CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a new management mechanism aimed at improving the relationship between enterprises and customers. It is implemented in customer-related fields such as marketing, sales, service and technical support. On the one hand, the goal of CRM is to attract and retain more customers by providing faster and more thoughtful quality services, on the other hand, it is to reduce the cost of enterprises through comprehensive management of business processes. CRM is not only a concept, but also a set of management software and technology. With the CRM system, enterprises can collect, track and analyze the information of each customer, so as to know what kind of customers customers customers need and truly achieve 1: 1. At the same time, they can observe and analyze the influence of customer behavior on enterprise income, so as to optimize the relationship between enterprises and customers and enterprise profits.
Through the analysis of direct marketing and customer relationship management, this paper combines the two to improve marketing efficiency!
What is direct selling?
Direct selling is also called direct marketing and direct marketing, and English is direct-marketing. It is the product of personalized demand and the best channel to spread personalized products and services. Marketing experts of American Direct Selling Association (ADMA) define it as "an interactive marketing system that uses one or more advertising media to generate measurable response or make a deal anywhere". The main features different from other marketing methods are:
1. Target customer selection is more accurate: direct sellers can select people who may become their own customers from the customer list and relevant information in the database as target customers, and then directly communicate with a single target customer or a specific enterprise user. Therefore, the target customers are accurate and the communication is targeted.
2. Emphasize the relationship with customers: In direct selling activities, direct sellers can conduct targeted marketing activities according to the different needs and consumption habits of each customer. This will form one-to-one two-way communication with customers, and will form and maintain a good relationship with customers. Various studies show that consumers' purchase behavior mostly belongs to planned purchase. Direct sellers know that customers will not passively stay at home and wait for the arrival of advertisements. Therefore, they always concentrate on stimulating consumers to make unplanned or impulsive purchases, and provide all possible conveniences for consumers to respond immediately.
3. Encourage customers to respond immediately: By concentrating on encouraging advertising recipients to take some concrete actions immediately, and providing customers with convenience and ways to respond immediately as much as possible, so as to realize humanized direct communication immediately.
4. Concealment of marketing strategy: Direct marketing strategy is not carried out with great fanfare, so it is not easy to be noticed by competitors. Even if competitors notice their own marketing strategy, it is too late, because direct advertising and sales are carried out at the same time.
5. Pay attention to customers' lifelong value and long-term communication: Direct selling regards customers (including end customers, distributors and partners) as the most important enterprise resources, meets customers' needs through perfect customer service and in-depth customer analysis, and pays attention to and helps customers realize lifelong value.
Direct selling originated from mail order activities. 1498, Aldaz, founder of Ahldin Publishing House? Manuti Manutius published the first catalogue with price list in Venice. This is generally regarded as the earliest recorded mail order activity. 1667, William? William Lucas published Britain's first horticulture catalogue. Later, mail order activities developed in the United States, Italy, Britain and other places. 1926, Sherman and Sacheim founded the first modern book club in America-the book club of the month. They began to use the way of free trial, that is, to send books to consumers first until consumers stop ordering or paying. This is completely different from the traditional way of collecting money first and then delivering books. This is also the first time that marketers try to measure the value of lifelong customers-Cato, the second largest direct reply company in the world. Undeman. Johnson & Johnson (WCJ)-Founder Lester? Wyndman said that 90% of the profits of manufacturers come from repeat customers, and only 10% comes from sporadic customers. Losing 5% less old customers can increase profits by 25%. Therefore, strategically speaking, enterprises must be clear about whether they should focus on competing for market share, retain customers or cultivate loyalty. According to experts' analysis, in the face of fierce market competition, the cost of maintaining an old customer is 0.5 times that of seeking a new customer, while the cost of making a lost old customer a new customer is 10 times that of seeking a new customer. How to retain customers who have received traditional advertisements and turn them into loyal customers is an important purpose of our direct sales.
Mr Wunderman first put forward the concept of direct selling in 1967. He believes that the transaction started by human society is direct, and the classic one-to-one sales (service) method is the most suitable and can best meet people's needs, while the mass production and mass marketing brought about by the industrial revolution are inhuman and immoral.
