marketing functions in a company to serve to the enhancement of its customer relationship.

ICRM puts customer needs in the center of marketing practices and defines customer relationship based on customers’ basic needs under market competitions. It integrates all major marketing functions in the process of building strong customer relationship.

E-CRM The rules of the game have changed for CRM. Customer demand for increased value, greater convenience, and more control over products and services, along with heightened pressure from competitors, have increased customer acquisition costs and decreased customer and brand loyalty. At the same time, advancements in technology have enabled the cost-effective distribution of huge amounts of customer data, the delivery of customized products, and the efficient use of interactive channels. These technology developments are creating major

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opportunities to collect and use customer information to gain a better understanding of customer needs and to strengthen customer relationships. To take advantage of these opportunities and address the escalating demands of customers, companies are shifting the focus of their efforts to adopt a customercentric approach. Product excellence, innovation, and operational efficiency are still important; however, successful companies are building on these existing business strengths as they shift their attention to their customers.

E-CRM refers to the set of activities that enable a firm to utilize the power of the Internet and the electronic medium to implement CRM. Firms all around the world have realized the potential of the Internet as a medium for CRM and have been actively pursuing e-CRM strategies.

To achieve positive results like these from their eCRM efforts, companies must develop a comprehensive strategy for managing and utilizing customer knowledge. This strategy should include three key objectives:

Know Your Customer

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Reach Your Customer

Grow Your Customer

CHANGING NEEDS

Figure --- Key Aspects of e-CRM Know Your Customer

Know Your Customer is about understanding your individual customer's value and needs. This understanding comes only from collecting information that customers provide in their interactions with your company, and developing a 360-degree view of customer behavior across all touch points. As you begin a dialogue with individual customers, you create a learning relationship with your customers; each interaction becomes an opportunity to build and extend your relationship with that customer. The more extensive the learning relationship, the more invested the customer becomes in the relationship and the more difficult it will be for the customer to switch to a competitor.

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Reach Your Customer

Reach Your Customer is about reaching the right customers with the right offer at the right time through the right channel. Based on your knowledge of each customer, you are able to reach specific customers with targeted offers, information, products, and services. You reach each customer with a personalized message based on his or her needs, behaviors, and value.

Grow Your Customer

Grow Your Customer refers to your company's ability to effectively execute Marketing strategies based on your knowledge of customer share and customer lifetime value. You must use scarce investment dollars to target your efforts to your best, most valuable customers. Increasing the total value of your customer base by retaining and growing your best customers, is significantly less expensive than trying to generate the same amount of value by acquiring new customers. Focusing on your best customers requires you to re-examine and reallocate total Marketing and sales investments from less profitable customers and the acquisition of new customers. A complete e-CRM architecture would comprise of the following components

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1. Sales Force Automation (SFA) 2. E-Mail Management System (EMS) 3. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) 4. Knowledge Management (KM) 5. Call Centers 6. Instant online querying through Chat

Managing a full range of customer relationship involves two related objectives 1.

Provide the firm and its customer-dealing personnel, a complete singular

view of each and every customer 2.

To provide the customer with the same singular uniform level of service in

every interaction with the company through every channel.

The above-mentioned proposition can be illustrated with a simple example. A person dealing with a bank should be able to get the same level of service whether he contacts the bank through phone, the Internet or in person. This implies that all details about the person and his past transactions need to be consistent and available vis-à-vis every channel.

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Additionally, IT is expected to support the selection and implementation of the best management tools that not only provide an integrated solution, but also leverage prior and future IT investments. For both IT and Marketing, resource constraints make it critical that the technology solution enables Marketing to manage its increased responsibilities with minimal intervention and assistance from IT

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CHAPTER 4 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP ANALYSIS

POLICIES OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

CRM is a combination of policies, processes, and strategies implemented by an organization to unify its customer interactions and provide a means to track customer information. It involves the use of technology in attracting new and profitable customers, while forming tighter bonds with existing ones

Customer relationship management is an emerging tool that enables marketers to maintain their presence in the dynamic marketing environment. Customer relationship management is high on the corporate agenda. Recent research carried out by Business Intelligence reveals that six out of ten companieshavealready started out on the CRM journey.

