Customer Relationship Management: Electronic Customer Care in the New Economy

144 Pages·2002·7.307 MB·English

by  Dr. Andreas Muther (auth.)

Customer Relationship Management
Electronic Customer Care in the New Economy
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg GmbH
Andreas Muther
Customer Relationship
Management
Electronic Customer Care
in the New Economy
With 49 Figures
and 8 Tables
'Springer
Dr. Andreas Muther
NatlastraBe 8
6800 Feldkirch
Austria, Europe
[email protected]
ISBN 978-3-642-62543-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Muther, Andreas: Customer Relationship Management: Electronic Customer Care in the
New Economy; with 8 Tables 1 Andreas Muther. - Berlin; Heidelberg; New York; Barcelo
na; Hong Kong; London; Milan; Paris; Tokyo: Springer, 2002
ISBN 978-3-642-62543-5 ISBN 978-3-642-56222-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-56222-8
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© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2002
Originally published by Springer-Verlag Berlin· Heidelberg in 2002
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 2002
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For Michelle and Hannah
Foreword
New information technologies, above all tools in the area of the Internet, en
able new forms of collaboration between supplier and customer. With ever
increasing competition (represented by concepts like globalization, deregula
tion, buyers' market), companies can secure competitive advantages through
targeted use of information technology in the supplier-customer relationship.
To realize existing and future potential, current information technology de
velopments must be addressed.
This book is about Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The first
version of the book was written for the German market, however, since the
term CRM was not yet established in Europe I called my book "Electronic
Customer Care".
Electronic Customer Care has since generated an entirely new market that has
become known under the term Customer Relationship Management. Suppli
ers such as Siebel, E.piphany, Clarify and many others strive for market share
in this strongly growing segment.
This book structures the topic Customer Relationship Management and pro
vides project leaders and consultants with a practical aid in a realistic ap
proach to Customer Relationship Management projects. Thus it helps to dif
ferentiate between hype and reality and to apply CRM on a realistic level.
I would like to thank Dieter Rapp for his support in translating my German
best-seller to English. I'd also like to extend my appreciation to my partner
Michelle de Rozario who was instrumental in proof-reading this book, and
who was a great support during the difficult time of editing.
June 2001 Andreas Muther, Ph.D., USA
Preface
Electronic Commerce, Supply-Chain-Management, One-to-One-Marketing,
Customer Profiling and many other buzzwords are symptoms of a dramatic
change in the supplier-customer relationship. This is not because firms have
suddenly discovered the importance of customers and customer relationship
management, but because information and communication technologies offer
solutions which to date were not technically and economically feasible.
Dramatic increases in productivity and a sharp drop in prices in telecommu
nications, personal computers and multimedia have caused virtually every
firm to become part of a worldwide computer network.
These technical and economical conditions have changed the collaboration
with customers from the ground up. The software industry that generates new
solutions and concepts for business-to-business as well as business-to-con
sumer collaboration is growing at an explosive rate. Solutions range from on
line order management systems, e-procurement systems, to electronic product
catalogues, intelligent agents and all the way to inventory management based
on point-of sales data.
Newspapers and financial journals continuously present new solutions whose
potentials are hard to gauge. Without intense and exclusive focus on new
customer relationship management solutions one quickly loses the overview.
This can mean that firms realize the benefits of new solutions too late or are
mislead by fashion trends. Many firms for example just try to sell their prod
ucts through an electronic shop on the Internet instead of realizing the op
portunities inherent in a completely new service.
In this environment, the publication by Andreas Muther provides a valuable
orientation aid. It offers a neutral framework to assess new opportunities in
the customer relationship by structuring the customer relationship by means
of the so-called Customer Buying Cycle.
June 2001 Prof. Hubert Osterle, Switzerland
Content
1. Introduction ........................................................................................... 1
1.1. Electronic Customer Care: New Chances-New Challenges ............. 1
1.2. Goals and Addressees of this Book ..................................................... 4
1.3. Structure of the Book .......................................................................... 6
2. ECC Fundamentals ............................................................................... 9
2.1. Redesign of the Supplier-Customer Relationship ............................... 9
2.2. The Customer Buying Cycle (CBC) as Framework for the
Analysis of the Supplier-Customer Relationship .............................. 12
2.3. The Customer Buying Cycle as Exemplified by a Software
Company ........................................................................................... 17
3. ECC Information Technologies .......................................................... 21
3.1. Definition ofECC Information Technology ..................................... 21
3.2. Structuring ofECC Information Technologies and Services ............ 24
3.2.1. Requirements for ECC Classes ................................................... 24
3.2.2. Derivation ofECC Classes ......................................................... 25
3.3. IT-Trends and the Effects on Electronic Customer Care .................. 29
3.3.1. Multimediallnteractivity ............................................................. 31
3.3.2. Standardization ........................................................................... 32
3.3.3. Connectivity/e-Home .................................................................. 34
3.3.4. Intelligent Systems ...................................................................... 35
3.3.5. Integration ................................................................................... 37
3.3.6. "Multimode Access" ................................................................... 40
3.3.7. Security ....................................................................................... 41
XII Content
4. Trends in the Supplier-Customer Relationship ..••..........•................. 45
4.1. General (CBC-neutral) Trends in the Supplier-Customer
Relationship ....................................................................................... 46
4.1.1. 24 Hour Service .......................................................................... 48
4.1.2. Customer Self Service and Self Qualification ............................ 48
4.1.3. Individualization of the Supplier-Customer Relationship
(One-to-One-Marketing) ............................................................. 50
4.1.4. Push Information ......................................................................... 53
4.1.5. Information on Specific Demand ................................................ 54
4.1.6. New Business Models ................................................................. 57
4.1.7. Target Group Specific One-Stop Shops ("Portals") .................... 60
4.2. Trends per Phase of the Customer Buying Cycle .............................. 62
4.2.1. Awareness Phase ......................................................................... 62
4.2.2. Evaluation Phase ......................................................................... 65
4.2.3. Sales Phase .................................................................................. 68
4.2.4. After Sales Phase ........................................................................ 70
4.3. Evaluation of IT -Use in the Supplier-Customer Relationship .......... 73
4.3.1. Benefits of Electronic Customer Care ........................................ 74
4.3.2. Supplier's Goals ofElectronic Customer Care ........................... 76
5. Criteria for Successful ECC Solutions .............................................. 79
5.1. Appropriateness of a Solution ("Focused Offer") ............................. 80
5.2. Utilization of Redesign Potentials ..................................................... 82
5.3. Integration ofECC Information Systems and Use of Customer
Information ........................................................................................ 84
Content XIII
6. Summary and Overview CRM Market ..•••..•.•••••..••...••••••...•.•••••.••....• 89
6.1. Results ............................................................................................... 89
6.2. Future Development of Electronic Customer Care and its
Effects ............................................................................................... 92
6.3. Overview CRM Market. .................................................................... 95
Appendix 1: The ECC Database ................................................................. 99
ALL Structure and Content of the ECC Database ..................................... 99
Al.2. List ofECC Case Studies (First Version of Database) ................... 100
Al.3. List ofECC Case Studies (Second Version) ................................... 105
Appendix II: The ECC Interview ............................................................. 121
AII.l. The ECC Questionnaire ................................................................. 121
AII.2. Response to the Questionnaire ....................................................... 122
References •••......••.....••.••••••••••.••••••..••••••••••••.•.••.••......•.•...•••...•.•••.....•.•.•••••.... 123
Glossary ....................................................................................................... 129
Index ............................................................................................................ 133