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Customer Relationship Management (With Special Reference to Bharti Airtel Limited.) PROJECT REPORT AND VIVA VOICE Project Research by SATISH SINGH

Customer Relationship-Bharti Airtel

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Customer Relationship Management(With Special Reference to Bharti Airtel Limited.)

PROJECT REPORT AND VIVA VOICE

Project Research by

SATISH SINGH

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

• Vision

• Mission

• Quality Statement

• Corporate Asset Focus

• Share Holding

 

ABOUT BHARTI

• Selecting And Measuring The Right Components For A Successful CRM Strategy

• Best Practices For Analytical Applications In The Telecom Industry

• Strategies Adopted

• Technology From World Leaders

• Service Guarantee

• Value Added Services

• World Class Customer Care

• International Significance

• Competitive Strengths

• Awards

The Road Ahead

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

• Customer Relationship Management

• The Emergence Of CRM Practice

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• A CRM Process Framework 

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

• Primary Objective

• Secondary Objective

RATIONALE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

• Data Collection Instruments

• Collection Of Data

FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

• Measurement Of Customer Focus/Customer Centricity

• Customer Satisfaction Survey

Scoring And Interpretation• Dealer Survey

• Analysis Of Dealer Survey

CRM IMPLEMENTATION TAILOR MADE

SCHEMES

CRM STRATEGY

• Managing Customers For Various Enhancement

• Once CRM Is Implemented, What Makes It Click 

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• Because Good Relations Matter 

• CRM Reference Model

• Touch Point And Presentation Layer 

Distributed Application And Security Cooperation Services• IT Service Management

• Technology Network Infrastructure- IT

• Tools

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT-

GIS

• Business Continuity Strategies For Customer Relationship Management

AIRTEL’S CRM STRATEGIES

• Principles For Building Strong Customer Relationships

• Airtel’s Customer Relationship Model

• Solving Customer Relationship Management Involves Addressing A

Principles-Based Value Chain• High Churn Rates

• Why It Happens

• Postpaid Churn Solution That Work 

• Effective Churn Management And Performance Measurement Framework 

• Minimizing Churn And Building Customer Profitability Churn Solutions That

Work 

Comprehensive Approach To Churn Control In High Growth AndCompetitive Markets

• Best Ways To Prevent These High Rates Of Customer Churn

CRM ACQUISITION

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• Steps

• Strategies

• Other Means

Customer Defection• 6 Types Of Defectors

CUSTOMER RETENTION

• Customer Complaints

•  Need To Listen To Customer Complaints

• Encourage Customer Complaints

• Do Not Forget

INDICES

• Marketing

• Sales

• Customer Service

• CRM Business Strategy

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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INTRODUCTION

AIRTEL comes to you from Bharti Cellular Limited - a part of the biggest private

integrated telecom conglomerate, Bharti Enterprises. Bharti provides a range of telecom

services, which include Cellular, Basic, Internet and recently introduced National Long

Distance. Bharti also manufactures and exports telephone terminals and cordless phones.

Apart from being the largest manufacturer of telephone instruments in India, it is also the

first company to export its products to the USA. Bharti is the leading cellular service

 provider, with a footprint in 21 states covering all four metros and more than 8 million

satisfied customers.

VISION

To be globally admired for telecom services that delight customers.

MISSION

We will meet global standards for telecom services that delight customers through:

Customer Service Focus

Empowered Employees

Innovative Services

Cost Efficiency

The strategic objective is to consolidate its leadership position among mobile service

 providers in India. Through its subsidiaries, Bharti has licenses to provide GSM services

in 15 of the 22 telecom circles in the country. It now proposes to consolidate all these

subsidiaries under Bharti Cellular.

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QUALITY STATEMENT

We will deliver error-free services to our customers by doing our jobs right the first time,

every time - this is your quality statement.

CORPORATE ASSET FOCUS

The Chairman and Group Managing Director of Bharti Televentures, Mr Sunil Mittal, has

sold his entire personal stock, accounting for about 0.15 per cent stake in the company, or 

a consideration of over Rs 60 crore on New Delhi, March 11.

Share Holding

Indian Promoters : 46.6%

Foreign collaborators : 0.0% Indian inst/Mutual Fund : 2.7%

FIIs/GDR : 9.2%

Free float : 41.5%

Shareholders : 40,315

ABOUT BHARTI

Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited was incorporated on July 7, 1995 for promoting

investments in telecommunications services. Its subsidiaries operate telecom services

across India. Bharti Tele-Ventures is India's leading private sector provider of 

telecommunications services based on a strong customer base consisting of 

approximately 11.50 million total customers which constitute, approximately 10.66

million mobile and approximately 836,000 fixed line customers, as of February 28, 2005.

The company today offers mobile services in 21 out of 23 circles in India. The company

also provides fixed - line services and Internet access over DSL in 6 circles. The

company complements its mobile and fixed-line services with national and internationallong distance services. The company also has a submarine cable landing station at

Chennai, which connects the submarine cable connecting Chennai and Singapore. The

company provides reliable end-to-end data and enterprise services to the corporate

customers by leveraging its nationwide fiber optic backbone, last mile connectivity in

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fixed-line and mobile circles, VSATs, ISP and international bandwidth access through

the gateways and landing station.

In September 2002, Bharti leveraged its pan-India footprint to offer some never before

 benefits to our customers. These succeeded in re-defining customer expectations and are

fuelling growth of the mobile category in the Western region. The benefits included a 30-

second pulse, free roaming on Airtel networks across the country, incoming calls free

from any Airtel to Airtel mobile and free airtime on one international, one national and

one local number without any monthly charges. Bharti Cellular has invested Rs 1500

crores in the Western region. This investment is to be raised further as the roll out gathers

more momentum.

SELECTING AND MEASURING THE RIGHT COMPONENTS FOR A

SUCCESSFUL CRM STRATEGY

Examine the role of Data mining to create differentiators

Determine how CRM is applied in a prepaid business

Using Call Center technologies for one to one relationships

The role of the Front line in CRM success

Measuring the Return on Investment of CRM after its implementation

BEST PRACTICES FOR ANALYTICAL APPLICATIONS IN THE TELECOM

INDUSTRY

Designing your analytical applications to facilitate:

Useful segmentation methodology and techniques

Effective churn analysis and prediction

Successful cross and up-selling

Targeted acquisition

Accurate price plan analysis

STRATEGIES ADOPTED

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Focus on maximizing revenues and margins;

Capture maximum telecommunications revenue potential with minimum

geographical coverage;

Offer multiple telecommunications services to provide customers with a "one-stop

shop" solution;

Position itself to tap data transmission opportunities and offer advanced mobile

data services;

Focus on satisfying and retaining customers by ensuring high level of customer 

satisfaction;

Leverage strengths of its strategic and financial partners; and

Emphasize on human resource development to achieve operational efficiencies.

TECHNOLOGY FROM WORLD LEADERS

The company has partnered with telecom majors like Siemens, ECI, Lucent and Duraline

for its network. While Siemens has provided the digital switching system (Siemens

EWSD) with CCS-7, a signaling protocol for faster connectivity, the billing software

(Keenan Arbor) has been sourced from Lucent. The Synchronous Digital Hierarchy

(SDH) equipment is sourced from ECI.

SERVICE GUARANTEE

Service guarantee is a first-of-its-kind scheme and underlines Airtel’s commitment to

 provide error free services – ‘Services right the first time and every time’. The service

guarantee scheme entails:

Repair of any dead phones within 8 working hours of receiving a complaint

Error Free billing.

The scheme is a culmination of Airtel’s efforts in continuously setting new benchmarks

in quality by adhering to best quality practices including SIX-SIGMA.

In the unlikely event of any failure in this promise, the company will give STD/ISD pre

 paid calling card worth Rs. 100/- to the customers.

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VALUE ADDED SERVICES

Besides providing world-class voice products and data services, Airtel – Broadband &

Telephone Services also provides a host of value added services to its customers. These

services, which add a whole new dimension to the meaning of fixed line telephony,

include services like Voice Mail Service, Directory Assistance, Call Completion Busy

Subscriber, Delayed Hotline, Centrex and the like. The company also provides a host of 

customized premium services to its customers such as live astrologers, cricket updates,

sending jokes and greeting in celebrity voices, music messaging service etc.

WORLD CLASS CUSTOMER CARE

Apart from the state-of-the-art infrastructure, Airtel - Broadband & Telephone Services is

the first to provide a dedicated 24-hour call centre. The company is planning to have a

250 seater call center equipped with the best ACDs, IVRs and Call loggers to provide

world class after sales support.

INTERNATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE

There are *38 mobile operators worldwide, who have 10 million plus customers. Within

this Group 38, there are 15 mobile operators who are from Asia. In this regard, it is a

 proud moment for the Indian GSM industry with Airtel becoming the first Indian GSM

operator to join this international club as its 39 th member worldwide and the 16th in Asia.

The key demographics of Bharti Tele-Ventures' mobile circles are set forth below

 

All India

Bharti

Circles

Bharti as

% of All India  Number of circles 22 16 73%Area of the circles (in '000 sq km) 3,278 1,848 56%Population in the licensed areas (in Millions) 1,027 593 58%Market Mobile subscribers in the licensed areas

(in Millions) 39.78 39.42 99%

Market Dealers in the licensed area (in Millions) 37.7 30.7 81%

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 Number of vehicles in the licensed areas 36,132 29,025 80%

COMPETITIVE STRENGTHS

Bharti Tele-Ventures believes that the following elements will contribute to the

Company's success as an integrated telecommunication services provider in India and

will provide the Company with a solid foundation to execute its business strategy:

 Nationwide Footprint - As of February 28, 2005, approximately 99% of India's

total mobile subscribers resided in the Company's twenty one mobile circles.

