Planning Your CRM Program Case Study Example

A successful CRM strategy is arrived at after understanding whom the customers are and how both parties derive value from their relationship. A relationship is considered to hold if and only if both the parties benefit. The company should therefore know and avail what the customers and at the same time make profit from it. In the given case study, the two merging companies GTE and Bell Atlantic had good CRM visions. Unfortunately, the companies’ CRM strategies had problems. GTE had technologically outdated strategy while Bell Atlantic’s problem was its surfeit of single-purpose, application-centric systems. Because value delivery is the core aim of a CRM initiative, the companies’ problems could not achieve much. Also in the long run, the initiatives would be too costly. This calls for the need to make complete overhaul of the strategies for the new company.
For the new company, it is important to understand the customers’ needs and how to deliver these needs at a profit. This would be a good starting point for the CRM strategy. The company should therefore focus on both the customers and the products. The designed CRM strategy at Verizon is highly customer oriented. The strategy successfully gives clear understanding of the customers and their needs. However, little attention is given to the products.
The CRM strategy should be built after clear understanding of the merging companies’ business environment including the customers, the CRM portfolio around the customers, the delivery channels, and the benefits the new company derives from the strategy. The strategy should also ensure that the company’s resources, both internal and external, are not strained by the initiative. Both the company and the customers should derive value from this initiative.