By Bijoy A K
Finally a book on one of the most underplayed
subjects in recent times- Customer Relationship
Management. Creating Customer Delight:
The How and Why of CRM authored
by Rakesh Seth and Kirti Seth covers
a plethora of subjects which are significantly
crucial to the success of any organisation.
The trigger points used in the book
are market competition, wider consumer
choice, fragmentation of the media along
with the advent of the new media; technological
advances and newer concepts like personalised
customer management.
The book first looks at today's business
environment where the customer is no
more an underdog with choice restrictions,
but the entity in command who can dictate
the business decisions and marketing
strategies.
The first chapter, The Growing Need
for CRM puts into perspective today's
highly competitive market environment,
thanks to retail explosion and liberalisation.
The theory of competition-centric marketing
and the underlying customer relationship
techniques are explained by analysing
classic campaigns such as the cola wars,
when the Pepsi and Coke marketing responses
were determined by each other.
The
authors make it a point to talk about
the importance of existing customers
as companies tend to ignore the customer
once the deal is over and think about
only a prospect customer while planning
the next steps. The sub-section analyses
the significant role played by word-of-mouth
publicity, a free-of-cost one, coming
from a satisfied and loyal customer
in a product's success in the market.
The Seths have something for the media
as well. The second chapter, Taking
an Integrated Approach details the
significance of the present media segmentation
to the business industry from a CRM
point of view. Given the current fragmentation
of the media the need of the hour is
an integrated media approach. Then there
is the emergence of new four Ps - Positioning,
Passion, People and Personality to power
the new strategy.
In the present scenario where Business
Process Outsourcing (BPO) is on a roll,
CRM in Call Centres would sound
very topical. Here, the authors try
to break the myth that carelines are
just for complaints. The argument is
that - "Ideally, a careline should
be set up not only to handle complaints
but also to provide assistance in using
the product."
But
the book is not devoid of some debatable
comments. Consider, the introductory
statement - `Successful CRM is what
successful enterprise is all about.
Every other discipline is secondary,
be it marketing, finance, sales or IT.'
One also gets a feeling that to explain
the basic concepts of CRM the author
has spent a lot of space as compared
to the other important topics like database
management and marketing strategies.
Overall, interlaced with interesting
anecdotes and case studies from the
real corporate world, the book depicts
the core subject in a very convincing
and easy-to-gather manner.