These 21 circles collectively accounted for approximately 56% of India's land

mass;

Focus on telecommunications to enable the Company to better anticipate industry

trends and capitalize on new telecommunications-related business opportunities;

The strong brand name recognition and a reputation for offering high quality

service to its customers;

Quality management team with vision and proven execution skills; and

The Company's strong relationships with international strategic and financial

investors such as SingTel, Warburg Pincus, International Finance Corporation,

Asian Infrastructure Fund Group and New York Life Insurance.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Connecting India Growing Presence

1999  Pre-4th License  Post-4th License

 Number of Mobile Circles 2 5 21 Number of Fixed-Line Circles 1 1 6Population covered in our licensed area (%) 2% 16% 58%Area covered in our licensed areas (%) 2% 16% 56%Wireless Coverage Area(% of Mobile

Customers covered)

16% 38% 97%

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The largest private sector integrated telecommunications services group in India in

terms of the number of customers.

Largest Mobile footprint in India, covering 21 of the 23 licensed areas.

Proven track record of managing growth - both organic as well as by way of 

acquisitions.

First and largest private telecommunications services company offering fixed-line

services in India.

Existing foreign shareholders have acquired direct and indirect equity interests in the

Company for a total consideration exceeding US$1 billion.

First private telecommunications company to launch long distance services.

First off the block to launch fixed-line services in all the four circles of Delhi,

Haryana, Karnataka & Tamil Nadu.

AWARDS

Bharti Tele-Ventures, its subsidiaries and management have received several awards and

recognitions, including:

Bharti was recognized as one of the "Leading Lights of Telecom" in Asia in November 

2001 in the Asian edition of the "tele.com" magazine with analytical inputs from research

consultants Frost & Sullivan.

The leading telecommunications service provider in India in a survey of Indian

companies conducted by Business World in association with Indian Marketing

Research Bureau in September 2001;

The “Techies” award from Information Communications World, an international

 business magazine, for four consecutive years (1997 to 2000) for brand excellence,

network quality, customer service and value added service in our Delhi mobile circle;

Golden Peacock National Training Award – 1999 to Bharti Cellular for our Delhi

mobile operations from the Institute of Directors, a non-profit association in India

committed to improving the competitiveness of Indian business by focusing on

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development of business leaders, for the best human resources and training practices;

and

Ascent – Times of India and Sodexho Pass award in 1999 from the Asia Pacific HRD

conclave to Bharti Cellular for corporate excellence in the category of most

innovative human resource practices.

Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal (Chairman and Group Managing Director) was honored as

“One of the Top Entrepreneurs Worldwide" for the year 2000 and "Stars of Asia" for 

the year 2001 by international business magazine, Business Week.

Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal was selected as the "Businessman of the year 2002" by

Business India.

Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal was awarded the “Dataquest IT man of the year 2002”.

Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal was selected the "CEO of the year 2002" by World HRD

congress.

Mr. Akhil Gupta (Joint Managing Director) was adjudged as the Chief Financial

Officer for year 2001 for Mergers & Acquisitions activities by EIU.

On October 12, 2004 Airtel – India’s leading mobile service provider and a part of 

India’s largest telecom conglomerate Bharti Enterprises had been adjudged as the

“World Communications Best Brand of the Year.

THE ROAD AHEAD

It is an exercise in futility to invest in acquiring a new customer only to lose him before

even a part of the investment can be recovered. Though retaining a customer might

require seven times more effort than acquiring one it definitely makes more economic

sense. Even from a long term perspective maintaining a good relationship with not just

 profitable customers but all prospective customers will pay huge dividends. Only a churn

management system can provide a better understanding of the customer, the operators’

most valuable asset.

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It is important to deliver value to the customer and put in place offers that tie in the

customer. New products and services development is essential to ensure loyalty. A churn

management solution can help devise more attractive incentives, tariff bundles, loyalty

schemes and proactive customer service along with acquisition strategies to attract the

right type of customer, thus reducing fraud and bad debt—all key to a better bottom line.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Customer Relationship Management and Relationship marketing are used

interchangeably. As Nevin (1995) points out, these terms have been used to reflect a

variety of themes and perspectives. Some of these themes offer a narrow functional

marketing perspective while others offer a perspective that is broad and somewhat

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 paradigmatic in approach and orientation. A narrow perspective of customer relationship

management is database marketing emphasizing the promotional aspects of marketing

linked to database efforts (Bickert 1992).

Another narrow, yet relevant, viewpoint is to consider CRM only as customer retention in

which a variety of after marketing tactics is used for customer bonding or staying in

touch after the sale is made (Vevra 1992). A more popular approach with recent

application of information technology is to focus on individual or one-to-one relationship

with customers that integrate database knowledge with a long-term customer retention

and growth strategy (Peppers and Rogers 1993). Thus, Shani and Chalasani (1992)

define relationship marketing as "an integrated effort to identify, maintain, and build up a

network with individual consumers and to continuously strengthen the network for the

mutual benefit of both sides, through interactive, individualized and value-added contacts

over a long period of time". Jackson (1985) applies the individual account concept in

industrial markets to suggest CRM to mean, "Marketing oriented toward strong, lasting

relationships with individual accounts". In other business contexts, Doyle and Roth

(1992), O'Neal (1989), Paul (1988), and have proposed similar views of customer 

relationship management.

McKenna (1991) professes a more strategic view by putting the customer first and

shifting the role of marketing from manipulating the customer (telling and selling) to

genuine customer involvement (communicating and sharing the knowledge). Berry

(1995), in somewhat broader terms, also has strategic viewpoint about CRM. He stresses

that attracting new customer should be viewed only as an intermediate step in the

marketing process. Developing closer relationship with these customers and turning

them into loyal ones are equally important aspects of marketing. Thus, he proposed

relationship marketing as "attracting, maintaining, and – in multi-service organizations – 

enhancing customer relationships".

Berry's notion of customer relationship management resembles that of other scholars

studying services marketing, such as Gronroos (1990), Gummesson (1987), and Levitt

(1981). Although each one of them is espousing the value of interactions in marketing

and its consequent impact on customer relationship, Gronroos and Gummesson take a

 broader perspective and advocate that customer relationships ought to be the focus and

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dominant paradigm of marketing. For example, Gronroos (1990) states: "Marketing is to

establish, maintain, and enhance relationships with customer and other partners, at a

 profit, so that the objectives of the parties involved are met. This is achieved by a mutual

exchange and fulfillment of promises". The implication of Gronroos' definition is that

customer relationships is the 'raison de etre' of the firm and marketing should be devoted

to building and enhancing such relationship. Similarly, Morgan and Hunt (1994), draw

upon the distinction made between transactional exchanges and relational exchanges by

Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh (1987), to suggest the relationship marketing "refers to all

marketing activities directed toward establishing, developing and maintaining successful

relationships".

The core theme of all CRM and relationship marketing perspectives is its focus on

cooperative and collaborative relationship between the firm and its customers, and/or 

other marketing actors. Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh (1987) have characterized such

cooperative relationships as being interdependent and long-term orientated rather than

 being concerned with short-term discrete transactions. The long-term orientation is often

emphasized because it is believed that marketing actors will not engage in opportunistic

 behavior if they have a long term orientation and that such relationships will be anchored

on mutual gains and cooperation (Ganesan 1994).

Another important facet of CRM is 'Customer selectivity'. As several research studies

have shown not all customer are equally profitable for an individual company (Storbacka

2000). The company therefore must be selective in tailoring its program and marketing

efforts by segmenting and selecting appropriate customer for individual marketing

 programs. In some cases, it could even lead to 'outsourcing of some customers' so that a

company better utilize its resources on those customers it can serve better and create

mutual value. However, the objective of a company is not to really prune its customer’s

 base but to identify appropriate programs and methods that would be profitable and

create value for the firm and the customer. Hence, we define CRM as:

Customer Relationship Management is a comprehensive strategy and process of 

acquiring, retaining and partnering with selective customers to create superior value

 for the company and the customer.

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THE EMERGENCE OF CRM PRACTICE

Developing customer relationships has historical antecedents going back into the pre-

industrial era. Much of it was due to direct interaction between producers of agricultural

 products and their consumers. Similarly artisans often developed customized products

for each customer. Such direct interaction led to relational bonding between the producer 

and the consumer. It was only after industrial era's mass production society and the

advent of middlemen that there were less frequent interactions between producers and

consumers leading to transactions oriented marketing. The production and consumption

functions got separated leading to marketing functions being performed by the

middlemen. And middlemen are in general oriented towards economic aspects of buying

since the largest cost is often the cost of goods sold.

In recent years however, several factors have contributed to the rapid development and

evaluation of CRM. These include:

1. The growing de-intermediation process in many industries due to the advent of 

sophisticated computer and telecommunication technologies that allow producers

to directly interact with end-customers. For example, in many industries such as

airlines, banks, insurance, computer program software, or household appliances

and even consumables, the de-intermediation process is fast changing the nature

of marketing and consequently making relationship marketing more popular.

2. The de-intermediation process and consequent prevalence of CRM is also due to

the growth of the service economy. Since services are typically produced and

delivered at the same institution, it minimizes the role of the middlemen. A

greater emotional bond between the services provider and the service user also

develops the need for maintaining and enhancing the relationship.

