**6. Conclusions**

*Customer Relationship Management and IT*

these firms in order to reduce this spam or noise.

Some of the best practices include:

other way around.

• Understand Customer requirements thoroughly.

than converting customers to your brand.

**5. Best practices to improve customer relationship management**

stand customer problem and try to take utmost care to solve their issues.

While we discussed about major pitfalls in CRM implementations, there are some really great experiences that I personally remember. The first example that I quote is of Fidelity Investments in USA. I love their CRM implementations for example, no matter where you are in the world, the way they greet people, under-

• Never try to fit your product features with customer requirements in-fact its

• Build your CRM eco-system in order to help customer with problem solving

• Always believe that there are enough customers if you come up with a product

• Never ever frustrate any customer by constantly calling them or by spam calls.

• Always value customer's valuable time and provide solutions accordingly.

• Ensure your team in product customer care centers has best behavior and

or service which solves the real problem than short term solutions.

• Firms need to mentor their CRM eco system to be great listeners

empathy toward customers than meeting their targets.

plot or a flat.

sell this information which they received directly from customer. They might sell this information to companies like Target, Best Buy, Honda, Nike, etc as they know you basic PII data from this exercise. It has been a nightmare in emerging countries because firms keep buying this information from MNC companies and start calling people in order to sell their product or service. Out of nowhere, someone calls you and gives your identity and checks if you are interested in a fitness boot camp, or a

Information if used at the right place, with right set of people and tools, with right analysis, it would be a powerful tool to increase your sales, revenue, customer satisfaction and most importantly your long term relationship with the customer. Some of the other pitfalls in CRM implementations is some firms keep contacting customers every other week or once a month, some firms do not connect with their new customers to understand their experience in order for them to buy same product next time which makes them a return customer. In few more cases, firms collect information of the customers during product buying experience and come up with some deals like customers will enter into a lucky draw to get a Free Washing Machine and customers will never get to know who is that Winner and his details. Finally, what I would like to conclude is that CRM implementations need to be very well thought through. I believe that banks, insurance firms, healthcare service providers like diagnostic centers misuse this information at least in emerging markets by bugging customers or overloading the customers with SMS, phone calls, emails, etc. and because of this customer gets frustrated and starts to unsubscribe to

**88**

Finally, I hope this chapter at a high level gives an overview of CRM eco system, their users and different scenarios and how to build an eco-system which helps firms learn from customers, take feedback and make necessary changes to ensure customer satisfaction is achieved, also there by increases the user base for any product or service during its life cycle. I want to keep it simple and not make it complicated with mathematical models, etc., as I believe that there are some fundamental changes required before we even think about implementing mathematical models for AI based CRM implementations which will greatly enhance customer experience and satisfaction.
