In my last blog I talked about what Customer Retention Management (CRM) is and explained some examples. But this time I want to ask your opinion about the approach to CRM. What are the broad strategic objectives an organisation would achieve from a CRM system? In one line we can say the main objective of CRM is to increase the brand loyalty so that the existing customers don’t go away but rather stick to the brand which ultimately increases the sales and revenue.

If we were to breakdown this definition to understand it better, I would say it can be broken into the following four parts. Do you have other definitions?

According to my experience I can see the following steps:

1. Are the users comfortable using the service? Is it easy enough for them to access the content/information they are looking for?

An ideal Mobile Value Added Service targeted towards rural mobile users should be user friendly and designed in a way to give the easiest access to the service and easiest procedure to discover the content. The CRM system should be able to identify usage information and be able to indicate some CRM actions targeted at service users and service designers. Like identifying what percentage of users discovered the content after listening to the IVR menu at the first go? If the result is poor then the CRM system should be able to identify the struggling users and send them educative SMS or voice guidance. It shouldn’t be too much to expect that the CRM system would be able to inform the churned users about the changes to return to the service.

2. Is the content/information helpful, timely and actionable for the users?

Every content developer expects that their content is helpful for the users and it is reaching the target audience at the right time to make it actionable. However, it is always good to keep a proactive check on this. Agricultural information is always very sensitive in terms of geographical location, time or the season related to the crop it has been created for. If any of this information goes wrong (in terms of location, time or crop) the content can create adverse impact on the crop. In such cases, the CRM system can play a vital role to monitor the quality of performance of the service and content and provide recommendations. For example,  the CRM system should be able to send a survey or opinion polls (either through USSD, SMS push pull or Out Bound Dial) and capture the results which will lead to an actionable decision.

3. Is the content/information reaching the target audiences? I.e. whether farmers or people in the farming value chain are using this service.

It is very important that the content is reaching the target audiences through the marketing and promotional activities – not only reaching the curious mobile users who will not be benefiting from the service. So the CRM system should be able to find out the demographic information from the service and should be able to demonstrate linkages between the usage of the service and the user base.

4. Are the users happy to pay for the content/information they are getting? Is it providing them value for money?

Last but not the least, it is also important to see that the users are willing to pay for the service they are using which will ensure the sustainability of the service. So the CRM system should be able to tell whether the users are paying for the service and using it – not just only renewing it because of the auto-renewal features or something similar to that. Again the CRM system should be able to provide a solution to users along with the right promotional tool to inform them of the service package they need.

If you are reading this blog, please let us know your thoughts on CRM and any case study where you have used a CRM system which we can share with our readers.