Especially at this stage, the product market is chaotic, and a large number of traditional advertisements flood the media, which is called "eyeball economy". It can be said that it caused public outrage. In today's social conditions, people are more pursuing personalized products and services, and no one is willing to accept the same products and services as others. This is the fatal weakness of mass marketing and the fundamental reason for the decline and end of the mass marketing era.
Just when consumers generally distrust certain products; Tired of a lot of advertisements is not out of date; Especially when health care products enterprises are at a loss and marketers are thinking hard and looking for new marketing methods, direct selling came into being, which swept all western countries with strong vitality and adaptability and set off a marketing revolution of 2 1 century. Most health care products and pharmaceutical enterprises in China have adopted direct selling, but the system has not been used yet. We take direct selling as the main means to enter the market, which can greatly reduce the risk.
Second, the types of direct sales:
As a part of marketing activities, direct selling is more and more closely connected with modern consumers. On the one hand, the accelerated pace of life in modern society has reduced consumers' shopping time. On the other hand, the development of information and communication technology and the continuous improvement of credit system provide an opportunity for the development of direct selling.
Now, with the rapid development of credit means and information technology, the form of direct selling has developed unprecedentedly, and its form is no longer limited to mail order activities. With the emergence of telephone, television, internet and other media, the forms of direct selling are becoming more and more abundant. Common forms of direct selling mainly include:
1. Direct mail marketing:
A marketing activity in which marketers send letters, samples or advertisements directly to target customers. The target customer list can be leased, purchased or exchanged with other non-competitive enterprises. When using these lists, we should pay attention to the repetition of the lists to avoid sending the same stamp products to the same customer more than twice, which will cause resentment.
2. Directory marketing:
Marketers mail the catalogue to the target customers, or keep the catalogue for customers to ask for at any time. Comprehensive mail-order stores that operate complete production lines often use this method, such as Montgomery? Montgomery ward, sears? Roe deer, etc.
3. Telemarketing:
Marketers conduct marketing activities for target customers by telephone. The popularity of telephone, especially the opening of 800 toll-free telephone, makes consumers more willing to accept this form. Nowadays, many consumers ask for information about products or services by telephone and make purchases.
4. Direct response to TV marketing:
Marketers carry out marketing activities by introducing products on TV or sponsoring a special program to promote goods. Television is the most popular medium in China, and there are many TV channels. Many enterprises have started marketing activities on TV.
5. Direct reaction print media:
Direct-reply print media usually refers to direct-reply advertisements in magazines, newspapers and other print media to encourage target members to order by phone or reply, so as to achieve the purpose of increasing sales and providing customers with knowledge and other services.
6. Direct response broadcast
Broadcasting can be used as the dominant media for direct response, and it can also be used as the cooperation of other media to let customers give feedback on broadcasting. With the development of broadcasting, the number of radio stations is increasing, and their professionalism is becoming more and more comprehensive. Some radio stations even aim at a special or highly subdivided small group, which provides opportunities for direct selling operators to seek accurate target positioning.
7. Network marketing:
Marketers carry out marketing activities through electronic communication means such as Internet and fax. At present, books, computer software and hardware, tourism services, etc. have been widely marketed online. In addition, marketers also use newspapers, magazines, radio and other media for marketing activities. The above direct selling methods can be used alone or in combination.
Third, the characteristics of direct selling
Although direct selling has existed as a marketing concept for a long time, it was still considered as a distribution method until the 1980s. The accepted definition is Stan? Stan Rapp and Tom? Tom Collins' definition: "Direct selling is a form of distribution that directly completes the transactions between buyers and sellers without going through stores." Although the above definition summarizes the basic essence of direct selling, it is difficult to comprehensively summarize the purpose of direct selling as its functions become more and more extensive.
Direct selling and its database focus on the behavior of every consumer and potential consumer. They predict the future behavior according to the past purchase behavior of consumers. This information is handled by individuals, even if there are tens of thousands of consumers, it can still be used to analyze personal behavior and make decisions. This does not mean that marketing research is out of date, but if we only rely on the information obtained from marketing research, we will make a hypothesis that is generally applicable to consumer behavior, which may be wrong when applied to personal situations. In short, direct selling emphasizes analysis and decision-making based on personal information, and ultimately maximizes the lifetime value of customers.
