The 4 Cs of Intelligence-Powered CRM

At this weeks Forrester Consumer Forum I attended the Customer Intelligence Leadership board and had an opportunity to hear Joe Stanhope & Suresh Vittal present a case for “Intelligence-Powered CRM.”   The central thesis is that applying Customer Intelligence (CI) to Customer Relations Management (CRM) increases the likelihood of successful implementation.

Forrester defines CRM as a program created to build brand value, identify the impact of key segments, and drive incremental volume.

The analysts identified five stumbling blocks affecting CRM success:

  1. Measuring skills
  2. Data disparity
  3. Organizational silos
  4. Splinternet
  5. Technology gaps

As a result of these obstacles, Marketers find themselves with multiple views of the customer and this hinders Marketings efforts.  Joe outlined a framework for Intelligence-Powered CRM.

Four Cs of Intelligent CRM:

  1. Customer data – track customer interactions (online & offline) and build system to garner insights
  2. Culture – build a culture centered on CI
  3. Comprehensive Technology – partner with data management solution providers and internal IT
  4. Centralized processes – define goals & objectives and link efforts to business objectives

Forrester believes companies can use CI to transform raw data into powerful insights.  In addition to a full report on the Intelligence-Powered CRM, Forrester also offers a short diagnostic that can help companies measure their own CRM program against the Four Cs criteria.

1 comment

    • Ed Gillespie on November 1, 2010 at 10:59 pm

    Interesting to see how some of the data quality/customer intelligence leaders like Pitney Bowes Business Insight are building capabilies in the CRM space (i.e. with the acquisition of Portrait Software). This idea of intelligence-powered CRM seems very powerful. Thank you for the excellent summary, Reff.

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