Customer Management Challenges in 2003.

CEOs and Board members recognise the enormous untapped potential in their company's customer bases, and are often frustrated by their organisation's inability to realise it.

We have assessed that the potential is indeed vast - the potential is up to 10 times the current levels of profitability.

Recognising this frustration and inspired by our successes over the last 18 years, InteractCM has consolidated our learnings from all our projects, small and large, into our 5-step Customer Management process for unlocking the true potential of our clients' customer bases.

Customer Management is at the dawn of a new era. Major structural and organisational changes are occurring.

Indeed, based on our direct client experience, corporate Australia is currently witnessing the dawn of a whole new era in Customer Management.

In the last 2-3 years, we have seen (and also independently recommended to a number of clients) the creation of key new senior management organisational positions including General Manager Customer Management and Head of Customer Information.

We have also seen the growth of a new capability altogether, the Group Customer Information Management (CIM) capability with a key focus on customer information content and quality.

The creation of such positions gives considerable weight to Customer Information being a key strategic asset that requires active management.

InteractCM has taken a leadership role in assisting many clients develop their core customer management capability.

CRM solutions - panacea or an enabler for the development of deeper customer relationships?

Whilst this progress is significant, there have been (and continues to be) a number of setbacks to organisations wishing to unlock the true potential of their customer bases.

Developing a strong Customer Franchise. The critical management choice: Use CRM to sell more products or to develop long-term enduring relationships with your customers?

Indeed, a significant number of the so-called CRM projects we have witnessed are almost entirely based on the goal of selling more product (sometimes called the sophisticated 'product flog') to directly generate value (profit) for the organisation.

Enduring Relationships produce Exceptional Returns!

So what are InteractCM's key points of difference that lead to the development of stronger deeper relationships and more valuable customer franchises?

The InteractCM 5-Step Customer Management Process is a key step towards an integrated organisation-wide end-to-end process for Customer Management.

InteractCM's 5-step Customer Management process, that is Creating Customer Information>>Turning Information into Knowledge>>Customer Knowledge>>Turning Customer Knowledge into Value>>Value Creation - has been built on these key learnings and is the central theme in all projects we undertake.