CRM needs a deep understanding of the customer expectations, attitude & behaviour through a well organized& maintained customer database & innovative customer strategies. The goal of CRM is to ensure customer satisfaction & delight at every level of interface with the company (Pahuja&Verma, 2008).Key Principle of Customer Relationship Management

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The most challenging and exciting time to live in is on the cusp of change. And that is where India is today. This huge, multicultural country India is transforming from a socialist economy to a consumption led creative economy. The scope and depth of change that is taking place across the India defies description .This Change provides both a humongous challenge and a gigantic opportunity for marketers and retailers.

Retailing is not only an important aspect of the economic structure but very much a part of our lives. Though trading of goods has been in existence since the older days, it is only in the recent past that the buying and selling of goods have become moredominated activity. In fact, today retailing is evolving into a global, high tech business.

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M and Organized Retail Sector

Products are easy to copy, services are harder to copy but the learned relationship that a customer has with or his supplier is nearly impossible to reproduce. It increases profitability of the retail business in five key ways:

• • •

Customer loyalty translates into reduced price competition Customer information allows companies to target profitable customers. Predictable buying patterns lower inventory holding costs, spoilage, and

• •

distribution costs. Customer loyalty reduces advertising and marketing costs. Customer loyalty extends products life cycle.

Penetrating Customer Model Descriptive Method was undertaken to conduct the research.To attain information about CRM & its competitive advantage,

LARGE DISCOUNTS/ EXCHANGES/ SCHEMES The remarkable discount offered by these malls and retails outlets has induced the customers on a larger scale. The customers gets a large amount of flat discounts on the product purchased. The loyal customers are intimated from time to time about the various discounts and exchange schemes offered by the outlets and malls. These malls offer extra special discounts on weekends and special religious and national holidays.

LOYALTY POINT PROGRAMMES

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Shopping Outlets like Shopper Stop, Pantaloons etc, issue loyalty cards to customers. These cards are debited with points on every purchase made. The customer can redeem these points from time to time purchase and available various discount offers. These customers are also given an additional discount Benefit during sale period. The names and details of these customers are registered and are followed up by the malls through SMS and Phone calls from time to time and on various occasions.

LARGE VARIETIES OF PRODUCT UNDER ONE ROOF Retails and shopping malls have varieties of branded quality products under one roof e.g. Shirts and trousers of various brands like Louis Philippe, Vanheusen, Pan America, Indigo nation, Peter England etc are available under one roof. The customer can prefer his brand or can prefer as per his budgeted cost the shirt or trouser he wants. The product purchased does not compromise the quality. Thus people prefer purchasing from these malls.

SPECIAL OFFERS & PERSONALIZED SERVICES Various shopping malls prefer providing personalized services and special offers on various occasions. These malls give special offer like flat 50%, 30% etc. on products on occasions like customers birthday or anniversaries , wedding etc. These malls send warm greetings, emails and personal calls on such occasions which ultimately induce the customer and maintain a loyalty towards the firm

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INFRASTRUCTURE Facilities like lifts, escalators, parking, food malls, etc. are provided by various outlets. In comparison with the other stores, customers usually find these problems while shopping at other stores. These infrastructural facilities make it flexible and simple for the customer to shop at such malls. Cities like Mumbai where parking is a major problem, it has been eased by providing underground parking in the malls

QUALITY PRODUCTS AT LESS PRICE Quality is in high demand by customers today. The customer wants the best at cheapest cost. These malls provide a wide range of quality products at the cheapest price. These malls give special price off on occasions, weekends, other special days. To attract customers ,these malls also keeps one day a week when products are offered at low prices. Eg: Big Bazar offers all its products on a special discounted price on Wednesday. The customers are satisfied by these quality products with best price offs.

TIME SAVINGS People in world today have become very busy. They are just focused on attaining things at a fast speed. They have a very little time to move from one place to another to shop things therefore they want things under one roof. So these malls have a large demand. Time saving factor has been covered by these outlets and plazas.

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FREE OFFERS, SAMPLES, GIFTS To attain a competitive advantage, stores and outlets today provide free gifts and vouchers on purchase of products till a specified amount. The customer to get an added advantage and attain various price off makes purchases. Eg. Mega mart offered Cherokee watch on total purchase of amount exceeding Rs.6500 and then a Reebok sunglass, watch and travel bag on purchase of products above Rs. 10500/-., 25% customer in this case shopped and got the free gifts. Stores and outlets today also provide various sample free gift on purchase of various products, thus inducing and keeping the customer happy

CONSUMERS CONTESTSVarious stores and outlets today arrange various contests for the consumers. The consumer part take and attain various opportunities to win various goodies and gifts. Eg.BigBazaar, arranged a quiz competition for few customers on various product knowledge. The winners were awarded various free vouchers. These contests in various firms build a long-term relation with the young and the kids are also induced towards these mall and stores.

