MARKET CUSTOMER You do not intend to sell to only one person. So knowing the customer profile, you have now to group all the persons sharing the same profile: It is your market customer Definition: A market is a group of customers ( or prospects ) sharing the characteristics which cope with the benefits offered by your product or service. Example: -There is a group of persons eager to travel: there is the tourist market. -There is a group of persons who use car. There is the car market. Then we have to separate undifferentiated markets and market segments. 31-Undifferentiated market If your product brings benefits to everyone, you can treat the market as a whole. For example, anybody whatever his age, sex or revenue drink soda. Nevertheless, you have to take notice of the geographical area. For a retailer, the soda market is around his shop. For Coca cola, that is the entire world. 32-Market segments In most cases, inside a broad market, you have to differentiate segments. It means that the market segmentation is one of the most basic concepts in marketing. -Definition: The market segmentation is the process of splitting customers within a market customer, into different groups sharing some specific characteristics. Compare with the definition of the market customer. The important word is the adjective "specific". Among the common characteristics of your market customer, you only focus on some "specific characteristics". Examples: -If your project is to manage an hostel, the tourist market is your customer market but it is not very useful. The tourist market includes cruisers, hostels, tour trip, trekking and so on. Within the tourist market, you have to study the hostel market and inside this broad segment the specific one which corresponds to the benefit your hostel will offer ( Is it a five stars or a two stars hostel? is it located on sea shore or in the Rocky Mountains?) -We have defined above the customer profile for fun board and consequently our customer market. Right now, we will focus on only one geographical characteristic. It means, for example, that we only focus on North America and inside it on USA. In doing so, we isolate a market segment within our broad market. With a segment you can execute your advertising activities to yield your business targets. Without a segment, you risk wasting money. Once again, three major variables are used : - Geographic segmentations divide the market by country, region and city: It is often a good starting point to begin with a single geographical territory. Once you have completed the segmentation for it, you can test the applicability to other and larger areas. –

Demographic segmentations divide the population on measurable variables such as age, sex, income, educational level and so on, - Psychological segmentation is often quite difficult and needs costly surveys. Homogeneous: It's the first quality required for a segment. It means that a segment must be clearly different to others segments in the same broad market. For example, a segment having people income ranking from $20,000 to $200,000 is not homogeneous and worthless for a marketing strategy. -Consistent: If your segment counts only three prospects, and except you sell nuclear plant, it's not enough to develop sales and profits. A segment must count a large number of prospects. The factors which can influence the size of the segment are the increase in population, the situation of employment and the changes in income, the supply of resources, the evolution of laws, the consumer tastes and preferences and notably the fads. -Profitable: A segment must generate profit. It means that the prospects in the segment have a sufficient income with regard of the product price. If you sell luxurious car, it's not very smart to isolate a segment which only contains deprived people! –Executable: It means that you can reach the segment through advertising, sales force, distribution. It is worthless to isolate a segment if you are unable to join the people who are inside it. For example, there is certainly a consistent segment for fun board in China but If you do not speak chinese, you will never make a dollar with it. From a practical point of view -Cluster analysis To target your customers, you can split the segment into little groups according to a multi-criteria approach: Example: With our fun board market, we have defined a market segment in Arizona. Now, we shall split this segment in clusters, according to new criteria's: People who focus on price, people who had subscribed life insurance, people who only buy from well known brand.

Customer segmentation is the practice of dividing a customer base into groups of individuals that are similar in specific ways relevant to marketing, such as age, gender, interests, spending habits, and so on.

Customer segmentation is the practice of dividing a customer base into groups of individuals that are similar in specific ways relevant to marketing, such as age, gender, interests, spending habits and so on. 

CRM Application Companies

Siebel

Peoplesoft

Teradata

TJ Group

TJ Group’s CRM Suite:

Sales Automation

Marketing Automation

Campaign Management

Business Management

Knowledge Management

Service Automation

Business benefits of CRM

Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) solution might involve considerable time and expense. However, there are many potential benefits.

A major benefit can be the development of better relations with your existing customers, which can lead to:

increased sales through better timing due to anticipating needs based on historic trends

identifying needs more effectively by understanding specific customer requirements

cross-selling of other products by highlighting and suggesting alternatives or enhancements

identifying which of your customers are profitable and which are not

This can lead to better marketing of your products or services by focusing on:

effective targeted marketing communications aimed specifically at customer needs

a more personal approach and the development of new or improved products and services in order to win more business in the future

Ultimately this could lead to:

enhanced customer satisfaction and retention, ensuring that your good reputation in the marketplace continues to grow

increased value from your existing customers and reduced cost associated with supporting and servicing them, increasing your overall efficiency and reducing total cost of sales

improved profitability by focusing on the most profitable customers and dealing with the unprofitable in more cost effective ways

Once your business starts to look after its existing customers effectively, efforts can be concentrated on finding new customers and expanding your market. The more you know about your customers, the easier it is to identify new prospects and increase your customer base.

