CHAPTER 6 An Enterprise-Wide Approach to CRM. What Is Customer Strategy and How Does It Help? How Customer Strategy Relates to Corporate and Functional Strategy Key Components of an Effective Customer Strategy Enterprise Marketing Management | CHAPTER 6 An Enterprise-Wide Approach to CRM What Is Customer Strategy and How Does It Help 139 How Customer Strategy Relates to Corporate and Functional Strategy 140 Key Components of an Effective Customer Strategy 143 Enterprise Marketing Management How Customer Strategy Integrates with Marketing Strategy 150 Key Points 161 Few companies provide seamless customer interactions across departments. In fact it is usually the opposite. In most companies customer orders or requests are routed through many departments including sales finance billing manufacturing and customer service. As client calls are transferred from person to person and information bounces around departments departmental rules often trump the desire to provide swift and seamless service. In addition too little attention is given to the differences in customer needs or importance to the firm. We find a tendency among most managers to be too internally focused and departmentally minded rather than customer-minded. As a result their employees are usually unaware of the priorities attached to various customer interactions. So customers tend to get treated in uniform often-shoddy ways making most companies difficult to do business with. Leading companies break down departmental barriers and manage customer relationships holistically. Cross-departmental collaboration is encouraged and the importance of customer priorities and activities supersede most other departmental issues. For example in implementing their CRM initiative PepsiAmericas developed a coordinated enterprise-wide approach. The company first acknowledged that each of its three identified customer segments .
