In the current days, improving customer relationships with the aid of information systems in today's society has become very adverse and inevitable. Entrepreneurs are using all types of technological skills and features in order to achieve the largest market share in the business industry. Recently the introduction of advanced technological skills is evident and all entrepreneurs are working extremely hard in order to adopt the technological advancement in order to compete in the global market. It is often depicted that change is inevitable and so is the technological change in the business industry (Peelen, 2011). All these advancements and innovations are all geared towards attaining the biggest market share. However in order to achieve this, customer satisfaction is mandatory and very crucial. In the process, the entrepreneurs have innovated in customer relationship management. This is a strategy that is aimed at managing all the company’s current and prospective customer interactions. It is estimated that CRM is enables a company to increase productivity and increase the customers’ satisfaction and retention.
CRM helps the company to comprehend the customers’ purchasing habits and preferences. The other benefit of CRM is that it profiles individuals and groups in order to market and increase sales more effectively. CRM changes the way a company operates improving customer service and marketing. It is also depicted that CRM is geared towards understanding the customers’ preferences and improving the services towards the customers. It is depicted that the more a customer comes back for your goods and services the better. This is because the feature of customer retention is depicted (Jha, 2008). It has been stipulated that most customers want goods and services delivered to them. They are also driven by online purchasing. All these will be established when a company adopts customer relationship management.
The type of services given to the customer can be determined by the way an employee treats the customer. This has led to employee monitoring in order to ensure that the customers get the best from the company. It has been stipulated that with the first advancement in the technology companies have adopted the use of electronic employee monitoring. This is the use of computerized collection, storage analysis and reporting information about employees’ activities. This mechanism is aimed at making sure that customer satisfaction is achieved (Kumar & Reinartz, 2011). Another use of electronic employee monitoring is that it improves employee performance. This is because if an employee realizes that he is under surveillance, he will make sure that he treats the customers at the best to avoid colliding with the management.
Electronic employee monitoring has been known enhances productivity. This is because once an employee treats a customer right; he will come back for more services enhancing customer retention. When a significant number of customers are satisfied with the services they get from the employees, they are challenged to come back making sure that the company registers increased productivity. On the other hand, if an employee is caught treating bad a customer, he faces disciplinary action that can even lead to loss of his job (Lowenstein, 1995). It has been established that these electronic devices that range from call monitoring, video surveillance to computer monitoring has been of magnificent results in making sure that the customer receive the best of services and products from the company.
Customer retention is the process by which a company produces goods and services that leads to customer satisfaction making them to build trust in the company and making them to come back for the services or the goods. Customer retention can also be described as the process undertaken by the company to reduce customer defections. In order for a company to experience customer retention it does not only produce goods and services that are expected by the customer but also beyond the expectations. It has been stipulated that in the business world today, businesses are using customer relationship management to generate, dispense and manage requests made by customers. This entails using things such as call centers software that help in direct contact of customers to agents. When a customer calls a firm and finds that there is someone always listening to them, they get encouraged and they pledge loyalty to the business. It has also been speculated that CRM has been used to identify and remunerate loyal customers over a certain period of time. This helps in gaining more customers as they will be waiting for a reward which automatically leads to customer retention. It is estimated that creating customer loyalty is very essential as it puts customer value rather maximizing the profits. Customer retention also involves the company adopting the preferable technology measures by the customer. For example, most customers prefer to do online business rather than physical. In this context the company should be able to comply with what the customers wants and put the necessary measures in place (Butscher, 2002).
It is stipulated that customer retention statistics are typically articulated as percentage of long term clients that a company has been able to achieve. Production of high quality goods and service has contributed extensively towards the customer retention. Most people are interested in quality products or services from a company despite their cost. This will make customers come back to your company regularly. The other strategy that can be used in order to achieve customer retention is the use of language that the customers want to hear. This entails conducting a detailed of the targeted customers and come up with words that are persuasive to them. The other strategy that has magnificently worked for customer retention is the use of surprise reciprocity. These involve calling customers once in a while surprisingly or do something nice to them without their knowledge.
Company retention programs are aimed at ensuring that a company has sustainable employees. It has been estimated that employee retention translates to increased productivity and sustainable profits. Therefore, a company is supposed to adopted several programs that are geared towards employee retention. One of the programs that can be employed in order to retain employee retention is by offering a competitive benefits package that fit your employee’s needs. This involves providing your employees with insurance packages such as the life insurance and retirement savings plan. The other program that can be employed is the provision of small perks (Gitman & McDaniel, 2009). The other program that one can employ in order to achieve employee retention is by use of contests and incentives that keep workers motivated and feel rewarded. This can involve conducting interviews to the employees. The information got from these interviews can be used to strengthen employee retention strategies.
The other program that can be employed is fostering employee development (Oz, 2009). This can be done by training the employees to learn new job skills. The other thing that is essential in employee retention is the creation of open communication between employees and management. This is done by holding regular meeting with the employees in which they can offer ideas on how best to run the company. By doing this, it makes the employees gain confidence when airing their views to the management. It is estimated that quite a significant number of employees fear communication with their seniors and the only way to overcome this is by conducting forums where the employees are allowed to speak their mind.
Losing customers to poor business relationships can be devastating and at the same time extremely painful. It has been depicted that some companies that have not been keen in implementing CRM have always been faced with a setback of failing terribly. One of the effects of losing customers to poor business relationships is that it results to loss of current customers. This means that it can cause one to loose even the most forgiving ones. The other effect is the loos of reputation. This means that the company will lose market. This is because unsatisfied customer will tell their friends and with the use of social sites in the internet millions of people may get to know of your poor services. Loss of employees is another effect of CRM. This is because most people want to work in an environment that is challenging positively and if a company loses its customers for lack of proper customer relationship management systems it means that the employees look for outside employment with a promising future (Treacy, 2003).
The other effect is the loss of profits. This typically means that the business starts to experience reduced number of customers which will later translate to reduced profits. At the end, the company will be unable to pay its bills and employees which will lead to the closure of the business. The other effect is that even in future, the entrepreneur may not be able to reopen the same kind of business. This is because the customers will always have a negative attitude towards your business. This is because most customers have a record of the companies where they were treated badly. This means that the customer cannot build trust again with a certain entrepreneur.
References
Peelen, E. (2011). Customer relationship management. New Delhi: Pearson Education.
Jha, L. (2008). Customer relationship management: A strategic approach. New Delhi: Global India Publications.
Kumar, V., & Reinartz, W. (2011). Customer Relationship Management: Concept, Strategy, and Tools. Berlin: Springer Berlin.
Lowenstein, M. W. (1995). Customer retention: An integrated process for keeping your best customers. Milwaukee, Wis: ASQC Quality Press.
Butscher, S. A. (2002). Customer loyalty programmes and clubs. Aldershot (England: Gower.
Gitman, L. J., & McDaniel, C. D. (2009). The future of business: The essentials. Mason, OH: South-Western Cenage Learning.
Oz, E. (2009). Management information systems. Boston, Mass: Thomson/Course Technology.
Treacy, M. (2003). Double-digit growth: How great companies achieve it-no matter what. New York: Portfolio.
