Why it was or was not a success in terms of cost, schedule, quality, and performance
The implementation of a customer relationship management (CRM) ERP platform at the bank was successful in terms of cost, schedule, quality, and performance. According to Lindgreen & Antioco (2005), CRM is critical in the banking sector as it helps banks easily reach and serve their customers. From the case study, it is clear that before implementation of CRM the bank had a small customer service department with poorly trained employees. This was highly inefficient since there was a long waiting time for customers to contact customer support of about 20 minutes (Blery & Michalakopoulos, 2006). In turn, this led to long queues and customer dissatisfaction.
The implementation of CRM helped the bank reduce its cost of operation since it eliminated the costly inefficiencies relating to hiring additional customer support staff (Blery & Michalakopoulos, 2006). It also improved the quality of service as well as the banks performance. This results from the fact that CRM increased the number of customer queries that the bank could address. From the case study, it is evident that prior to its implementation customer support could only provide information relating to bank account balance (Blery & Michalakopoulos, 2006). However, with the implementation of CRM customers had access to a variety of additional services. This in turn led to improved operations at the bank with waiting times for customer support decreasing from 20 minutes to about 2 minutes. Furthermore, the bank’s quality of service and performance improved since it could provide support service 24 h a day, 7 days a week (Blery & Michalakopoulos, 2006).
CRM was successful since it helped integrate all the banks services, applications, and databases. It increased the banks reach to its consumers, as well as, improved its communication capabilities. Lastly, it provided central platform for the bank to be in a position to support and easily adopt new applications and needs (Blery & Michalakopoulos, 2006).
References
Blery, E., & Michalakopoulos, M. (2006). Customer relationship management: A case study of a Greek bank. Journal of Financial Services Marketing, 11(2), 116-124.
Lindgreen, A., & Antioco, M. (2005). Customer relationship management: the case of a European bank. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 23(2), 136-154.
