New virtual worlds such as Second Life are becoming the first point of contact b
ID: 336504 • Letter: N
Question
New virtual worlds such as Second Life are becoming the first point of contact between many firms and customers. To say the least, virtual relationships are far different from traditional relationships. Firms such as Adidas, Dell, Reuters, and Toyota are all embracing Second Life; however, beyond opening a virtual office in a virtual world, they are struggling with how to build virtual customer relationships.
PA Consulting quickly learned that building a virtual office to answer customer queries is not nearly good enough to find and attract loyal customers. The company realized that real people behind the avatars need to be housed in a real office similar to having a call center to answer questions for online shopping. When a potential customer wants to speak to a human, one must appear or else the customer will leave the website.
You are the executive director of CRM at StormPeak, an advanced technological company that develops robots. You are in charge of overseeing the first virtual site being built in Second Life. Create a CRM strategy for doing business in a virtual world.
Discuss a CRM strategy for doing business in a virtual world. How would you create a CRM strategy? In addition to the questions listed, what questions/concerns would you consider in developing a strategy?
Also, how important are CRM strategies to the success of a business?
Explanation / Answer
Strategy : A collective moves and approaches made by management in order to reach its destination via employing various objectives / moto are called strategies.
Any kind of strategy in the corporate world if framed in order to manage relationship with customers in a smooth and healthy manner by employing various technologies etc are called corporate strategies.
Steps involved in formulating successful customer relationship management strategy :
* first understand and obtain the knowledge of
What kind of objective company wants ??
Whether it is with in the cover of its vision and mission statements ??
* then find out possible alternatives / options available in order to reach companies objectivity
Eg : objective is to set 1000 hrs per month to redress customer grievance
• if it has to be set up as call center or via website management tool / any other option available has to be finalised.
• the budget involved in either options has to be analysed.
Then alternative is opted.
* now the option is finalised once. Start working on analysis of employees needed. How to recruit ?? How to maintain ?? Whether a physical one / virtual set up ?? All these has to be assessed as per company requirements.
* finally strategy is formulated. And its consistent implementation is executed.
CRM Strategy in virtual form :
* basic principle of framing any kind of CRM management is " making customer representatives available to them in order to redress their grievances. "
* so whether it is a physical set up in the form of call centre or virtual ones with no specific office set up , the strategy is still sounded best if company is able to maintain that intact with its customers.
* if company frames policies like
• specific time slot responsibility to employee , then no matter where he / she is but can address their customers still.
• if any customer opted for a reply but no one turned up then that has greater negative impact on users. So , things like time slot per employee is introduced thus minimum no.of representatives will be present all the time.
• employees are given positive ranking if they are available during their specific hours slot. But if any kind of no signal zone / sudden disappear / any other kind of inconvenience created by employee that turns into negative ranking and immediate dismissal is initiated on reaching specific scale.
These kind of policies help the companies maintain virtual CRM's.
* payment basing on no. Of calls attended and Scores attached to these calls.
These kind of policies also create competitive environment among employees. How ever a supervisor of scaling calls has to be appointed. Company must ensure that payment to supervisor does not increase finance burden on it.
These are some of the ideas inorder to frame successful CRM strategies to be maintained in virtual world of corporate industry.