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Chapter 9 Achieving Operational Excellence and Customer Intimacy: Enterprise Applications 383

provides a firm with tools to assess its partners’ performances so it can make
sure its best partners receive the support they need to close more business.
ERM software deals with employee issues that are closely related to CRM, such
as setting objectives, employee performance management, performance-based
compensation, and employee training. Major CRM application software vendors
include Oracle, SAP, Salesforce.com, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Customer relationship management systems typically provide software and
online tools for sales, customer service, and marketing. We briefly describe some
of these capabilities.

Sales Force Automation (SFA)
Sales force automation modules in CRM systems help sales staff increase their
productivity by focusing sales efforts on the most profitable customers, those
who are good candidates for sales and services. CRM systems provide sales
prospect and contact information, product information, product configuration
capabilities, and sales quote generation capabilities. Such software can assemble
information about a particular customer’s past purchases to help the salesperson
make personalized recommendations. CRM software enables sales, marketing,
and delivery departments to easily share customer and prospect information. It
increases each salesperson’s efficiency in reducing the cost per sale as well as
the cost of acquiring new customers and retaining old ones. CRM software also
has capabilities for sales forecasting, territory management, and team selling.

Customer Service
Customer service modules in CRM systems provide information and tools to
increase the efficiency of call centers, help desks, and customer support staff.
They have capabilities for assigning and managing customer service requests.
One such capability is an appointment or advice telephone line: When a
customer calls a standard phone number, the system routes the call to the
correct service person, who inputs information about that customer into the
system only once. Once the customer’s data are in the system, any service
representative can handle the customer relationship. Improved access to
consistent and accurate customer information helps call centers handle more
calls per day and decrease the duration of each call. Thus, call centers and
customer service groups achieve greater productivity, reduced transaction time,
and higher quality of service at lower cost. The customer is happier because he
or she spends less time on the phone restating his or her problem to customer
service representatives.
CRM systems may also include Web-based self-service capabilities: The
company Web site can be set up to provide inquiring customers personalized
support information as well as the option to contact customer service staff by
phone for additional assistance.
Marketing
CRM systems support direct-marketing campaigns by providing capabilities
for capturing prospect and customer data, for providing product and service
information, for qualifying leads for targeted marketing, and for scheduling
and tracking direct-marketing mailings or e-mail (see Figure 9.7). Marketing
modules also include tools for analyzing marketing and customer data, identify-
ing profitable and unprofitable customers, designing products and services to
satisfy specific customer needs and interests, and identifying opportunities for
cross-selling.

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