FINANCING FACILITIES Stores and outlets gives a wide range of financial facilities. Croma has made tie ups with Bajaj finance to provide 0% interest loan on various consumers durable products. These financing facilities have made, the customers remain loyal and customers are ready to shop and visit again and again.

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AFTER SALE SERVICES After sales services is another area where customer focuses on. Only purchasing the product won’t make the customer satisfied, he is keen about the after sale services provided by these firms. After sales service like demo, repairs, free services, feedbacks etc, makes the customer happy and induced. These keeps the firms customers loyal and emotionally attached to the firm.

CUSTOMERS LOYALTY: CRM helps the firm to maintain a long term healthy relationship with the customers. It helps the customer to be an important part and contributor of this firm. The customers are induced by the various price off, discounts, exchanges, schemes etc. provided by the firm. The special discounts, personalized services attract the customers more and more. Technological advancement helps in intimating the customers who are there by happy and remain loyal

LONG-TERM RELATION RESULTING PROFIT: The main motive of every business is ultimately profit, and this motive can’t be met unless adequate customers are available, to maintain customers, services and facilities given by the firm should be such that the customer get emotionally bended with the firm. This binding makes the relationship of customers with the firm strong and healthy. A healthy and strong bended relationship contributes a profit to the firm.

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Customers having good relations pay any amount thus helping the firm to attain its profit.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: CRM is an important factor in today’s market Scenario. Maintaining the customers with the firm helps the firm attain competitive advantage over other firms. Malls and stores today are focusing on giving the best personalized services through various sources and media. To maintain the customers and be at the top of competition.

LOWER COST ON ADVERTISEMENTS/GENERATING CUSTOMERS: CRM helps in maintaining an effective, efficient, enthusiastic and ethical long term relationship. These customers are part marketers for the firm. The higher marketing costs associated with generating interest in new customers are opposed as that of already informed customers. The cost estimated for attracting new customers is six times high that of maintaining existing customers. Implication of CRM has thus reduced and helped in maintaining loyal customers.

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SHOWING SEGREGATION OF CUSTOMERS AS PER AREA OF

INTEREST

USING MCOMMERCE A VITAL TOOL FOR CRM IN ORGANIZED FORMAT

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH MOBILE CRM IN ORGANIZED

Mobile Customer Relationship Management (mCRM) system is one of the recent advancements in CRM systems. Recent years, customers using mobile phone have presented a very fast growing on value added services, SMS and information services. Advances in technology have changed the way in which the

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retail sector conducts business and are increasingly providing customer with greater conveniences. The purpose of this paper a study on managing customer relationships through mCRM in organized retail outlets discusses about strategies adopted and advancements mCRM work effectively. Mobile CRM promotes satisfaction to customers through the mobile medium on communication. The research paper resulted in Mobile customer relationship management is an efficient tool that will make great adjustments, savings and benefits Mobile-CRM system very low costs and a great impact on the customer satisfaction for organized retail outlets. Retailers gain a competitive advantage and improve customer relationship management by Mobile CRM.

Mobile-CRM services play an important role in a new trend which aims to create and manage personalized customer relationships. ‘The performance of the retailing sector for the past few years is outstanding and witnesses a huge revamping exercise, significantly contributed by the growth of the organized retail services. Rapid urbanization, exposure to large number of foreign brands and changing lifestyle and preferences has contributed to the growth of retailing in India’

Advances in technology have changed the way in which the retail sector conducts business and are increasingly providing customers with greater conveniences. It is also increasingly imperative to provide CRM activities through media that customers are interested in interacting with the company. In practice, the

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development of digital channels and their consideration to create unique and positive experiences for customers by mixing aspects of product, service, brand and communication has led to a situation where several companies and industries have started utilizing the mobile medium to promote CRM activities.

 Communication, for the purpose of building and maintaining customer relationships between company and its customer.  The communication would be about sales, marketing, and customer service activities conducted through mobile medium between the company and the customer.