3. Another force driving the adoption of CRM has been the total quality

movement. When companies embraced Total Quality Management (TQM)

 philosophy to improve quality and reduce costs, it became necessary to involve

suppliers and customers in implementing the program at all levels of the value

chain. This needed close working relationships with customers, suppliers, and

other members of the marketing infrastructure.

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4. With the advent of the digital technology and complex products, systems

selling approach became common. This approach emphasized the integration of 

 parts, supplies, and the sale of services along with the individual capital

equipment. Customers liked the idea of systems integration and sellers were able

to sell augmented products and services to customers. These measures created

intimacy and cooperation in the buyer-sellers relationships. Instead of purchasing

a product or service, customers were more interested in buying a relationship with

a vendor.

5. In the current era of hyper-competition, marketers are forced to be more

concerned with customer’s retention and loyalty (Dick and Basu 1994; Reicheld

1996). As several studies have indicated, retaining customers is less expensive

and perhaps a more sustainable competitive advantage than acquiring new ones.

Marketers are realizing that it costs less to retain customers than to compete for 

new ones. There is greater opportunity for cross-selling and up-selling to a

customer who is loyal and committed to the firm and its offerings.

6. Customer expectations have rapidly changed over the last two decades. Fueled by

new technology and growing availability of advanced product features and

services, customer expectations are changing almost on a daily basis.

Consumers are less willing to make compromises or trade-off in product and

service quality.

A CRM PROCESS FRAMEWORK 

We develop a four-stage CRM process framework. The broad framework suggests that

CRM process comprise of the following four sub-processes: customer relationship

formation process; relationship management and governance; relational performance

evaluation process; and CRM evolution or enhancement process.

I. CRM FORMATION PROCESS

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The formation process of CRM refers to decisions regarding initiation of relational

activities for a firm with respect to a specific group of customers or with respect to an

individual customer with whom the company wishes to engage in a cooperative or 

collaborative relationship. Hence, it is important that a company is able to identify and

differentiate individual customers. In the formation process, three important decision

relate to defining the purpose (or objectives) of engaging in CRM, selecting parties (or 

customer partners) for appropriate CRM programs; and developing programs (or 

relational activity schemes) for relationship engagement with the customers.

Formation Management & Governance Performance

i) CRM Purpose: The overall purpose of CRM is to improve marketing

 productivity and enhance mutual value for the parties involved in the relationship.

CRM has the potential to improve marketing productivity and create mutual value

 by increasing marketing efficiencies and/or enhancing marketing effectiveness.

By seeking and achieving operation goals, such as lower distribution costs,

Team Structure

Role Specification

Planning Process

Process Alignment

Monitoring Process

Communication

Employee Motivation

Employee Training

Purpose- Increase Effectiveness

- Improve Efficiency

Programs- Account Management- Retention Marketing- Co-op Agreements- Strategic Partnerships

Partners- Criteria- Process

Evolution- Enhancement- Improvement

Relationship Performance- Strategic- Financial- Marketing

- Retention- Satisfaction- Loyalty

 

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streamlining order processing and inventory management, reducing the burden of 

excessive customer acquisition costs, and through customer retention economics,

firms could achieve greater marketing efficiencies. Thus, stating objectives and

defining the purpose of CRM in a company helps clarify the nature of CRM

 programs and activities that ought to be performed by the partners. Defining the

 purpose would also help in identifying suitable relationship partner who have the

necessary expectations and capabilities to fulfill mutual goals.

ii) CRM Programs : A careful review of literature and observation of corporate

 practices suggests that there are three types of CRM programs : continuity

marketing; one-to-one marketing; and, partnering programs. These take different

forms depending on whether they are meant for end-consumers, distributors

customers, or business-to-business customers.

CRM Program

Customer types

Program Types

Mass Markets Distributors Business-to-

business markets

Continuity

marketing

•After marketing

•Loyalty programs

•Cross selling

•Continuous

replenishment

•ECR programs

•Special souring

arrangements

One-to-one

marketing

•Permission

marketing

•Personalization

•Customer business

development

•Key account

•Global account

 programs

Partnering/co-

marketing

•Affinity partnering

•Co-branding

•Logistics

 partnering

• Joint marketing

•Strategic

Partnering

•Co-design

•Co-development

a) Continuity Marketing Programs: Given the growing concern to retain

customers as well as emerging the knowledge about customers retention economics

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have led many companies to develop continuity marketing programs that are aimed at

 both retaining customers and increasing their loyalty (Bhattacharya 1998, Payne

1995). For consumers in mass markets, these programs usually take the shape of 

membership and loyalty card programs where consumers are often rewarded for 

their members and loyalty relationships with the marketers. For distributor 

customers, continuity marketing programs are in the form of continuous

replenishment programs ranging anywhere from  just-in-time inventory

management  programs to efficient consumer response initiatives that include

electronic order processing and material resource planning. In business-to business

markets these may be in the form of preferred customer programs or in special

sourcing arrangements including single sourcing, dual sourcing, and network 

sourcing, as well as just-in-time sourcing arrangements. The basic premise of 

continuity marketing programs is to retain customers and increase loyalty through

long-term special services that has a potential to increase mutual value through

learning about each other.

b) One-to-one Marketing: One-to-one or individual marketing approach is

 based on the concept of  account-based marketing. Such a program is aimed at

meeting and satisfying each customer's need uniquely and individually (Peppers and

Rogers 1995). In the mass market individualized information on customers is now possible at low costs due to the rapid development in information technology and due

to the availability of scalable data warehouses and data mining products. By using

online information and databases on individual customer interactions, marketers aim

to fulfill the unique needs of each mass-market customer. Information on individual

customers is utilized to develop frequency marketing, interactive marketing, and after 

marketing programs in order to develop relationship with high yielding customers.

For distributor customers these individual marketing programs take the shape of 

customer business development. In the context of business-to-business markets,

individual marketing has been in place for quite sometime. Known as key account

management program, here marketers appoint customer teams to husband the

company resources according to individual customers needs. Often times such

 programs require extensive resource allocation and joint planning with customers.

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c) Partnering Programs: The third type of CRM programs is partnering

relationships customers and marketers to serve end users needs. In the mass markets,

two types of partnering programs are most common: co-branding and affinity

partnering. In co-branding, two marketers combine their resources and skills to offer 

advanced products and services to mass-market customers. Affinity partnering

 program is similar to co-branding except that the marketers do not create a new brand

rather use endorsement strategies. Usually affinity-partnering programs try to take

advantage of customer memberships in one group for cross-selling other products and

services. In the case of distributor customers, logistics partnering and cooperative

marketing efforts are how partnering programs are implemented. In such partnerships

the marketer and the distributor customers cooperate and collaborate to manage

inventory and supply logistics and sometimes engage in joint marketing efforts. For 

 business-to-business customers, partnering programs involving co-design, co-

development and co-marketing activities are not uncommon today (Young, Gilbert

and McIntyre 1996).

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OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

Primary objective:

To study and analyze the Customer Relationship Management Initiatives at Airtel.

Secondary objective:

The secondary objective of my study was to recommend strategy to ensure achievement

of prescribed parameters. These parameters are:

1) All request for services come to Air Tel.

2) Requests received are updated or activated on time.

3) Errors free updation.

The first parameter is almost clear that near about all the requests from activation come to

the Airtel.

The second parameter states customers are activated on time.

The third parameter states that customers are provided only that service which they opted.

Therefore the basic purpose or objective of my project work was to ensure these above

mentioned parameters at the dealer’s level, which is possible through the careful

understanding of the business done by them, their way or style of working, the problemsthey are facing, loyalty towards the company and their level of satisfaction.

The first parameter i.e. all the services should come to Air Tel is basically related to the

dealer’s satisfaction and the customer requirement. This is because if the dealers are

satisfied with the company they will give business to it and also if the company provides

services according to the customer requirements the business will definitely come to

them. Lot more depends on the customer service provided by the company.

The second and third parameters i.e. timely activation and error free updation requires

understanding of the relationships between the dealers and the franchisees, their attitude

towards the customers and franchisees, the way activation’s are made and attention paid

while filling out the CAF.

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Rationale

The customer is QUEEN. This millennium comes with new dreams, hopes, and

aspiration. It heralds the emergence of new business paradigms that will keep pace with a

world rapid changing under the impact of development in InfoTech and communications

technologies. It touches the lives of individual all over the world. With the growing

competition in Indian economy, virtually every company finds itself struggling for 

survival today.

Today it is the consumer who delivers the final verdict. A consumer who is finicky about

what she wants. An important development in the consumer market is the emergence of 

the newer younger consumer. This consumer is more open to trying new products but she

is more demanding and fickle in terms of brand loyalty. I believe smart Companies acrossthe country are no longer talking about product or service quality rather successful brand

will need to establish more meaningful and intimate relationship and delight their 

customers.

The major application of CRM is in industrial good markets and service markets. For 

relationship to start individual identifiable customers have to surface from the statistical

mass of a target segment and for this to happen on a big scale technological

transformation of the market place and the transaction are essential prerequisites.

In this millennium: the old rule will change. It will not be the big company who will

swallow the small but the fast that will out pace the slow. Success will lie in becoming a

 part of the customer's life.