The characteristics of direct selling can be summarized as interconnection, pertinence, control and sustainability.
1. Interaction refers to the interaction between the marketer and the consumer, which contains two meanings: (1) How the marketer provides the stimulus aimed at arousing the consumer's response in the target market. (2) How do consumers react to this? In the interaction with consumers, marketers can get information that can be effectively directed and controlled, and how to keep in touch with consumers. Therefore, among the four characteristics of direct selling, interconnectedness is at the center.
2. Target positioning refers to the process that marketers choose the information of products or services to obtain income. The target consumers can be consumers who have already purchased products or services, potential consumers who may become customers, or potential consumers. Marketers can regularly check the results of the last marketing campaign in order to obtain more accurate targeted information.
3. Control refers to the management of marketing activities, including setting goals and plans, making budgets and evaluating results. It is a cyclical process, and marketers will generally make future plans according to the results of past control processes.
4. Sustainability refers to retaining the existing customer base and selling other products and more advanced products to them. In an enterprise, a lot of profits come from the existing customer base, so sustainability is very important. The important data obtained from the interaction with customers can enable marketers to better communicate with customers, gain customers' interests and preferences in time, and understand customers' views on previous marketing activities. Although many enterprises don't realize the importance of sustainability now, research shows that the cost of reselling products to consumers who have already bought them only accounts for a small part of attracting new customers. For example, in the new car market, the ratio of the above two costs is 1/5.
The above four characteristics of direct selling are interrelated, and its overall goal is to retain old customers, attract new customers and maximize customers' lifelong value by establishing a database. Customer lifetime value refers to the total net income that customers bring to the enterprise for life, that is, the total expected future income that customers will bring during their loyalty to the enterprise.
Four. The disadvantages of traditional marketing and the advantages of direct selling.
Traditional marketing involves promotion expenses, advertising media expenses, storage expenses and channel expenses. And the management and sales costs are high, while the direct selling costs are lower and the efficiency is improved to a certain extent.
1, direct selling reduces the overall customer acquisition cost. Direct selling saves the link of middlemen's price increase, thus reducing the price of goods; At the same time, customers can not go out shopping, so their time, physical strength and mental cost are almost reduced to zero.
2. Direct selling conforms to the trend that customers pay attention to time efficiency. Compared with shopping, modern people are more willing to devote precious time to work, study, communication, sports, leisure and other more meaningful things, and the advantages of direct telephone (or network) ordering and home delivery provide great convenience for customers to shop.
3. The popularization of network communication technology promotes the development of direct selling. Media is the key to the success of direct selling. Today, developed communication facilities, especially the application of internet technology (according to statistics, there are 50 million mobile phones and 654.38+0 billion fixed phones in China; The number of computers exceeds 6.5438+0.2 million, and the number of people surfing the Internet exceeds 4 million), making e-shopping a trend.
4. Direct selling conforms to the trend of customers' personalized demand. Through direct marketing, manufacturers can customize products according to the special needs of each customer, thus providing customers with completely satisfactory products. The new century calls for direct selling, but the change of marketing strategy has its economic reasons. Traditional image advertising is too aimless for many companies.
For example, most of Coca-Cola's income comes from 8% Americans, but Coca-Cola is doing hundreds of millions of TV advertisements for 100% people. This is a very unreasonable ratio, and Coca-Cola tries to find a suitable ratio. Coca-Cola understands that it is necessary to establish a closer relationship with every customer, because no one has ever seen a customer group buy Coke, and it is always a single customer.
Traditional advertising faces a structural crisis. In order not to be forgotten, enterprises must advertise more. But just being famous and making a good impression is not enough. Statistics show that a consumer has to face 1600 advertising messages every day. If nothing happens, he will forget a large part in the future, and the other part will be wrong.
Larry Goldman, vice president of customer solutions at Braun Consulting, called 2002 "Let's make use of it". In a research report "Ten Trends of CRM in 2002" issued by Braun Consulting Company, the most influential development trend of the whole CRM industry in 2002 was revealed.
