16-09-2014, 10:42 AM
Customer Relationship Mangement
Customer Relationship.docx (Size: 27.87 KB / Downloads: 30)
Introduction
The biggest management challenge in the new millennium of liberalization and globalization for a business is to serve and maintain good relationship with the king – the customer. In the past producers took their customers for granted, because at that time the customers were not demanding nor had alternative source of supply or suppliers. But today there is a radical transformation. The changing business environment is characterized by economic liberalization, increasing competition, high consumer choice, demanding customer, more emphasis on quality and value of purchase etc.
All these changes have made today’s producer shift from traditional marketing to modern marketing. Modern marketing calls for more than developing a product, pricing it, promoting it and making it accessible to target customer. It demands building trust, a binding force and value added relationship with the customers.
The process of developing a cooperative and collaborative relationship between the buyer and seller is called customer relationship management shortly called CRM. According to Ashokadutt head of Citi Bank “the idea of CRM is to know the individual customer intimately, so that the company has a customized product ready for him even before he asks for it.”
CRM in the Textile industry
In textile industry one company sell its product to another company. For example a yarn manufacturing company sell to fabric manufacturing company. A fabric manufacturing company sell fabric to apparel company. The main customers of the companies in the textile industry are the wholesalers. And the final product is sold to the wholesalers and retailers. In this industry the customers are few and profit margins are high. So CRM is very much necessary and relevant in this industry. There is a high degree of uncertainty on the part of the buyers, the likelihood of customers seeking a relationship is increased. If the firm loses its customer it would be major loss to the firm. The product in the textile industry is complex and quality is an important factor. One of the major values the customer expects from vendors is quality. No customer will tolerate average quality. According to GE’s chairman John “quality is the best assurance of customer allegiance and strongest defense against competition and the only path to sustained growth and earnings.” If the product is not of good quality the customer will not be satisfied and the firm may lose its customer. Moreover there is a scope of customization in the product. The seller has to customize the product according to the need of the customer. Customization is changing the product according to the need of the customer in order to satisfy him.
Conclusion
From this study it can be concluded that the customer relationship management in Company is satisfactory. The company is using various CRM practices like customization of the product, maintaining interaction with the customers regularly and providing good quality product etc. Customer relationship management has a certain impact on the profitability of the company. Average sale per customer has increased 15% over the last two years. Customer response rate towards marketing activities is also improving. There are various factors affecting the customer relationship management like working environment of the company, support from top management and coordination among the departments of the company. Information technology is not used as much as it should be. The company is using traditional tools of CRM like quantitative research, personal interviews. The company should modern tools like data mining, contact center, e-CRM and web based survey tools.