Ultimately, it is the firm’s advantage to develop long term relationships with existing

customers because it is easier and less expensive to make an additional sale to an existing

customer than to make a new sale to a new customer. However, the effort involved for 

the firm in developing and maintaining a customer relationship must be weighted agent

the expected long term benefits. Marketers must determine the ‘life time value’ of a

customer to ensure that the costs of obtaining, servicing and communication with the

customer do not exceed the potential profit. Ultimately relationship marketing involves

more than locking - in customers to a particular supplier through price, rewards or even

the high cost of change (coercive model of relationship benefits). Recent research shows

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that a successful, long term relationship also requires commitment and trust, which are

 based on clean benefits, shared values and effective communication.

Thus the key to company’s success does not lie with in its walls and under its ceiling, in

the offices of its vender, or the homes of its employees. It lies in the mind of the

customer, whose decision will determine whether you will post a turn over, make profits,

and live long or not.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research is common parlance refers to a search for knowledge. According to

the advanced learner’s dictionary of current English, research means “a careful

investigation or inquiry especially through search for new facts in any branch

of knowledge”.

Research is, thus, an original contribution to the existing stock of knowledge

through objective and systematic method of findings. Thus, the term ‘research’

refers to the systematic method consist ing of enunciating the problem,

formulating a hypothesis, collecting the facts or data, analyzing the facts and

reaching certain conclusions either in the form of solution(s) towards the

concerned problem or in certain general izat ions for some theoret ical

formulation.

DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS

The task of data collection begins after a research problem has been defined

and research design chalked out.

There are two types of data, which should be kept in mind while deciding about

the method of data collect ion to be used for the study viz. Primary and

secondary.

(a) Primary Data : One those which are collected a fresh and for the first time,

thus it happens to be original in character.

(b) Secondary Data : are those which have been already collected by someone

else and which have already been passed through the statistical process.

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COLLECTION OF DATA

(a) Primary : We collect primary data during the course of doing experiments

in an experimental research by different methods through observation or 

through direct communication with respondents in one form or another or 

through personal interviews. The important ones are:

(i) Observation method

(ii) Interview method

( ii i) Through questionnaires

(iv) Through schedules

(v) Other methods l ike warranty cards, audits , projective techniques,depth interviews, etc.

Among the above various methods of collecting Primary Data, the one that I

have used in my study is:

Questionnaires: A questionnaire consists of a number of questions printed or 

typed in a def inite order on a form or a set of forms. I have used the

questionnaire survey wherein the employees and dealers of Airtel in Delhi have

filled the questionnaire. I chose this method since:-

(i) It is more economical.

( ii ) I t is free from the bias of the interviewer.

(iii) The sales distributors had enough time to give well thought out answers.

(iv) Those sales distributors who are not easily approachable were reached

conveniently.

(v) The results are more dependable and reliable.

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(b) Secondary: When the researcher utilizes secondary data, he has to look into various

sources from where he can obtain them. Secondary data may either be published data or 

unpublished data. The secondary data has been collected mainly from books, journals,

magazines & online resources on the Internet. Primary data was collected from the people

from the Printing industry.

The observations and suggestions in the report are based on the following:

Field work in New Delhi

Meetings with the distributors and sales officers

The final stage consisted of analysis and interpretation of all the collected data. The

issues raised in the primary research were critically examined, followed by some

recommendations, which could enhance the industries potential

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FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

MEASUREMENT OF CUSTOMER FOCUS/CUSTOMER 

CENTRICITY

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY

Please rate your company on the following scale where:

1: Never 2: Rarely 3: Sometimes 4: Usually 5: Always

Customer Orientation

1. Taking care of our customers is a top priority in our Organization-more

important than cost

1 2 3 4 5

2. We listen carefully to our customers needs through our informal

feedback systems and act on this information

1 2 3 4 5

3. We have a formal process in place to determine our customers wants

and expectations, now and for the future

1 2 3 4 5

4. When we lose a customer we know why, or we find out why 1 2 3 4 5

5. Our repeat business exceeds the industry average 1 2 3 4 5

6. Our day to day activities are in harmony with our values and goals

about customer satisfaction

1 2 3 4 5

7. My managers concerns and activities have convinced me that customer 

care is important

1 2 3 4 5

8. Our customers are advocates in our organization 1 2 3 4 5

TOTAL 37

Manager’s orientations

1. Our managers ‘walk what they talk’  1 2 3 4 5

2. The predominant attitude around here is risk taking rather than 1 2 3 4 5

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defensive

3. Managers give workers the responsibility and authority to take care of 

customers

1 2 3 4 5

4. People think competition means other companies not the person down

the hall

1 2 3 4 5

5. We see ourselves as customer ands suppliers in our work relationship

with each other 

1 2 3 4 5

TOTAL 21

Co-operation/Integration

1. People at all level can participation in decision making 1 2 3 4 5

2. Supervisors and managers in different departments work well together 1 2 3 4 5

3. Very Few things fall through the crack because the left hand does not

what know the right hand is doing

1 2 3 4 5

4. Our systems make clear who has responsibility for what tasks 1 2 3 4 5

5. The organization’s goals are set at the top , based on our mission and

are clear and achievable

1 2 3 4 5

6. Results and goals are set at the top, based on our mission, and are clear 

and achievable

1 2 3 4 5

7. In every department we have clear measure and tracking systems to tell

us how we are meeting our customers requirements

1 2 3 4 5

TOTAL 26

Attitude and Skills

1. What happens in the organization reality matter to all our people – 

executives and workers alike

1 2 3 4 5

2. People feel responsible, needed and empowered to do what needs to be

done to take care of our customers and keep them satisfied

1 2 3 4 5

3. Our customer service representatives know how to identify/solve

service-related problems

1 2 3 4 5

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4. Problem solving skills are used in every department and are standard

operating procedure

1 2 3 4 5

5. Our managers and supervisors have skills to influence others

communicate effectively and motivate and lead subordinated

 particularly through periods of economic challenges and change

1 2 3 4 5

TOTAL 23

Costs/prevention/results

1. Our focus is on preventing rather than fixing them 1 2 3 4 5

2. We regularly collect data on the costs of waste, rework, errors and other 

elements of poor service quality

1 2 3 4 5

3. We concentrate on exceptional care of customers, rather than cost

cutting, to increase our profits ad earning

1 2 3 4 5

TOTAL 13

SUM TOTAL (=37+22+27+25+14) 120

SCORING AND INTERPRETATION

The score shows that the corporate culture at Airtel is very customer oriented and the

employees are motivated, empowered and their goals are also aligned with the

organizational goals to meet and satisfy the customers.

DEALER SURVEY

Classification of dealers according to the proportion of business of Air Tel.

Table-1

Percentage of business No. of dealers Percentage

0-20% 01 3%

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20-40% 01 3%

40-60% 08 24%

60-80% 03 10%

80-100% 20 60%

0

5

10

15

20

25

  0 -   2  0

   %

   2  0 -  4  0   %

  4  0 -  6  0   %

  6  0 -  8  0   %

  8  0 -  1  0  0   %

No. of dealers

percentage

This chart show that sixty-percent dealers fall under the category 80-100% of the

 percentage of business whereas fourty dealers are below that category which is quiet a

substantial figure and should be carefully dealt with.

1. What types of services customers want?

(Multiple response were given)

Table 2

Service No. of dealers Percentage

Airtel Leisure 03 10%

AirTel Business 30 90%

AirTel Standard 30 90%

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No.of dealers

3

30

30airtel Leisure

 Airtel Business

 Airtel Standard

From the chart, it is clear that the most popular service Among the customers is air tel

standard and airtel business becouse of their convenient tariff rates. However, each

service is suitable for specific class of people depending on their usage.

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2. How would you rate Air Tel’s network in your area?

Table-3

Rating No. of dealers Percentage

Excellent 20 60%

Good 3 10%

 Needs improvement 10 30%

no. of dealers

203

10

Excellecnt

good

Needs

Improvement

The chart depicts that thirty percent dealers are not fully satisfied with the netwok. Theynelieve that there is scope for improvement as the signals are sometimes not proper in the

interiors. Sometimes even inside trhe house or shop signals get weak.

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3. How knowledgeable is company’s customer service people?

Table – 4

Rating No. of dealers Percentage(%)

Excellent 27 82%

Very Good 6 18%

So-So 0 0%

Dis-satisfied 0 0%

Strongly Dissatisfied 0 0%

Graph -5

82%

18% 0%0%0%

Excellecnt

very good

so-so

Dis-satisfied

Stronglydissatisfied

This chart shows that all the dealers are satisfied with the knowledge of the customer 

service people of Airtel. They understand their problems and give them a reasonable

solution.

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4. When phoning at the customer care department how quickly is the call transferred

to the customer care executives?

Table – 5

Time No. of Dealers Percentage

Immediately 00 0%

Within few minutes (2-3 min) 03 10%

Takes time 30 90%

Graph - 4

0% 9%

91%

Immediately

Within few

minutes (2-3

min)

takes time

Most of the dealers i.e. near about 90% have the problem that when they make a call to

the computerized customer care department it takes long time near about 5-10 minutes

for their call to be transferred to the customer care executives.

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5. How responsive are the customer care executives in returning the phone calls.

Table – 6

Rating No. of dealers Percentage (%)

Excellent 25 76%

Very Good 5 15%

So-So 2 6%

Dissatisfied 1 3%

Strongly dissatisfied 0 0%

Graph -6

76%

15%

6%

3%

0%

Excellent

Very Good

So-So

Dissatisfied

Strongly

dissatisfied

Here most of the dealers are satisfied with the responsiveness of customer care executive

in calling back to them if proper solution was not available for the first time.

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6. Dealer’s overall rating to the customer care department.