 Communication can be initiated by either the company or the customer.  Communication

thorough

SMS

(short

message

service),

MMS

(multimedia service), JAVA applications and browsing.  One of the parties engaged in the communication must be human and, naturally, communicate through mobile medium.  Mobile medium is seen as a complementary channel for CRM activities instead of seeing it as a substitute of traditional ones

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ADVANTAGE OF MOBILE CRM

 Mobile CRM system does Not require you to carry any loyalty membership cards in your wallet.  Mobile CRM system Increase customer satisfaction and increase productivity.  Mobile CRM

More

efficient

processes

and

improved

internal

communication.  Mobile CRM, customer are many retail outlets loyalty program can participate through individual mobile phone.  Mobile CRM system Improved information transparency and data quality.  Mobile CRM system Low costs for customer relationship management.

Impact of Technology Today in CRM Problem Major key issues impact on customer satisfaction faced problem in CRM system.

Major key issues-

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Understanding individual customers Customers wish product and service round the clock Speed of response Personalized Customization Loses membership cards & rewards points Advertising & Promotion cost high High cost Customer Relationship Management

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Concept of Mobile Customer Relationship Management (mCRM) has emerged, as a one-to one marketing strategy focused on services built for individual customers in an increasingly mobile CRM. There are many benefits to using a mobile CRM system. To begin, it allows remote employees to use mobile devices, such as tablets and Smartphone’s, to access, update, and interact with customer data whenever they want, wherever they are. Everyone in the company who touches the customer in any way uses the CRM system.

Mobile customer relationship management (mobile CRM) is a type of customer relationship management application designed to be executed, operated and accessed through mobile platforms. Mobile CRM enables organizations to add, edit and manage their interaction and relationships with current or prospective customers through mobile applications on handheld mobile devices and tablet PCs.

Advanced features and application mobile customer relationship management : Marketing, sales, services

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 Mobile phones replace physical loyalty cards and provide personalized mobile services.  Rewards point status information sent directly to Mobile phones.  Mobile apps better ways product characteristics and product price, discount and information finding store location and account managed directly to mobile phones.  Payment conformation to help credit/debit card holder provide information is sent directly to mobile phones.  Advertising and promotional information is sent directly to mobile phones.  Mobile phones used to capture, manage and redeem coupons and discounts.

Retail player adopted advancement Mobile CRM system

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Presently retail players adopted Mobile CRM system using by marketing tool and mobile based loyalty program, mobile apps & retailers to customers provided customized & personalized services. 1. mobile apps work presently retail player adopted Mobile CRM: Domino’s pizza , café coffee day, pizza hut 2. Mobile based loyalty program work presently retail player ; Peter England, John players, Pepe jeans, Adidas, Woodland, Reebok, Puma, Reid & Taylor, Lee, Gini&jony ,Vanheusen,ColorPlus.

3. Snapshot mobile apps domino’s pizza retail players

Snapshot for mobile apps café coffee day & pizza hut

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 Mobile-CRM System No hardware, like card readers or scanners are necessary at the POS – investment for retailers is low.  Speed of response and understanding each individual one of the major key issues CRM  Mobile-CRM has emerged as a popular business strategy in today’s competitive environment help of mobile CRM, retailers can gather information about the customer’s needs and preferences. Possibility ofdata collection for CRM.  Mobile-CRM related mobile services can provide more timely and relevant information to customers, increasing customer loyalty and retention.  Fast Communications are important for the purpose of building and maintaining customer relationships between retailers and its customers.  Customers largely select their retail outlets based on how greater conveniences, understand customer needs better and suitable responses customer inquires transactions, complaints and problem solved.  Customers prefer services can provide more timely and relevant information to customers. It is also found that customer are demanding personalized service when and where they need them.  No plastic or paper card is necessary & No need to carry multiple bulky membership cards.

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RESULT In this study, we found that that efficiency, convenience and personalization, customization are the most important of retailers customers. Analyzed retailers ways of build good relationship with customer provided m-coupons & discount, mobile based membership program, promotions & advertising SMS, mobile apps and customization product demanding and With a technological in wireless networks development, 3G is a part of life and 4G is coming in the near future. A well mobile infrastructure is implemented through the mobile medium to increase customer satisfaction and build long term relationship to customer through Mobile CRM.

