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(M)e-business

B. S. Raghavan

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the craze and the rage, and inevitably, the IT-enabled e-CRM is the talk of the town. In the industrialised countries, that is. India which is nowadays compared to a lumbering elephant rather than to a springing tiger is yet to cotton on to the nature and significance of either version. Only about 10-15 companies are thinking of investing a paltry total of Rs 50 crore in e-CRM.

Pause a little, and compare this with worldwide trends: CRM accounted for $12 billion in investment last year, and is poised for doubling itself yet again in 2001. Of this, the Infotech-Convergence-Entertainment (ICE) sector runs away with the biggest sh are of 32 per cent, followed by consumer industrial products (26 per cent), the financial sector (23 per cent), services (12 per cent) and energy and utilities (9 per cent).

Why this enormous wave sweeping the West that is not even a blip on the monitors of our corporate chieftains? Because, imaginative, versatile and instantly inter-active multiple electonic channels of communication with customers help dispense with human intervention or intermediation, bringing the cost per sales contact to an incredibly low $1 per contact; whereas, the cost per a similar sales contact through telephone sales and service is $25, reselling and distribution network $200-300, and direct sal es through face-to-face interactions $500!

It must be remembered, of course, that e-CRM is only as good as the organisational culture and behaviour of those plumping for it. For, even with the best of applications operating on the widest possible range, 40 per cent of transactions will call for h uman (agent) intervention at some stage, since the problems and responses relating to each customer is bound to be different and even unique in its own way. Any system that herds customers into a single enclosure will necessarily come to grief in no time .

Incidentally, this is what Indian corporates do, and that is why it is so very difficult for customers to identify themselves with any particular product or service. Customer relationship and retention is not the function of brand-building but of custome r loyalty which is made up of a melange of expectations and emotions welling up over a long period. Successful CRM techniques aim at facilitating this psychological process of driving the customer to make a compulsive choice and stick to it simply becaus e he is so very happy with it. In short, as one perceptive e-CRM proponent pithily put it, customers must feel that e-business is me-business, and the letter `e' does not stand for esoteric or exotic but enjoyable and enthusing.

e-CRM does not mean cluttering the server with a surfeit of technologies and applications. Experience shows that the more is not the merrier. Apart from their competing for space, they can also result in conflicts and confusion in operation. A good, soun d, effective technology delivers 68 per cent of the time, while the percentage of success rate dwindles to 59 with two technologies, 52 with three, 43 with four, and 35 with five.

Are our stick-in-the-mud tycoons listening?