Table – 7

Rating No. of dealers Percentage (%)

Excellent 5 15.15

Very Good 15 45.46

So-So 12 36.36

Dissatisfied 1 3.03

Strongly dissatisfied 0 0.000

0

510

15

20

      E    x    c    e      l      l    e    n      t

      S    o   -      S    o

      S      t    r    o    n    g      l    y

      d      i    s    s    a      t      i    s      f      i    e      d

No. of dealers

Percentage (%)

As shown above nearly thirty-six percent dealers have low level of satisfied with the

department that leaves much needed scope for improvement.

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7. Dealer’s rating to the usefulness of sales representatives visits to them.

Table –8

Rating No. of dealers Percentage (%)

Excellent 10 30.30%

Very Good 7 21.21%

So-So 9 27.27%

Dissatisfied 3 9.10%

Strongly Dissatisfied 4 12.12%

The above chart clearly indicates that a substantial percentage of dealers (27%) have a

low level of satisfaction with the company representatives to them. Also 21 percent

dealers are not at all satisfied with them.

02468

1012

   E  x  c  e   l   l  e

  n

   V  e  r  y

   G  o  o

  d

  S  o -  S  o

   D   i  s  s  a   t   i  s  f   i  e

  d

  S   t  r  o  n  g   l  y

 . . .

No. of dealers

Percentage (%)

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8. Dealers rating of the schemes provided by the company for them.

Table – 9

Rating No. of dealers Percentage (%)

Excellent 0 0%

Very Good 6 18%

So-So 12 36%

Dissatisfied 15 46%

Strongly dissatisfied

0 0%

From the chart, it is clear that the dealers are not satisfied with the schemes provided by

the company. They have the complaint that thought the customers are benefited from the

various schemes there are not many schemes for their benefit. Sometimes the schemes are

communicated to them slightly late and thus them the benefits from them.

graph 9

0 6

12

15

0

Excellent

Very Good

So-So

Dissatisfied

Strongly

dissatisfied

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9. Dealer’s satisfaction with the margins or cut-off provided by the company.

Table – 10

Level of Satisfaction No. of dealers Percentage (%)

Excellent 6 18.18%

Very Good 12 36.37%

So-S0 11 33.33%

Dissatisfied 4 12.12%Strongly dissatisfied 0 0%

The above chart indicates that near about fifty percent dealers are not much satisfied with

the margins given by the company. The possible reason for this is the frequent

fluctuations in them. Many times they get less than what is assured.

02468

101214

   E  x  c

  e   l   l  e

  n

   V  e  r  y

   G  o  o

 

  S  o -  S  0

   D   i  s  s  a   t   i  s

  f   i  e

  S   t  r  o  n

  g   l  y .

 . .

No. of dealers

Percentage (%)

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10. Classification of dealers according to the number of activation’s (average) made

in a month. (on the basis of question II)

Table – 11

 No. of activations No. of dealers Percentage (%)

0-10 3 9.10

10-20 8 24.24

20-30_10_30.30_ 

30-40_Level of Satisfaction

 No. of dealers

Percentage (%)

Excellent

6

18.18%

Very Good

0

2

46

8

10

12

  0 -  1

  2  0 -  O

 c

  2  0 -  3

  3  0 - 4

 4  0

   a  b o

No. of dealers

Percentage (%)

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12

36.37%

So-S0

11

33.33%

Dissatisfied

4

12.12%

Strongly dissatisfied

0

0%

7_21.21_ 

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40 above_5_15.15_ 

Here the dealers are classified according to the number of activations they made in a

month. From the table and chart it is clear that they are uniformly distributed across the

classes. However the maximum percentage of dealers lies in between 20-30 activations in

a month. On calculating the arithmetic mean the average number of activations by a

dealer comes out to be 26.

0

2

46

8

10

12

 0 -  1

  2 0 - O

  2 0 -

  3 0 -

 4 0  a  b

No. of dealers

Percentage(%)

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11. Time within which dealers inform the franchisees about the receipt of activation

forms.

Table – 12

Time No. of dealers Percentage

Less than 1 hour 33 100%

1-2 hours 00 0%

Greater than 2 hours 00 0%

From the chart it is clear that dealers immediately inform the franchisee about the receipt

of the activation forms and it all depends on how those forms are passed on to the

franchisees for timely activation.

graph 12

100%

0%

0%Less than 1

hour 

1-2 hours

Greater than 2

hours

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12. Passing of activation forms (C.A.F.) to the Franchisees for activation.

Table – 13 (a)

Percentage of collection by the

franchisee.

 No. of dealers Percentage

0-20% 20 60.60%

20-40% 3 9.10%

40-60% 5 15.15%

60-80% 0 0%

80-100% 5 15.15%

0

5

10

15

2025

  0 -   2  0

   %

   2  0 -  4  0   %

  4  0 -  6  0   %

  6  0 -  8  0   %

  8  0 -  1  0  0   %

No. of dealers

Percentage

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(b) Percentage time’s dealers send the C.A.F. to the franchisees.

Table – 13 (b)

Percentage times C.A.F. delivered

 by the dealers

 No. of dealers percentage

0-20% 5 15.15%

20-40% 0 0%

40-60% 5 15.15%

60-80% 3 9.10%

80-100% 20 60.60%

0

5

10

15

20

25

  0 -   2  0   %

   2  0 -  4  0

   %

  4  0 -  6  0

   %

  6  0 -  8  0

   %

  8  0 -  1  0  0

   %

No. of dealers

percentage

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(c) Dealers intimate on phone to the franchisee and activations are made (C.A.F. is sent

later on)

Table – 13 (c)

Percentage times during a

month

 No. of dealers Percentage of dealers

0% 25 75.74%

0-5% 3 9.10%

20-75% 2 6.06%

> 75% 3 9.10%

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

0% 0-5% 20-

75%

> 75%

No. of dealers

Percentage of 

dealers

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14) Time within which a customer is activated by the franchisee after the receipt of 

C.A.F.

Table – 14

Time No. of dealers Percentage (%)

Within 2 hours 10 30.30%

2-4 hours 9 27.27%

4-6 hours 8 24.24%

More than 6 hours 6 18.19%

Here the various dealers were asked about the time take taken by the franchisees in making

activation. From the chart it is clear that fifty-seven percent responses come under the less than 4

hours class (combination of first two classes) which is the prescribed time by the company. Forty-

three percent fall outside that class and thus it is an important problem area which should be

 properly analyzed.

02468

1012

  W  i  t  h

  i  n   2...

  2 - 4   h o

  u

 4 -  6   h o

  u

  M o  r e   t  h

 a..

No. of dealers

Percentage (%)

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15) Dealer’s satisfaction for the time taken by the franchisees.

TABLE – 15

Satisfaction No. of Dealers Percentage

Yes 22 66.67%

 No 11 33.33%

The chart shows that one-third dealers are not satisfied with the time taken for activation.

May times the system remains down or the workload at franchisees is high and as a result

their activation is not made on time this has a profound impact on their business.

0

5

10

15

20

25

No. of Dealers Percentage

Yes

No

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16) Possible reasons for the delay in activation by the franchisees.

(Multiple response given)

TABLE – 16

Reasons No. of dealers Percentage

System Down 25 75%

High work load 15 45%

From the chart it is clear that almost seventy-five percent dealers complaint about system

down as the possible reason for the delay of activation. The other reason is high workload

at the franchisees as they have their own customers coming directly to them.

Graph-16

75%

45%System Down

High work load

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17) Dealer’s overall level of satisfaction with the company’s services.

Table – 17

Satisfaction level No. of dealers Percentage (%)

Excellent 5 15.15%

Very Good 17 51.52%

So-So 10 30.30%

Dissatisfied 0 0%

Strongly dissatisfied

1 3.03%

The above hart shows that almost half of the dealers (50%) have high level of satisfaction

and they should be moved to the highest class. Thirty percent are on the average side this

clearly points out the deficiencies in the company’s policies and attitude towards the

dealers. Being the most important part of the channel network but that too not under the

company’s direct control should be properly considered and policies should be revised.

Graph-1

05

101520

   E . . .    V  e

 . .

   S . . .

   D . . .    S .

 . .

No. of dealers

Percentage (%

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18) Is it feasible that activations are made directly from the dealer’s office instead of 

franchisees by setting the required computer network?

Table – 18

 No. of dealers Percentage

Yes 18 55%

 No 15 45%

From the chart it is clear that there is not much difference in the opinion of dealers. Fifty-

five percent are agreed to setup the required network while forty-five percent are not. It’s

a mixed a bag situation and company has to decide accordingly.

Graph-18

55%

45% Yes

No

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19) In case of cheque payment do dealers wait for the clearance of cheque before passing

on the activation form to the franchisee?

(Customer is not known)

TABLE – 19

 No. of dealers Percentage

Always 25 61%

Generally 05 30%

 Never 03 9%

 Near about sixty percent dealers always wait for the clearance of the cheque.

Thirty percent depend on their appraisal of the customer and then decide

accordingly. Only ten-percent takes risk pass on the activation, as they don’t want

to loose their customer.

Graph-20

61%

30%

9%

 Always

Generally

Never 

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20) Best/Distinctive features of the company.

(Multiple responses were given)

Table-20

Features No. of Dealers Percentage

Brand Image 30 91%

Promotional Strategy 15 45%

Excellent Service 17 52%

Strong Network 22 67%

This chart shows the dealers liking about the various features of the company. It is clear 

their responses that Airtel’s Brand Image is best of the lot, the other features are also

important but the brand image is most compelling one for them.

