Customer Relationship Management at Union Bank of India

The Union Bank of India was built up in twentieth century and declared open by the Father of the

Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. The bank with its efficient value- added services, sustained growth,

consistent profitability and development of new technologies bank has ensured complete customer

delight, living up to its image of, “GOOD PEOPLE TO BANK WITH”. Bank is offering credit

cards, home loan, union demat, Kisan ATM, International debit card, online tax payment

facility, Railway e-ticketing kiosk, etc., services to its customers through core banking solution.

The Union Bank of India has 2261 branches out which 1031 branches are under CBS. Presently 939

ATMs spread out across India both Onsite and Offsite. All the ATMs are inter-connected through the

Bank’s ATM Switch, thus facilitating on-line operations in case of CBS customers. The Bank is a

member of Cash Tree consortium and also has bilateral arrangement with State Bank of India,

enabling the Bank’s ATM cardholder access to over 20000 ATMs across the country. UBI Net

connects 65 Offices and 984 branches located in 323 centres, facilitating speedier transmission of MIS

data (Network Map). The network also facilitates the implementation of Core Banking Solution, apart

from DEMAT services, Cash Management services, fund transfers, messaging system, etc.The Bank

is using VSAT network for connecting branches and ATMs wherever leased line connectivity is

not feasible. We have 590 VSATs operational,connecting 194 branches/extension counters and 316

ATMs.

A successful CRM strategy aims at understanding the needs of the customer and integrating them with the organization’s strategy, people, and technology and business process Therefore, one of the

best ways of launching a CRM initiative is to start with what the organization is doing now and

working out what should be done to improve its interface with its customers. Then and only then,

should it link to an IT solution.While this may sound quite straightforward, for large organizations it

can be a mammoth task unless a gradual step-by-step process is adopted. It does not happen simply by

buying the software and installing it. For CRM to be truly effective, it requires a well-thought-out

initiative involving strategy, people, technology, and processes. Above all, it requires the realization

that the CRM philosophy of doing business should be adopted incrementally with an iterative

approach to learn at every stage of development. Only time will tell how Indian banks embrace the

CRM philosophy and take on the competition from foreign entities

Need of CRM in BanksCRM primarily caters to all interactions with the customers or potential customers, across

multiple touch points including the Internet, bank branch, call centre, field organization and other

distribution channels.

CRM can help banks in following ways

1. Customer Information Consolidation - Instead of customer information being stored in

product centric silos, (for e.g. separate databases of savings account & credit card customers), with

CRM the information is stored in a customer centric manner covering all the products of the bank.

CRM integrates various channels to deliver a host of services to customers, while aiding the

functioning of the bank.

.

2. Personalized sales home page – CRM can provide a single view where Sales Mangers and

agents can get all the most up-to-date information in one place, including opportunity, account, news,

and expense report information. This would make sales decision fast and consistent.

3. Lead and Opportunity Management - These enable organizations to effectively manage

leads and opportunities and track the leads through deal

Closure, the required follow-up and interaction with the prospects.

4. Activity Management – It helps managers to assign and track the activities of various

members. Thus improved transparency leads to improved efficiency.

5. Contact Centre – It enables customer service agent to provide uniform service across multiple

channels such as phone, Internet, email, Fax.

6. Operational Inefficiency Remove – CRM can help in Strategy Formulation to eliminate

current operational inefficiencies. An effective CRM solution supports all channels of customer

interaction including telephone, fax, e-mail, the online portals, wireless devices, ATMs, and face-to-

face contacts with bank personnel. It also links these customer touch points to an operations centre

and connects the operations centre with the relevant internal and external business partners.

7. Enhanced productivity – CRM can help in enhanced productivity of customers, partners and

employees.

Objective of the CRM in Bank

CRM, in its broadest sense, means managing all interactions and business with customers. This includes,

but is not limited to, improving customer service. A good CRM program will allow a business to acquire

customers, service the customer, increase the value of the customer to the company, retain good

customers, and determine which customers can be retained or given a higher level of service. A good

CRM program can improve customer service by.

Facilitating communication in several ways:

Provide product information, product use information, and technical assistance on web sites that

are accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Identify how each individual customer defines quality, and then design a service strategy for each

customer based on these individual requirements and expectations.

Provide a fast mechanism for managing and scheduling follow-up sales calls to assess post-

purchase cognitive dissonance, repurchase probabilities, repurchase times, and repurchase

frequencies.

Help to identify potential problems quickly, before customer occur

Keeping Existing Customers- Grading customers from very satisfied to very disappointed should

help the organization in improving its customer satisfaction levels and scores. As the satisfaction level for

each customer improves, so shall the customer retention with the organization.

