How to manage at best your Internal Customer using a Holistic CRM approach
The word is changing at the speed of light: knowing how to innovate and improve is the only way to survive.
Moreover, the Covid-19 has twisted the way companies work. On one hand, the necessity of creating long lasting relationships with the customers to survive the global competition still stands, on the other the customer needs and the way purchased are made are going through radical changes. In addition, there is the need to working remotely in an efficient manner.
In such complex contest, more and more organizations are adopting Customers Relationship strategies and technologies.
The implementation of the project is not easy as it might seems, especially from a cultural point of view, and often companies do not get the return and the investment the expected.
Internal Customer and Holistic CRM
The traditional CRM is usually implemented in one area, the sales one, largely neglecting the internal customer. After all, as soon as the word CRM is heard the mind goes to the customer, the customer experience, to the customer portfolio management and to customer loyalty: a customer centric logic is introduced and with it all business processes are adapted.
By embracing this philosophy a very important part of the company is neglected: the Internal Customer.
As we mentioned in the one of our previous articles the Internal Customer are the employees, the partners, and all those that contribute to provide your product/service to your final user. For instance in a sampling request process the Internal Customer is usually the sales manager that, according to the External Customers needs, makes a request and verifies its output.
“In general the customer is the entity that makes a request and checks the output; the supplier is the person who takes care of the request, identifying the way to fulfil it, the various tasks and the raw materials.”
Being the traditional CRM too focused on external customers it won’t allow you to obtain a guaranteed success, because it is not possible to efficiently locate and remove bottlenecks caused by internal inefficient processes. Often organization do not even know for sure the daily tasks of each employee and how processes are carried out.
In this case, internal customers are not supported and left to themselves: this is link building a house with unstable foundation.
Usually companies are built in separate vertical departments (eg. Sales, Marketing, Logistic stc.) instead of taking in consideration the business process that connects all the areas involved in a horizontal way.
We talk also about departmental silos, when referring to this phenomenon, that leads to complicated and fragile business processes: usually the interests of each department are put first at the expenses of the wellbeing of the company itself, slowing down its growth and development.
The solution to this problem is to adopt an holistic and organic vision of CRM Processes that involves all the company, and, most of all, that manages both internal and external customers: all business processes are mapped, designed, implemented, analysed and optimised if needed.
How to implement it?
Changing the way the CRM is perceived, switching to a more holistic vision encourages the revision of the business organization. It is no more focused on the single departments with a vertical logic, but on the entire company following cross departments processes that link the various areas.
Business Processes are defined, designed, analysed, improved and customized following the Business Process Management (BPM) approach, on which vtenext founds its philosophy.
- Increase productivity
- Track all the activities, constantly improving them and identifying bottlenecks
- Automate repetitive tasks, reducing so the margin of error and optimizing the resources involved
- Break down internal communicative silos facilitating the exchange of information among departments
Think big, start small
Think big, start small this is the philosophy adopted by successful CRM projects.
Achieving a masterful level of process management does not come “overnight” but is a long process made of small steps.
The company has to keep learning and innovating in a context of continuous improvement.
For this reason, we follow our customers step-by-step during the creation of the project by:
- Analysing and understanding the specific needs
- Learning how the company works with the goal of creating a customized solution
- Sharing our previous know how
- Training the internal human resources to create and manage digitized business process in total autonomy
You want to know the benefits that the vtenext philosophy brings to your company? Contact us!
During the years we have helped many companies of every field and dimension, we’ll be happy to know your project better!