Fifth, customer relationship management.
Since 1990s, the marketing strategy has changed from "product-centered" to "customer-centered", and it has begun to emphasize and practice the "4Cs" of customers/consumers, costs, channels and convenience. "4C" initially focused on introducing the concept of marketing into the service organization of enterprises, providing customers/consumers with efficient, convenient and low-cost services and improving their satisfaction. "4C" provides the concept and preliminary method of "customer-centered", but there are still many detailed questions to be answered in actual enterprise management.
For example:
1. Does "customer-centered" or "customer-oriented" mean working attitude or working method, or does 100% unconditionally meet all customers' needs? Which is more important, "customer-centered" or "enterprise pursues profit maximization", which is the means and which is the purpose?
2. How to identify customer differences? Which part of customers are the most valuable, which part is the most growth, and which part of profits are lower than marginal costs? For all kinds of business data, what aspects should we analyze, and how can we do quantitative analysis instead of qualitative analysis?
3. How to optimize and integrate customers, companies, employees and other resources, adopt the most effective business processes for "one-to-one" sales and services, reduce overall operating costs, and improve sales revenue, customer satisfaction and employee productivity? How to control business, projects, processes and results, and how to predict future sales revenue?
4. How to retain old customers, potential customers and business resources in the face of frequent "job-hopping" of employees and customer turnover? How to effectively develop new customers and new business? How to do customer care well and improve customer loyalty?
5. How do the sales departments work together and how do the service departments work together? How can the sales department and the service department cooperate efficiently? The level of customer service staff makes customers very dissatisfied, and the sales representative tries to sell new products to customers without knowing it; Or the customer service staff can't know in time that the warranty period of the products sold has expired, and they are still providing services for free-how to avoid this situation?
6. How can I do mobile office and off-grid office? For competitors, how to know yourself and know yourself?
7.……
Enterprises are facing unprecedented fierce market competition and challenges: the pace of people's work and life is getting faster and faster, and business opportunities are fleeting; Customers are increasingly picky about differentiated services, and the loyalty between customers and employees is becoming more and more fragile; While the profit of products is decreasing, the operating cost of enterprises is increasing. ...
This is an inevitable, very important and difficult problem of customer management in traditional marketing. With the development of science and technology and the progress of the times, we have ushered in a new era of information economy, network economy and knowledge economy. A brand-new enterprise management theory and software CRM appeared in front of us, which opened the door to development and success for enterprises. In the middle and late 1990s, the "customer-centered" marketing theory was constantly deduced, which gave birth to a set of related enterprise management theories and practical methods. CRM is produced and matured in this process.
Ike in the United States believes that in the E era, only by realizing CCPR (convenience, care, personalization and instant response) can enterprises better maintain customer relations.
1, making it more convenient for customers.
Make it easier for customers to get corporate services, just like the grocery store at home, you can get anything you want at any time. Many enterprises have set up 800 hotlines to answer customers' questions. But practice has proved that the busy rate of high-frequency telephone has become an important obstacle to telephone communication. In the e era, enterprises must let customers choose whether to contact enterprises by telephone, website, fax, e-mail or face-to-face communication to obtain product information or services.
2. Be more kind (caring) to customers.
Due to the excessive emphasis on science and technology and its equipment, many enterprises become cold "vending machines" when they are in contact with customers, especially when the relationship between enterprises and customers is purely to deliver money, customers only choose prices for enterprises, so as long as there is cheaper supply, customers will lose, so customers have no loyalty to enterprises.
3, Personalized (personalized)
Enterprises should regard each customer as an eternal treasure, not a transaction, so they must understand each customer's preferences and habits and provide suggestions in time. For example, in the case of a grocery store, the boss should know Mr. Zhang's family situation, consumption habits and credibility before making the most appropriate suggestions.
4. Immediate response (real-time)
Enterprises must constantly learn the behavior of customers through every contact and respond sensitively and quickly. Like a grocery store, Mr. Zhang picked up the same goods when he went back. This shows that Zhang Online is really interested in soy sauce, but it is possible to compare the prices of the two stores. At this time, enterprises should respond immediately and take the initiative to persuade customers to buy in the shortest possible time. Customer relationship management in E era is to establish a CCPR (convenient, intimate, personalized and immediate response) business model, so that customers thousands of miles away can feel the care of enterprises through the network and technology. In this way, the business opportunities of enterprises will increase rapidly.