RESEARCH ANALYSIS

Percentage of Target Income of customer for retail out let in Mumbai

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There are 27% of the organised retail outlets in Malls which are targeting the high income consumer segment, and then it is followed by the medium income consumer segment (23%) being targeted by the retail stores in Mumbai . Only 10% of the retail stores are targeting very high income consumer segment. Some of the stores which are targeting very high income consumer segment are: Flying Machine, Provogue etc.

Percentage of retail stores collecting customer data:

From the responses given by the 30 retail stores it is found that 80% of the organized retail stores are heavily relying on the constructing customers' database to let their CRM system work effectively.

On the other hand only 20% of the organized retail stores say that they are not collecting data and constructing the customers' database.

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These facts indicate that there exists a trend of maintaining customers' database to maintain further relationship with the customers. These retail stores are having an added advantage over the other players in the retail industry which are not maintaining customers' database.

Percentage of type of information collection by retail stores About 23% of the total retailers require the personal information of the customers and the same number of the retailer also collect the all types of the mentioned data relating to the customer. The above % data are based on the total number of frequencies for each of the factor of the information relating to the customers. The total number of 12.31% of the retailers who collects only the occupation relating information also collects the personal information of the customers. These % figures are not supposed to be in exclusive manner.

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Different ways used to collect customer data: 43% retailers prefer to use feedback forms to collect the customers' information. The simple reason is that it not only provides the customers' personal information but also provide the customers'' views in the form of feedbacks regarding their service and product quality etc. 36% of the retail outlets prefer to collect customersregardinginformation through the entry form.12% retailer use bill records to collect the customers' information. These are desired by those retailers who want to have to records of only those customers who make purchase at their retail stores. Only 9% of the organised retail stores exercise all the methods of collecting customers' information.

CRM software status of organized retail stores:

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67% per cent of the organised retail outlets are using computerized CRM system to have a smooth CRM process and an added advantage over the other players in the industry. But there also exists contrasting figure of 13% retailers who say that they don't require any kind of the computerized CRM system.

They believe manually process the data. The retail stores in Mumbai who don't have CRM system at present but are willing to implement it in their organization amounts to a handsome number of 17%.Only 03% of the total surveyed retail outlets in Mumbai assert to have ordered the CRM system to the organization for the effective implementation of the CRM principles and the strategies.

Percentage of the uniformity of the implemented CRM software system:

The 70% of total retail stores who have implemented the CRM system in their organization say that CRM software system is uniformly implemented nationwide. All the features and customers' data collection methods are same for all the outlets of their retail firm are same. Whereas only 30% of 67% retail stores have their own exclusive CRM software systems.

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Retailers views about the importance of CRM in sales:

Total 77% of the organised retailers strongly agreed that CRM is very important in maximization of sales. This point of view of retailers about CRM'srole in sales generation reflects that without effective CRM implementation in the retail store the retailers would not be able to achieve their target goals and they will remain illusive.

On the other part only 3% of the retailers were neutral on the importance of CRM in sales. These facts say that CRM is anonymously considered as the key aspect of the sales generation tools but the level of the impact if CRM may very strong or average on sales of the retail stores.

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Retailers view about attending the customer:

Managers of the retail stores of Udaipur are giving less personal touch to the consumers as only 7% of the retailers believe in personally communicating with the customers. Only 3% of the retailers say that they do not attend the customers personally as they provide self service to the customers and when customers face any problem then they help them.

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Different ways to build good relationship with customer;

Almost all of the retailers of Mumbai are using various mean to build a good relationship with the customers. Festival offers, Regular feedbacks and after sales services constitute the major part of the practices used to build a healthy relationship with the customers.

There are only 8% of the retailers who are making the use of all kind of the practices to have the faith of the customers in them.

Retailers view about customer complaints regarding their product and services:

Only 23% retailers said that the customers never complain.

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But this per cent is very low which reflect that in Mumbai 77% retailers are facing complaints of the consumers regarding their products and services and they are not providing up to the mark services and products to the consumers though the complaints may be rare and few.

The total number of 40% retailers admit that there are rare chances that the customers complain about their products because these try to satisfy the customers up to their best level. 37% of the total retailers admit that sometimes there may be faults in the products and services provided to the consumers but only few consumers complain depending on the impact and level of the fault and defect in the product.

