Microsoft CRM in Manufacturing top tips
Microsoft CRM for manufacturing top tips to help with customer
relations
Companies in different industries perceive CRM in a variety of
different ways. The consumer banking industry, for example, has
widely different CRM perspectives in comparison to those in the
manufacturing sector. Done right, however, CRM can help manufacturers
to increase effectiveness in managing customer relationships
and derive significant competitive advantages.
Empower Customers. Leveraging the power of CRM
the manufacturing Industry is leading a strong trend in empowering
its customers. For example, customers engaging with consumer
electronics manufacturers can configure their end products prior to
ordering through the manufacturers' websites. Manufacturers, on the
other hand, are able to capture vital customer intelligence data
through this process, enabling them to offer better choices as well
as upsell/ cross sell to their customers.
Become a Customer's trusted partner through proactive
actions. CRM is helping the manufacturing industry to
understand customer requirements better. In many situations, it is
important for manufacturers to know not only the requirements of
their customers but also the customers' customers. A good example
of this is semiconductor chip manufacturers who supply chips to
mobile phone manufacturers, who in turn sell the mobile phones to
the customers via distribution channels. The first signs of any
potential problems in the quality of the mobile phone chips come
from end customers and in order to provide a rapid response, a
number of chip manufacturers are deriving significant competitive
advantages through a tighter integration of their CRM systems with
those of the mobile phone manufacturers and their distributers.
Centralise customer information. It is not
uncommon for manufacturers today to have customer information
stored within 10, 20 and even 30 applications. CRM solutions are
designed for the unification of customer information, but by
themselves they do not solve the problem. Manufacturers are
therefore increasingly realising that CRM needs to integrate well
with other business systems - especially ERP - to ensure there is
an overall business strategy approach to managing customers based
on the products and services sold.
Multi-mode Customer Service Traditionally.
customer service related requirements for customers of the
manufacturing industry are more complex than those in other
industries mainly due to the fact that there are simply too many
variables. Apart from the challenges related to data availability
and the availability of the right technical resources, customers
today also approach manufacturers through variety of means -
phones, Instant Messaging (IM), email, for example. In today's
internet culture, customers also expect an instant answer. For
global manufacturers, time zone and languages issues create further
complexity. Newer CRM versions are emerging that leverage
behavioural as well as business intelligence based on transactional
data. A typical example of this is the routing of a customer issue
directly to a higher level technical resource in the event that the
customer has called about the same technical issue many times in
the recent past or the recorded contents of the recent interactions
show high level of dissatisfaction.
Equip sales and marketing teams to find more high-value
customers. The key to business success today is the same
as it was five years ago - do more of what you are good at, less of
what you are not good at. With CRM/ ERP as a strong backbone,
manufacturers can amplify the impact of sales and marketing
operations by simply showing customers what "good" looks like.