Chapter 7. Customer Relationship Management Solutions

Any successful SMB knows that customer acquisition without proper service and the resulting retention translates into a continuous and, at best, costly customer turnover. Although it might be hard to find business missions that advocate poor customer service or high turnover, in some cases, lack of customer retention could be part of an overall SMB strategy.

In a health care–related industry, perhaps no customer retention is the ideal model. That is, if an SMB is truly dedicated to the customers' well-being by healing the patients so that they never need to come back, that SMB might eventually go out of business. While the patients are being treated, however, excellent customer service is vital for the health care SMBs, especially given the emotional nature of their business. On the other hand, a retail store, a bank, a manufacturing company, or an accounting or legal firm might consider a different approach from the hypothetical health care SMB. Serve the customers so well that they never want to leave or even consider looking for another supplier of the goods and services that the SMB offers.

All of the solutions discussed in the other chapters of this book represent either the elements of the network infrastructure (routing, switching, security, wireless) or enabling applications (IP Telephony, unified communications, IP/TV) that ultimately lead or should lead to the following principle: Acquire customers with ease, provide them excellent service with minimum effort, keep them satisfied and inspired, and retain them for the long haul. Without diverging into unrelated topics of philosophy and psychology, suffice it to say that customers are complex creatures that the SMB is trying to acquire, service, satisfy, and retain.

At a minimum, SMBs that find value in the preceding principle should make an effort to understand their customer base. The best way to do so is through a customer relationship management (CRM) solution that uniquely fits the SMB's business model and which, aside from being a set of software applications and enabling platforms, is also a form of business strategy and philosophy for creating long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with customers.