| Successful CRM
management requires high-quality data
Managing customer information is one of the eight building blocks of
successful customer relationship management. And to get the most out of their interactions
with customers, enterprises need to master the “blood supply” of CRM analytics
and operations. Speaking at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2002 in Cannes, France on Tuesday,
Gartner vice president John Radcliffe outlined that blood supply - the three basics of
information for CRM:
1. Maintain
accurate, relevant and legal data about customers
Looking after the raw data is boring and unglamorous, he said, until
“the link with money is made.” As an example of the cost of poor data quality he
cited an Australian company which relied on stored data about a unit of measure and tried
to deliver two containers bigger than a customer’s entire warehouse.
Achieving quality data, Radcliffe warned, is as much a cultural as a technical issue. Data
quality decays rapidly and enterprises should follow a methodology that includes regular
measurement of data quality with goals for improvement and deployment of process
improvements and technology.
2. Store the data in federated databases to give a multi-channel
customer view
Storing customer data into a single, cosmic database may seem to be the
ideal solution. But Radcliffe said that “it is unlikely to be feasible for most large
enterprises due to the diversity of their applications portfolios and associated
databases.” Instead, he suggested integration in a pragmatic fashion using middleware
linking a federation of customer databases.
3. Apply appropriate
analytic tools to gain insight into customers
Basic data is not enough for
analysing customer information. Enterprises need three kinds of data:
1. Descriptive: Contact
details and demographic or business classification data
2. Behavioural: Patterns of purchasing and lifestyle
3. Contextual: Level of satisfaction, attitudes and life events
All this data needs to be
put together through customer data integration (CDI) although it will be hard to calculate
the return on this activity as it will involve many soft metrics. Tools for analysing the
data are available and a multivendor strategy may be necessary. And enterprises will have
to choose the most appropriate approach for CRM analytics. The approaches include business
intelligence and data mining tools, the embedded capabilities in point CRM systems and a
broad CRM analytics application suite. As the tools provide insight into customers,
enterprises should be using the insight to optimise its interactions with customers on an
ongoing basis, leveraging all interactions to maximise their value to the enterprise |