91%

45%

52%

67%Brand Image

PromotionalStrategy

ExcellentService

Strong

Network

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21) Problems faced by the dealers.(Multiple responses were given)

Table – 21

 No. of dealers Percentage

 No dealer recognition 25 75%

Promotional strategy 18 55%

Service 16 48%

Fluctuating Margins 05 15%

 No response 08 24%

This chart shows that seventy-five percent dealers are not satisfied with the company’s attitudetowards the dealers. Nearly fifty percent are not satisfied with the promotional strategy and

Services offered by the company for them. Some of them have given no responses as they

consider them a part of every business.

Graph-21

75%

55%

48%

15%

24%

No dealer 

recognitionPromotional

strategy

Service

Fluctuating

Margins

No response

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ANALYSIS OF DEALER SURVEY

By looking at the charts and tables, one can have easy understanding of the various

 parameters. Besides that, there are some other findings as well which are basically, the

 problems faced by the dealers. There are mentioned as follows – 1. Most of the dealers surveyed have the problem that the company does not give tem

any recognition.

2. Some have problems with the company’s promotional strategy.

3. Few are dissatisfied, as they are not provided the promotional materials like banners,

 pop’s, boards, etc.

4. Nearly 30.3% of dealers have very low overall level of satisfaction with the company

(table-3).

5. Though majority of dealers has very well overall satisfaction with the customer care

department but they are highly dissatisfied with the time taken to connect to the

customer care.

6. 33.3% of total dealers surveyed are dissatisfied because of the time taken by the

franchisees in activating the customer’s account.

7. Regarding the above mentioned point the most common problem found is system

down.

8. The cut-off provided by the company is not attractive.

9. Sales representative or area manager’s visit is not up to the mark.

10. Difficulty in getting the preferred numbers.

Though Air Tel as very broad network coverage but at some places signals are not

 proper.

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company uses high-end routers from Cisco, and is in the process of implementing a

disaster recovery (DR) set-up. As far as software is concerned, some of the applications

that are running on its network are

 billing

fraud management

Revenue assurance and data warehousing.

They also have some internal-facing applications like Oracle Financial and Oracle

HRMS.

TOOLS

Airtel has been one of the earliest adopters of software to control churn in the Indian

market. The company implemented SAS Institute’s customer retention solution.

Business Intelligence (BI) is an umbrella term for a set of tools and applications that

allow corporate decision-makers to gather, organize, distribute and act on critical

 business information. BI applications include the activities of online analytical processing

(OLAP), report generation, decision support systems (DSS), query and reporting (Q&R),

statistical analysis, forecasting, data warehousing and data mining. Some of the popular 

BI tools are:

Multi-dimensional analysis software, which is also popularly known as online

analytical processing (OLAP) tools. This software gives the end user an opportunity

to look at the data from various angles.

Data Mining Tools - The software automatically searches for significant patterns or 

correlation in the data

Query Tools - They allow the user to ask questions about patterns or details in the

data.

For Airtel, Business intelligence is the process of getting enough of the appropriate

information in a timely manner and usable form, and analyzing it so that it can have a

 positive impact on business strategy, tactics and operations. BI applications allow users to

quickly and easily view data on essential metrics such as sales, inventory and customer 

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activities. This information can be dispersed through a dynamic interface, preferably one

that is web-enabled. If a dynamic interface is implemented, users can explore the data

from different perspectives or levels of detail.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT -

GIS

In today's competitive telecommunications market, for AIRTEL, customer service is the

number one differentiator for companies. Customer relationship management (CRM)

applications improve the relationship between the company and its customers. Timely

service provisioning, response to customer queries, and reporting on network 

 performance are aspects of CRM. With GIS, call center operators can access all the

information on a customer and the associated network based on location. Databases

containing information on outside plant infrastructure, signal quality, and equipment can

 be integrated using GIS and made available using a corporate Intranet.

In CRM, Tier 1 handling means the customer's issue is resolved with the initial call. Tier 

2 calls require initiating a trouble-ticket and obtaining additional information. Carriers

who have successfully implemented GIS support for CRM achieve higher Tier 1 handling

and customer service is performed more quickly and economically. With CRM contacts

at an all-time high, improving CRM operations can make a big impact on the bottom-line

of a carrier. In the wireless sector, "churn" refers to the rate that customers jump from one

service provider to another. For many carriers, customer churn is the single largest cost

factor. GIS improves the speed and quality of contact handling, augments customer 

satisfaction, and reduces churn.

BUSINESS CONTINUITY STRATEGIES FOR CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP

MANAGEMENT

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With the growing adoption of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) initiatives in

 just about every type of industry, call centers today are much more than cost centers.

They are increasingly considered strategic business assets."

Call centers helps the companies achieve customer-centric objectives as well as provide

world-class customer service and technical support. CRM is designed to optimize

 profitability, revenue and customer satisfaction by organizing the business around

customer segments and encouraging customer-satisfying behaviors.

For many companies, call centers represent the principal link between their customers

and themselves. But for Airtel, it’s a Successful call center differentiate companies,

directly impact their annual turnover and competitive position, and are critical in

achieving CRM goals.

As a key element in CRM, call centers use three building blocks to satisfy their 

customers:

People

Technology

Process.

People - The human element is probably the most important component in a call

center.

Technology - Call centers use network services to connect customers with the call

center, telecommunications systems including Automatic Call Distributors (ACDs)

and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems; and IT products such as workstations,

computing platforms, Local Area Networks (LANs) and Computer Telephony

Integration (CTI).

Process - To make everything work harmoniously and cost-effectively, and to satisfy

CRM objectives, a series of processes are needed to define how systems and people

work together.

With the increased emphasis on customer service, the bar has been raised on customer 

expectations. Customers expect 24x7 availability, as well as e-mail and Web integration.

Access and availability are among the keys to top-drawer customer service. But what

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about the relationship of these three elements? For today's high-tech call center, people,

technology and process are truly integrated. The loss of any of the key elements - whether 

accidental or deliberate - can put call centers at risk.

Airtel’s CRM STRATEGIES

PRINCIPLES FOR BUILDING STRONG CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS

How to acquire, strengthen, and retain strong customer relationships in the era

Principle 1: By knowing more about the customer value and anticipating relationship

needs better than when the customer was involved in a high-touch relationship.

Principle 2: Consolidate and make available all customer interaction information from all

channels/touchpoints

Principle 3: Develop a customer centric infrastructure that can consistently support the

customized treatment of each customer.

Principle 4: Assign dedicated people, process and technology resources to achieve

 profitable results

AIRTEL’S CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MODEL

Developed a Customer Relationship Model based on experiences attained from CRM

 project engagements globally. The Model shows that the customer relationship is

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strengthened by Relationship Building tactics, which are continuously measured through

time. The end result is a strong customer relationship, which lead to acceptable customer 

loyalty, profitability and retention. Success criteria such as share of wallet, profitability

and cross-sell rations are also applied as part of the continous measurement to ensure that

Business Case requirements have been achieved.

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SOLVING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT INVOLVES

ADDRESSING A PRINCIPLES-BASED VALUE CHAIN

CHURN MANAGEMENT

What are the commonest reasons for customers to switch from one service provider

to another?

Some of the common driving factors for churn are

 poor performance,

 poor customer care,

rate plans and

Handset issues - GSM or CDMA service.

Technolog

y

Data

Wareho u

se/DataMart

Extract&

Tran sf

ormation

Database

OLAP

DataMining

Statistics

Query&Repo rt

ing

Warehous

eManagement

MetadataMan

agement

High-EndServ er

s

ITInfrastructu

re

Networking

Network&Sy st

ems

Management

Internet

WebWarehouse

Security In

tegrationTec

hnologies

Operation

alDa ta

Stores

CallCenter&Messaging

Middlewa

re

Data&A

pp

lications

ApplicationSpecificDataM

odel

ExternalD

ata

Providers

DataHygie

ne

/Enrichment

Cleansing&

Conditioning

Householding

-

SegmentofO

ne

Marketing

CustomerV

aluation

CustomerR

isk

Analysis

ProfilingandS

egmentation

PredictiveB

ehaviorModeling

TargetedMarketing&Camp ai

gnManagem

ent

CustomerCon

tactManage m

ent

CustomerPro

file

ContentMana ge

ment

CatalogueManagement

People&

Activities

BusinessStra te

gy

BusinessProcessReengineer in

g

ChangeManag em

ent

ProjectMan

agement

-Application

Implementatio n

-

DataWarehouse/

DataModeli

ng

WarehouseAr ch

itecture

Logical,Physi ca

lDesign

ChannelIntegr at

ion

DBImplementation

-

ITInfrastruct ur

e

ITArchitectur e

NetworkDe

sig n,

Planning&Implementati

on

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Regarding churn, something interesting that’s been noticed is that it’s much higher in the

case of pre-paid services, with a churn rate of 8:1, than in post-paid service where the rate

is 3:1.

The idea of pre-paid cards is that the customer will mature to become a post-paid one and

so it pays to retain him too. After all, it’s five times more expensive to acquire a new

customer than to retain an existing one.

HIGH CHURN RATES

The industry standard is around 2 percent a month. The cost of acquiring a new customer 

is more than that of retaining one. The cost of acquiring a new customer is more than five

times that of retaining an existing customer. Even if you calculate a churn of 2 percent a

month, an operator is losing 24 percent of its customers every year. Whatever the

numbers, the fact remains that the telecom industry’s bottom line is getting affected

significantly thanks to the high churn rate.