Comparison between traditional customer management and customer relationship management
Project Customer Relationship Management Traditional Customer Management
Manage content market management, sales management, service management, customer care, analysis and decision-making, sales opportunity mining, customer management, partner management, competitor management, product quality and employee management, and customer file management.
Management tools: customer relationship management system, ASP application service manual records, electronic organizer, EXCEL, WORD.
Can not achieve distributed management, information platform, regional management, mobile office.
It is impossible for workflow management to understand and monitor business processes in time and realize collaborative work.
The attention of value customers, the service and care of value customers, and the satisfaction of personalized needs cannot be realized.
The application of e-commerce, online customer self-help, electronic promotion and electronic account reminder cannot be realized.
Enhancing Core Competitiveness Through the tracking of customers, products, employees, partners and competitors and the statistical analysis of market, sales and services, it is impossible to help enterprises make scientific decisions and comprehensively enhance their core competitiveness.
Difference 1: traditional customer service is passive. If the customer has no problem, there is no need for customer service. Send a card during the Spring Festival at most. Customer relationship management is proactive, not only to solve customers' various incurable diseases about products, but also to actively contact customers to urge them to come to the door again and welcome customers to ask questions.
Difference 2: Traditional customer service regards calling customers to ask questions or calling customers as a hassle. Because customers call, most of them have problems with products, and they have to complain or solve them; Call the customer, either the account has not been paid, or you have something to tell. However, under the concept of customer relationship management, it is a sign of alienation that customers don't contact or respond, which is more terrible than complaining. Complaining means that the customer wants to continue using the product; Alienation means the end of product life. Customer relationship management should not only try to solve customers' dissatisfaction and disappointment in the complaint stage, but also create customers' expectations for new products in the process of continuous contact.
Difference 3: traditional customer service and marketing are separated, and marketing depends on business personnel who know persuasion skills; Customer service mostly depends on maintenance engineers or switchboard. Customer relationship management integrates marketing and customer service, and regards customer service as another marketing channel. Selling new products to old customers, or creating new products according to the classified needs of old customers, can be handled through the customer service center, so it is called "back-end marketing".
Based on the concept of customer relationship management, the customer service center has become the company's market adjustment center, new product development center and trial sales point through low-cost operation such as network and telephone, forming a triangular loop of channel, front-end marketing and customer cooperation. From the comparison between the above-mentioned customer relationship management and traditional customer service, customer relationship management focuses on caring for customers, and the core of direct selling is also from the customer's point of view. Therefore, the effective combination of the two will certainly realize the promotion of enterprise sales, the promotion of enterprise image and the realization of customer lifelong value.
Sixth, direct selling centered on CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
1. Direct selling is inseparable from customers, and CRM touches all aspects of sales.
CRM is a business concept, which touches many independent departments in the enterprise. It needs a "new customer-centered" business model, supported by an application system that integrates front-end and back-end systems. These integrated application systems ensure a more satisfactory customer experience, and customer satisfaction is directly related to whether the enterprise can obtain more profits. Undoubtedly, the existing resources of an enterprise are one of its greatest assets, so it needs careful management. The cultivation and excavation of existing customers and potential customers is now considered to be the key to the further success of enterprises. The data shows that developing a new customer needs five times more investment than maintaining an old customer. Investing in existing customers and improving their satisfaction will directly affect customer loyalty, and then affect the ultimate benefit of enterprises. All the above processes of direct selling are indispensable, and direct selling is inseparable from customers and customer care.
2. Direct selling e-commerce strategy must be closely combined with CRM business model to be more effective.
As we know, CRM covers three aspects of enterprise activities: sales, marketing and customer service. These customer contact points must be able to strengthen customer relationships. As e-commerce will become the main business channel, its integration with CRM is essential. We believe that the enterprise's e-commerce strategy must be synchronized with the CRM business model to ensure the consistency of customer experience. Otherwise, two independent systems will waste resources and produce uncoordinated results, which will make customers feel disappointed and dissatisfied.