Even with years of accumulated knowledge, there's always room for improvement. Customer needs change over time, and technology can make it easier to find out more about customers and ensure that everyone in an organisation can exploit this information.

Types of CRM solution

Customer relationship management (CRM) is important in running a successful business. The better the relationship, the easier it is to conduct business and generate revenue. Therefore using technology to improve CRM makes good business sense.

CRM solutions fall into the following four broad categories.

Outsourced solutions

Application service providers can provide web-based CRM solutions for your business. This approach is ideal if you need to implement a solution quickly and your company does not have the in-house skills necessary to tackle the job from scratch. It is also a good solution if you are already geared towards online e-commerce.

Off-the-shelf solutions

Several software companies offer CRM applications that integrate with existing packages. Cut-down versions of such software may be suitable for smaller businesses. This approach is generally the cheapest option as you are investing in standard software components. The downside is that the software may not always

do precisely what you want and you may have to trade off functionality for convenience and price. The key to success is to be flexible without compromising too much.

Custom software

For the ultimate in tailored CRM solutions, consultants and software engineers will customise or create a CRM system and integrate it with your existing software.

However, this can be expensive and time consuming. If you choose this option, make sure you carefully specify exactly what you want. This will usually be the most expensive option and costs will vary depending on what your software designer quotes.

Managed solutions

A half-way house between custom and outsourced solutions, this involves renting a customised suite of CRM applications as a tailored package. This can be cost effective but it may mean that you have to compromise in terms of functionality.

How to implement CRM

The implementation of a customer relationship management (CRM) solution is best treated as a six-stage process, moving from collecting information about your customers and processing it to using that information to improve your marketing and the customer experience.

Stage 1 - Collecting information

The priority should be to capture the information you need to identify your customers and categorise their behaviour. Those businesses with a website and online customer service have an advantage as customers can enter and maintain their own details when they buy.

Stage 2 - Storing information

The most effective way to store and manage your customer information is in a relational database - a centralised customer database that will allow you to run all your systems from the same source, ensuring that everyone uses up-to-date information.

Stage 3 - Accessing information

With information collected and stored centrally, the next stage is to make this information available to staff in the most useful format.

Stage 4 - Analysing customer behaviour

Using data mining tools in spreadsheet programs, which analyse data to identify patterns or relationships, you can begin to profile customers and develop sales strategies.

Stage 5 - Marketing more effectively

Many businesses find that a small percentage of their customers generate a high percentage of their profits. Using CRM to gain a better understanding of your customers' needs, desires and self-perception, you can reward and target your most valuable customers.

Stage 6 - Enhancing the customer experience

Just as a small group of customers are the most profitable, a small number of complaining customers often take up a disproportionate amount of staff time. If their problems can be identified and resolved quickly, your staff will have more time for other customers.

Potential drawbacks of CRM

There are several reasons why implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) solution might not have the desired results.

There could be a lack of commitment from people within the company to the implementation of a CRM solution. Adapting to a customer-focused approach may require a cultural change. There is a danger that relationships with customers will break down somewhere along the line, unless everyone in the business is committed to viewing their operations from the customers' perspective. The result is customer dissatisfaction and eventual loss of revenue.

Poor communication can prevent buy-in. In order to make CRM work, all the relevant people in your business must know what information you need and how to use it.

Weak leadership could cause problems for any CRM implementation plan. The onus is on management to lead by example and push for a customer focus on every project. If a proposed plan isn't right for your customers, don't do it. Send your teams back to the drawing board to come up with a solution that will work.

Trying to implement CRM as a complete solution in one go is a tempting but risky strategy. It is better to break your CRM project down into manageable pieces by setting up pilot programs and short-term milestones. Consider starting with a pilot project that incorporates all the necessary departments and groups but is small and flexible enough to allow adjustments along the way.

Don't underestimate how much data you will require, and make sure that you can expand your systems if necessary. You need to carefully consider what data is collected and stored to ensure that only useful data is kept.

You must also ensure you comply with Québec’s An Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector.

Avoid adopting rigid rules which cannot be changed. Rules should be flexible to allow the needs of individual customers to be met.