WHY IT HAPPENS

Usually, such a high churn rate is witnessed in more mature markets where operators try

to attract customers from competitors since market growth is saturated. But with one of 

the lowest telecom penetrations, the Indian market is anything but mature. Then what are

the reasons for this trend?

Many subscribers shift to another vendor due to brand image. Beyond the brand image,

higher churn is generally attributed to the numerous tariff options available to customers.

A customer may also churn due to billing disputes with a particular vendor—billing fraud

also comes into play. More than tariff plans it is the quality of customer service that

 prompts a customer to churn or remain loyal. In the current market scenario there is

hardly any difference in offerings, prices and quality of service offered by differentoperators. Cut-throat competition has ensured that there is not much difference between

the tariff plans offered by different vendors. This is where customer service and value-

added services come into play. If an operator doesn’t anticipate market needs or does not

 provide value-added services offered by the competitor, then the customer is likely to

churn.

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Other than this, some of the key factors that encourage churn are inadequate network 

coverage, which includes dropped calls that occur in places where network coverage is

thin and blocked calls that occur when the demand for network services exceeds capacity.

The churn problem is more prevalent in the prepaid segment, which today accounts for 

the vast majority of Indian cellular users. The prepaid customer is more price-sensitive

than the post-paid one. With rentals as low as Rs 300, customers with low usage prefer 

 prepaid cards. Also, students and those who like to experiment with different networks

 prefer the prepaid offering.

Bharti Cellular reduced its churn from 3 percent to 2 percent with immense positive

impact on its bottom line after deploying the churn management solution SAS. Today,

they can predict with 80 percent confidence, which customer will churn. Internationally

they have reached accuracy levels of 90-95 percent. But customer variables keep

changing. Hence the solution has to be continuously fine-tuned to improve accuracy. SAS

offers a total end-to-end customer retention solution, which supports the whole process of 

managing churn—right from gathering and warehousing data to predictive churn

modeling to reporting and distributing actionable results to decision makers.

The solution enables an operator to gain a better understanding of the variables that

influence customer churn. The solution predicts a customer’s likelihood of cancellation or 

switchover by scoring them on a scale of 0 to 1. If a customer scores 0.73 it means there’s

a 73 percent chance of his churning. The lower the score, the more content the customer.

Once the scores are known, it is easy to figure out which customers are likely to switch.

The solution provides the telecom company with a sliced and diced view of the customer 

 base, thereby empowering it to treat each customer differently as per needs. The customer 

attributes typically considered in a churn analysis can be broadly categorised into

customer demographics, contractual data, technical quality data, billing and usage data

and events-type data. But the most commonly used historic variables include the time acustomer spends on air, the number of calls he makes and the revenue generated from

that customer.

The predictive information becomes crucial as it gives the service provider a window to

 proactively fix the glitches in service and contain churn, thereby improving bottom lines.

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The solution also helps identify cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, which can have a

further positive impact on the operator’s bottom line. Once they have identified the

customers who are likely to churn they can take immediate measures to retain at least 85

 percent of them.

POSTPAID CHURN SOLUTIONS THAT WORK 

Optimizing subscriber acquisition costs

Managing retention costs healthily

How do you keep your customers with an effective pricing dimension?

Matching the right customer profile with the right marketing bundle creatively

Learning points from past campaigns

EFFECTIVE CHURN MANAGEMENT AND PERFORMANCE

MEASUREMENT FRAMEWORK 

Exploiting historical churn data and optimizing the churn prediction

Structuring a strong churn management framework 

Measuring the effectiveness of your churn management strategy in terms of:

Methodology

Results

MINIMISING CHURN & BUILDING CUSTOMER PROFITABILITY

POSTPAID CHURN SOLUTIONS THAT WORK 

Optimizing subscriber acquisition costs

Managing retention costs healthily

How do you keep your customers with an effective pricing dimension?

Matching the right customer profile with the right marketing bundle creatively

Learning points from past campaigns

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COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO CHURN CONTROL IN HIGH GROWTH

AND COMPETITIVE MARKETS

Acquiring quality customers

Using new customer induction and expectation management as a retention tool

Managing monthly payment cycles to minimize defaults

Engaging channels to expand your reach for your retention programs

Customer retention

Revenue stimulation

Direct customer communication

All these enhancements successfully changed the customer retention paradigm from areactive to a proactive one resulting in a continuous decline in postpaid churn over last

year leading to an all time low churn.

BEST WAYS TO PREVENT THESE HIGH RATES OF CUSTOMER CHURN

Effective customer service could be a deterrent to churn.

Branding and service differentiators also help in taking customers away from

competitors.

Proper operational and analytical CRM tools in place that would help segment and

analyze customer behaviors and predict their propensity to churn.

It is necessary to proactively strategies and service customers so as to retain the high

value ones.

For Airtel , Analytical customer retention solutions would help identify the high-, mid-

and low-value customers and the valuable ones who are most likely to cancel services,

and their reasons for doing so. They would also help in better campaign targeting and a

more focused strategy. The multidimensional data base (MDDB) that Airtel has, let

internal sales and marketing groups research customer information from their desktops.

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CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

STEPS

Identification of potential customers

Influence the target customer buying behavior 

Customer acquisition

STRATEGIES

Introduction of a new tariff plan with different slots like leisure lifestyle, executive and

 premium for postpaid customers. Airtel also offers different tariff plans to different

segments like students, professionals, etc.

Airtel has also implemented an e-CRM platform to create a central database of customer 

information, to enable pan-India access and service delivery.

OTHER MEANS

Airtel has introduced a plethora of value-added services to increase customer ‘stickiness’.

The common services offered by the operator include SMS, group messaging, voice mail,

caller line identification, Hello tunes, GPRS and even multimedia messaging. Other than

this, different service providers have introduced unique services for certain segments of 

customers, depending on their usage patterns.

Operators have also introduced closed user group (CUG) services for corporates that

want to provide employees with cell phones but also want to restrict their usage.

Operators even offer special pricing for calls made within a limited group.

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Though m-commerce hasn’t taken off as expected, certain banks offer mobile banking

services like balance enquiry, cheque book requisition, bank statements, etc, free of cost.

CUSTOMER DEFECTION

Customer-focused marketing technology is developing rapidly: The term “customer 

database” is outdated. It has been found that companies, which reduced customer 

defections by 5 per cent, could boost profits from 25 per cent to 85 per cent.

Today, the consumers are smarter and they expect more. As the general population

 becomes better educated, consumers approach purchase decisions with greater scrutiny,

and they have access to more data for comparison purchasing.

The Internet has led to disloyalty: The Internet as a distribution channel for product

sales and information has caused many consumers to change buying habits and methods.

Researchers report record-low consumer loyalty in the Internet environment.

Price-based switching: the customers prefer those services or products which are offered

to them at much competitive prices. Hence it has become very essential for the

companies to stop the consumers from switching.

The global market introduces new competitors: As the global economy opens, our companies are seeing increased competition, and many sectors are facing foreign

competition for the first time.

6 TYPES OF DEFECTORS

Price defectors, who switch to a low-priced competitor 

Product defectors, who defect to a superior product offered by a competitor 

Service defectors, who leave due to poor service

Market defectors, who are lost but not to any other business - they may go out of 

 business or to another market

Technological defectors, who switch to products offered by companies outside the

industry,

Organizational defectors, who switch due to internal or external politics.

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Analyzing complaint and service data is a good method to identify problems and

understand why customers defect. Analysis should be statistical and should be fairly

detailed in order to understand the underlying patterns of the problems.

Strategic bundling is another way of erecting a barrier against defections that can lead to

enhanced customer retention. A bundle is a group of products or services offered as a

single cost saving and convenient package. A customer who opts for a bundle will not

switch to a competitor even if he is offered a better deal on a single item of the bundle.

Usage analysis is a method that can be effectively used to help in customer retention.

Segmenting markets by consumption can provide valuable insights into the mix of 

customers. Heavy users are more valuable than the medium or light ones and appropriate

marketing strategies have to be devised to retain them. Similarly in the business context,

we find the Pareto Principle or the 80/20 rule in operation. Key accounts that comprise

about 20 per cent of the business customers are responsible for about 80 per cent of the

sales generated. Such heavy and key users are prone to poaching by competitors. Hence it

is important to concentrate advertising, promotion, sales and communication efforts on

this segment. Medium customers should be targeted with revenue enhancement strategies

through phone calls and e-mails. The light or unprofitable customers should be served in

new ways to upgrade them. In some cases, the unprofitable customers might also have to

 be ignored.

The strategies for retaining customers are a function of the nature of the product, the

stage of the product life cycle, and the buying behaviour of the customers.

Customer value affects customer satisfaction, which in turn affects loyalty. Customer 

loyalty affects customer retention. Loyalty of the customer increases with customer 

satisfaction at an increasing rate. Segmentation of customers should be done by

satisfaction levels, prior to the strategizing of retention activities.

Airtel is also trying to prevent its customers to its competitors such as: Hutch and Idea.The company is establishing a strong CRM system.

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CUSTOMER RETENTION

Airtel maintains its leadership with its effective churn controls in India.

Gaining new customers is good news for any company; the flip side is the loss of 

customers—or churn, in industry parlance. So mobile players are putting churn

management systems in place, which can almost accurately predict the behaviour of 

fickle customers. Churn is a widely-recognized problem today for most mobile

telecommunications providers. In simple terms churn refers to customers canceling their 

existing contract only to embark on a relationship with a competing mobile service

 provider.

The cost of acquiring a new customer is more than five times that of retaining an existing

customer. Hence it is advisable for any company to try to reduce the churn rate of its

company.

