Decision Management and some top CRM processes for a cost-constrained economy

A press release caught my eye recently on CRM – Gartner Identifies the Top Six CRM Marketing Processes for a Cost-Constrained Economy. Two of the six processes Gartner identified seem to me to require decision management to be done well.

1.Retention Management
Retaining high value or potential high-value customers is essential in difficult economic times. Gartner advises that organizations calculate the profitability and value of customers, identify those they want to keep and develop retention programs based on their customer segment and identified needs (my emphasis)

Retention is one of, if not the, top use of decision management in CRM. Why is retention so decision-centric? Well several reasons:

• It is strongly cross-channel as every customer uses different channels so renewal and retention offers must be delivered consistently across them. Decision management ensures consistent decision-making across channels.
• Policies and sometimes regulations affect the retention offers being made but data mining is key also to developing profitability predicti…

Copyright © 2009 James Taylor. Visit the original article at Decision Management and some top CRM processes for a cost-constrained economy.

A press release caught my eye recently on CRM – Gartner Identifies the Top Six CRM Marketing Processes for a Cost-Constrained Economy. Two of the six processes Gartner identified seem to me to require decision management to be done well.

1.Retention Management
Retaining high value or potential high-value customers is essential in difficult economic times. Gartner advises that organizations calculate the profitability and value of customers, identify those they want to keep and develop retention programs based on their customer segment and identified needs (my emphasis)

Retention is one of, if not the, top use of decision management in CRM. Why is retention so decision-centric? Well several reasons:

• It is strongly cross-channel as every customer uses different channels so renewal and retention offers must be delivered consistently across them. Decision management ensures consistent decision-making across channels.
• Policies and sometimes regulations affect the retention offers being made but data mining is key also to developing profitability predictions and customer segments. Decision Management combines both.
• The people handling retention can’t make independent decisions. The call center and front-line staff that talk to people who are considering leaving are not your most highly trained. A decision management approach ensures the most effective and appropriate decision is made for each customer leaving the representative to work on the relationship
• Finally it is a very measurable decision – someone who said they were going to leave and then does not was clearly influenced by the offer made and thus by the retention decision.

The other one that struck me was

3.Online Marketing
The Web is a cost-effective way to reach customers and one of the easiest channels in which to measure marketing ROI.

Again, decision management would seem to be critical. Web marketing requires use of analytics (web analytics and customer segmentation) as well as rules defining offers and campaigns. It requires all this to be personalized and then delivered in an event-based way (rather than in a big mailing campaigns). Decision management is ideal for this kind of micro-decision rich environment.

Marketing in 2009 needs decisision management.

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