A wonderful CRM system should be a win-win situation for customers and enterprises. End users can get value-added services, and the company's management can get continuous, accurate and up-to-date information about enterprise operations around customers.
3. The relationship between direct selling and CRM marketing database
Direct selling is inseparable from the support of marketing database. The marketing database consists of processed data about customers and potential customers. Enterprises can obtain information of target customers through databases, sell products and services to them, and establish relationships with customers.
The feedback function of marketing database promotes the communication between marketers and consumers. Marketing database usually includes customer name, purchased goods (or inquired goods), purchase place, transaction amount, purchase reason, etc. A simple marketing database can only include the first three items. Through the database, enterprises can establish customer files, predict future transactions according to relevant data, and timely query the reasons why customers no longer buy products. Through the analysis of the database, marketers can also obtain the development of the relationship between enterprises and customers, the role of sales channels and the marketing mix factors that play a role in customer purchase.
Now, marketing database is playing an increasingly important role not only in the field of direct marketing, but also in other marketing activities. Many retail enterprises, wholesale enterprises, durable consumer goods enterprises and organized market enterprises are also establishing marketing databases.
The data in the marketing database should have three characteristics: correctness, completeness and convenience. The continuous development of computer technology has laid a foundation for the establishment and utilization of marketing database.
4.CRM is helpful to the accurate analysis of direct selling effect.
Deep intelligent analysis needs to integrate all enterprise business application systems into the analysis environment based on unified customer data, and then feed back the analysis results to the management and the whole enterprise, thus increasing the value of information analysis. Enterprise decision makers will weigh this information and make more comprehensive and timely business decisions.
Through the comprehensive analysis of customer data, we can measure the value brought by customers to enterprises and measure customer satisfaction. The collected information can show the customer category, service level and main obstacles, which is the basis for making management reports and completing various enterprise tasks, such as prioritizing potential consumption, monitoring the time spent at a specific stage in the sales cycle or the type of problems being handled.
4.CRM helps to keep the loyalty of direct selling customers.
In direct marketing, it is becoming more and more important and difficult to maintain customer loyalty. The cultivation and excavation of existing customers and potential customers is now considered to be the key to the further success of enterprises. CRM provides convenience and possibility for achieving this goal, and at the same time, it establishes and enhances customer loyalty through instant response and instant service. The phrase "competition is at the click of a mouse" has been proved to be more and more important.
In order to coordinate customer service, all interactions with customers must be managed through a set of general system integration supported by advanced technology. Telephone, fax, e-mail and website are independent of each other, which often gives customers an incomplete impression of the enterprise. This disjointed operation not only makes customers dissatisfied, but also affects the enterprise's grasp of existing customer information. Due to the incomplete background information of customers, irrelevant customer contact points hinder enterprises from obtaining the maximum benefits brought by customers.
Seven, the "five keys" of CRM-centered direct selling
The industry agrees that sales, marketing and customer service are the three functional pillars of CRM. These are the main contact areas between customers and enterprises, whether these contacts occur before, during or after sales, or in existing relationships where customers need services or information and want to buy further. The key of direct selling lies in sales and customer service, and the realization of CRM is very important for the multiplication of direct selling effect.
1, customer service
When it comes to customer relationship management, customer service may be the most critical content. The customer service provided by direct selling is the key to retain satisfied and loyal customers. Nowadays, the service that customers expect has gone beyond the scope of traditional telephone call centers. Call center is developing into a customer service center that can handle all kinds of communication media. Telephone interaction must be combined with email, fax, website and any other means that customers like to use. With more and more customers accessing the Internet through browsers to check orders or ask questions, the demand for self-service is also increasing.
Customer service has surpassed the traditional help platform. The word "customer care" is now used to expand the scope of corporate responsibility to customers. Actively establishing relationships with customers is an important part of customer service. Customer service can handle all kinds of inquiries from customers, including related products, required information, order request, order execution and high-quality on-site service.
Step 2 sell
Salesman Automation (SFA) is the fastest growing part of CRM. The line of interaction between salespeople and potential customers.