Percentage of assessing change needs in product :

16.67% retailers thinks that they always try to provide what the customers desire and for this they daily asses any change from the customers, who visit their retail store, regarding the product enhancement. 33.33% and 20% retailers take the

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view of customers, often and rarely respectively, regarding any change in the product and services they provide. There is a handsome number (30%) of the retailers who say that they are bound to offer what the parent company supplies. The exclusiveness of the store restricts them to offer what they produce.

Percentage of special schemes offered by the retailers:

15% of the total retailers are very aggressive in offering the special schemes to the customers and they offers all schemes like heavy discounts, free product with special purchase, gifts and bumper prizes, any other schemes like festival offers etc. to attract the customers and to have maximum footfalls. There are 17% organised retail store in Udaipur which not offering any of the special schemes to the customers. The reasons vary from the retailer to retailers. Some of the retailers say that they incur high production cost and their products' quality is

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much higher than the products offered by the competitors, so why to use these cheap gimmicks.

Various ways by retailer to maintain customer loyalty:

Only about 9% retail stores are making the use of all the methods of the building customer loyalty like guarantee and response forms, accepting credit/ debit cards, mail orders, loyalty cards, and credit sales.

The maximum number of 33.33% retailers focus on accepting credit/debit cards as higher income segments and the foreign customers prefer to use the debit/credit cards to make purchase.Guarantee and response forms and credit sales are also given high weightage (about 21% and 18% respectively).Loyalty

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cards and acceptance of mail orders are least in trend in the tier II city like Mumbai

Retailers sending greeting cards to the customer:

The graph shows that 80% of the organised retailers believe in to be in touch with thecustomers. They send festival greeting, birthday greetings, and anniversary greeting to their customers especially loyal ones. Festival greetings constitute a major part of these greeting cards. Reason being is that along with these festival greeting cards these retailers can also send the special offers of schemes of the specific customers only.

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CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION & SUGGESTIONS

Customer relationship management is highly exercised in the industry like hospitality, services industry etc. but it is having equal importance in the retail industry also. The customers don't take a single second when it comes to change the preference and break the loyalty for an organization, in such a situation it the customer relationship management of the organization which will compel the customers to visit the retail outlet again and again.

Based on the findings & observations, of the Customer Relationship Management Practices in Retail Sector, the following suggestions will give boost to the retailing:

•

Retail stores should keep the purchase record of the customers along with the personal information of the customers. It would provide them a way analyze the buying behavior of their customers.

•

The management of the retail store should give a personal touch to the customers. It will encourage the customers to make frequent visit to the retail store. It also helps in building personal relationship with the customers leading to the higher level of the customer loyalty.

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•

The management of the retail store should provide special training to the sales staff of the organization to keep a healthy and friendly relationship with the customers.

•

Timely feedback from the customers should be taken by the retail store it would make the customers realize that they are important for the growth of the organization.

Keeping in mind the diversity and the innumerable opportunities that our city offers, we have devised a multiple array of ideas and solutions that are uniquely Indian. From small kiosks that serves the average Indian with snacks and food that cater to local Indian taste whenever and wherever he wants, to large scale formats that will cater to every need and requirement of homemaker, Thus we are implementing concepts that will ultimately help it achieve its vision of delivering "Everything, Everywhere, Every time, for every Indian consumer in the most profitable manner."

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Erin and Weitz, B. (1992), “The use of pledges to build and sustain commitment in distribution channel”, Journal of Marketing Research, 29 (February), 1, 8-34. Berry L.L. (1983). Relationship Marketing, in Berry, L.L., Shostack, G.L. and Upan, G.D. (eds), Emerging Perspectives on Services Marketing, Chicago, American Marketing Association, pp. 25-38. Buttle, Francis A. (1998), „Word of Mouth: Understanding and Managing Referral Marketing”, Journal of Strategic Marketing,6:1998, pp. 241-254. Jain, R. and Jain, S. (2005), “Towards Relational Exchange in Services Marketing: Insights from hospitality Industry”, Journal of Services Research, 5 (2), 139-149. Jain, R. and Bagdare, S. (2009), “Determinants of Customer Experience in New Format Retail Stores”, Journal of Marketing & Communications, 5 (2), 44-54. Kotler, Philip and Keller, K. L. (2005), Marketing Management, 12th ed., Prentice Hall: New Mumbai. Morgan, Robert M. And Hunt, Shelby D. (1994), “The Commitment Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing”, Journal of Marketing, 658 (3), 20-38.

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