The churn rate of Airtel is about 2% which is at parlance with the industry figure. But if 

you calculate a churn of 2 percent a month, an operator is losing 24 percent of its

customers every year. Whatever the numbers, the fact remains that the telecom industry’s

 bottom line is getting affected significantly thanks to the high churn rate.

Optimizing the Level of  Customer Retention Costs (CRC) To Increase Customer 

Lifetime Value:

Defining customer life time value

Establishing a customer life cycle perspective

Assessing proven methods to apply customer lifetime value to define customer CRC

Ascertaining how to make CRC an investment in the future customer value

CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS

When the customer pays for a product or service, it is assumed that the product will work 

correctly or that the service received is as promised. Ideally, the customer will be

satisfied, and there will be no complaints. But at times, the customer is not satisfied with

the services since the expectations do not meet with the results, this causes customer 

complaints.

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Airtel has toll free numbers for handling customer complaints. A separate division is

meant for customer care, where, the customer care executives are present to handle any

type of customer complaint. These customer care executives are specially trained for the

same purpose.

TYPES OF CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS

Letters

Spoken Word to Employees

Phone Calls

Email

NEED TO LISTEN TO CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS

Development

Loyalty

Lost Customers

Employees

How to Solve Customer Complaints

Listen

Always Offer a Solution

ENCOURAGE CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS

Open Details

Friendly Staff 

Comment Slips

DO NOT FORGET

 No matter how bad a problem is, no employee should be subjected to any personal insults

or threats from a complaining customer.

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Encourage complaints rather than silence, but customers must not be allowed to threaten

your employees in any way.

INDICES

The ultimate indication of success of a CRM initiative is the change in attitude and

 behavior that an organization exhibits toward its customers. To determine if the initiative

is successful is to independently develop an index and monitor the progress. A Customer

Loyalty and Velocity Index (Customer Love) has been done. The index's intention is to

determine if the CRM initiative is successful from a quantitative view. Components of 

the index are:

MARKETING

Response rate to marketing promotion

Sales leads generated by promotion

Conversion rate of responses

Effectiveness and cost of channels (web, TV, radio)

Product offerings (customer interest)

Sales by product offering

Market share

Product positioning

ROI on marketing expenditures

SALES

Customer turnover (rate of new customers to departing customers and the active

customer base size)

Customer acquisition costs

Average order frequency and size

Revenue per rep ratio

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Sales profits per customer and per contract or deal

Win rate

 Number of completed sales calls per rep

 Number of sales calls within a selling cycle

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Average speed of answer 

Percentage of abandoned calls

Frequency of all trunks busy

First contact resolution

 Number of training days per customer service representative

Average cost per customer service employee

CRM BUSINESS STRATEGY

In fact, Airtel has seen that CRM actually represents a business strategy that involves

focusing knowledge, business processes and organizational structures around customers

and prospect for the whole organization. Surrounding this business strategy is an

information technology infrastructure consisting of data warehouses, decision engines

and integrated middleware for touch points/channels in order to better understand

customer behaviour and respond in a timely and relevant manner.

Today’s consumers’ can no longer be treated as a “homogenous collection of revenue

generating unitsӠ, but rather as individuals whose specific wants and needs determine

unique behavior (buying patterns, channel usage, etc.).

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CONCLUSION

One of the greatest experiences of our lives has been the compilation of this project. It

has helped us to gain a new clear insight into corporate world. It has also helped us

incorporating whatever theoretical and practical Knowledge we had gained into its aspect

the study was on “Customer relationship management for Bharti Airtel Limited”. The

findings of that study were that Airtel has a good brand image among those who are

aware of it. On the basis of the study several recommendations and promotional strategies

have been suggested. Hopefully the study will help Airtel to gain as much as it did to us.

MY EXPERIENCE ON BHARTI AIRTEL PROJECT

It was a wonderful experience for while I was making my project on one of the topleading telecommunication company in India that is Bharti Airtel. I wanted to make a

 project on telecommunication sector so that I can gain some knowledge about this sector.

I selected “Customer Relationship Management” as my topic because the main job of 

Airtel is to provide service. As it is a service sector company. So, if they will not provide

good service to their customers, they will not succeed.

So, when I started my project, I first gathered information about Customer Relationship

Management from various books, magazines, journals, websites, etc which I have

mentioned in the Bibliography part and then I gathered information about Airtel from the

website of Airtel that is www.airtel.in. After gathering all this information I arranged all

the information properly and then I made a report on the information gathered. After that,

I went to the Airtel office which is located in okhla. I went there and told at the reception,

that I am making a project on Airtel on the topic Customer Relationship Management and

I want some assistance from you. They fully cooperated with me and they provided me

with some essential data. Then I prepared a questionnaire on the data provided by them

and I also made an analysis on the questionnaire which I prepared. They also gave me

data on Airtel Customer Relationship Management (CRM) model, Customer Relationship

Management (CRM) business strategy and little other information which has mentioned

in the project. I really enjoyed making this project and it was an overall great experience

for me.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books:

1. CRM Automation by Barton. J. Goldenberg

2. CRM Handbook: A Business Guide to Customer Relationship Management by Jill

Dyche

3. Essential Guide to Knowledge Management, the e-Business and CRM Application by

Amrit Tiwana

4. Accelerating Customer Relationships: Using CRM and Relationship Techniques by

Ronald S. Swift

5. Essentials of CRM by Bryan Bergeron

6. Customer Relationship Management Technology by Dr. Jon Anton

7. A practical guide to CRM Building More Profitable Customer Relationships, by Janice

Reynolds

Magazines:

1. Destination CRM

2. Customer Contact World Magazine

3. Customer Interface4. Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine

Journals:

1. Interactive Marketing Journal

2. Ivy Business Journal November/December 2002

Websites:

1. www.crmdaily.com

2. www.realmarket.com

3. www.crm2day.com

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APPENDICES

Questionnaire

 Name____________________________________________ Age______________________________________________ 

Occupation ______________________________________ 

1).What types of services customers want?Service.... Airtel Leisure.... AirTel Business.... AirTel Standard....

2).How would you rate Air Tel’s network in your area? - RatingExcellent…. Good….Needs improvement….

3). How knowledgeable is company’s customer service people? – RatingExcellent….VeryGood…So-So….Dis-satisfied…StronglyDissatisfied….

4).When phoning at the customer care department how quickly is the call transferred tothe customer care executives?Immediately…. Within few minutes (2-3min)…. Takes Time….

5).How responsive are the customer care executives in returning the phone calls.Excellent….VeryGood….So-So….Dis-satisfied…Strongly Dissatisfied….

6).Dealer’s overall rating to the customer care department.Excellent….VeryGood….So-So….Dis-satisfied…Strongly Dissatisfied….

7)Dealer’s rating to the usefulness of sales representatives visits to them.Excellent….VeryGood….So-So….Dis-satisfied…Strongly Dissatisfied….

8).Dealers rating of the schemes provided by the company for them.Excellent….VeryGood….So-So….Dis-satisfied…Strongly Dissatisfied….

9).Dealer’s satisfaction with the margins or cut-off provided by the company.Excellent….VeryGood….So-So….Dis-satisfied…Strongly Dissatisfied….

10).Classification of dealers according to the number of activation’s (average) made in amonth.

 No. of activations 0-10…. 10-20 ….

20-30

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 _ 10 _ 3

0.30 _ 30-40 _ 

Levelof Satisf action No.of dealer 

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sPer c

entage (%)

Excellent618.18%

Ver y Good 123

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6.37%

So-S01133.

33%

Dissatisf ied412.12%

Str ong

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ly di

ssatisf ied0

0%

7 _ 21.21 _ 40 a bove _ 5 _ 15.15 _ 11).Time within which dealers inform the franchisees about the receipt of activationforms.

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Less than 1 hour… 1-2 hrs…. greater than 2 hrs….

12).a) Passing of activation forms (C.A.F.) to the Franchisees for activation.

Percentage of collection by thefranchisee.0-10%

20-40%

40-60%

60-80%

80-100%

(b) Percentage time’s dealers send the C.A.F. to the franchisees.Percentage times C.A.F. delivered by the dealers

0-20%

20-40%

40-60%

60-80%

80-100%

(c) Dealers intimate on phone to the franchisee and activations are made (C.A.F. is sentlater on)Percentage times during amonth0%

0-5%

20-75%

> 75%

13) Time within which a customer is activated by the franchisee after the receipt of C.A.F.TimeWithin 2 hours

2-4 hours

4-6 hours

More than 6 hours

14)Dealer’s satisfaction for the time taken by the franchisees.Yes No

15)Possible reasons for the delay in activation by the franchisees?High work load

16)Dealer’s overall level of satisfaction with the company’s services.

System Down

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Excellent….VeryGood….So-So….Dis-satisfied…Strongly Dissatisfied….

17)Is it feasible that activations are made directly from the dealer’s office instead of franchisees by setting the required computer network?

yes No

18).In case of cheque payment do dealers wait for the clearance of cheque before passingon the activation form to the franchise?Always Generally Neve

19).Best/Distinctive features of the company?Brand Image

Promotional Strategy

Excellent Service

Strong Network 

 20) Problems faced by the dealers.

We appreciate your suggestions:- _______________________________________________________________________ 

 _______________________________________________________________________  _______________________________________________________________________  _________________________________________________________________ 

(THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN OUR SURVEY) 

 No dealer recognition

Promotional strategy

Service

Fluctuating Margins

 No response