Maximizing Life time value- Exploit up-selling and cross-selling potential. By identifying life stage

and life event trigger points by customer, marketers can maximize share of purchase potential . Thus the

single adults shall require a new car stereo and as he grows into a married couple his needs grow into

appliances.

Increase Loyalty- Loyal customers are more profitable. Any company will like its mindshare status to

improve from being a suspect to being an advocate. Company has to invest in terms of its product and

service Offerings to its customers. It has to innovate and meet the very needs of its customers so that they

remain as advocates on the loyalty curve. Referral sales invariably are low cost high margin sales.

The push towards better CRM technologies is natural result of the search by business of greater

productivity and efficiency in customer facing operations like sales, marketing, customer service and

support. E.g. in sales, companies need IT system that provides greater control and eff ic iency .

This means improved forecasting and to capability, greater visibility into sales performance across a

variety of channels increased productivity by external sales forces and reduced sales costs, mean

while, companies must meet customer demands for betterQuality timeless and customization in the

service they deliver.

Companies also need technologies that help them approach customers in a rational way. E.g.

remember a customer address from one transaction to another and carefully choreograph contact

between its, sales force and customers. In addition to being wasteful and inefficient pitching a new

product to a customer who has just bought the same item makes the company look incompetent to the

customer. The internet dramatically accelerate the focus on CRM by making customer interactions

more cost-efficiency. In addition, the web has established a more direct sales channel that supports

rapid customer interaction and short sales cycles. Using Internet technologies, customer can interact with

information from a wide variety of Sources without special training.

The idea of CRM is that it helps businesses use technology and human resources gain insight into the

behavior of customers and the value of those customers. If it works as hoped, a business can: provide

better customer service, make call centers more efficient, cross sell products more effectively, help sales

staff close deals faster, simplify marketing and sales processes, discover new customers, and increase

Customer revenues. It doesn't happen by simply buying software and installing it. For CRM to be

truly effective an organization must first decide what kind of customer information it is looking for

and it must decide what it intends to do with that information. For example, many financial

institutions keep track of customers' life Stages in order to market appropriate banking products

like mortgages or IRAs to them at the right time to fit their needs. Next, the organization must

look into all of the different ways information about customers comes into a business, where and how

this data is stored and how it is currently used.

There are three parts of application architecture of CRM: Use in Union Bank

1. Operational - automation to the basic business processes (marketing, sales, service)

2. Analytical - support to analyze customer behavior, implements business intelligence alike technology

3. Collaborative - ensures the contact with customers (phone, email, fax, web, SMS, post, in person)

1. Operational CRM

Operational CRM means supporting the "front office" business processes, which include customer

contact (sales, marketing and service). Tasks resulting from these processes are forwarded to resources

responsible for them, as well as the information necessary for carrying out the tasks and interfaces to

back-end applications are being provided and activities with customers are being documented for

further reference.

Sales force automation (SFA)

SFA automates some of the company's critical sales and sales force management functions, for example,

lead/account management, contact management, quote management, forecasting, Sales administration,

keeping track of customer preferences, buying habits, and demographics, as well as performance

management. SFA tools are designed to improve field sales productivity. Key infrastructure

requirements of SFA are mobile synchronization and integrated product configuration.

Customer service and support (CSS)

CSS automates some service requests, complaints, product returns, and information requests.

Traditional internal help desk and traditional inbound call-center support for customer inquiries are now

evolved into the "customer interaction center" (CIC), using multiple channels (Web, phone/fax, face-to-

face, kiosk, etc). Key infrastructure requirements of CSS include computer telephony integration (CTI)

which provides high volume processing capability, and reliability.

2. Analytical CRM

In analytical CRM, data gathered within operational CRM and/or other sources are analyzed to

segment customers or to identify potential to enhance client relationship. Customer analysis typically can

lead to targeted campaigns to increase share of customer's wallet.

Examples of Campaigns directed towards customers are:

Acquisition: Cross-sell, up-sell

Retention: Retaining customers who leave due to maturity or attrition.

Information: Providing timely and regular information to customers.

Modification: Altering details of the transactional nature of the customers’ relationship.

3. Collaborative CRM

Collaborative CRM facilitates interactions with customers through all channels (personal, letter, fax,

phone, web, e-mail) and supports co-ordination of employee teams and channels. It is a solution that

brings people, processes and data together so companies can better serve and retain their customers. The

data/activities can be structured, unstructured, conversational and/or transactional in nature.

Collaborative CRM provides the following benefits:

Enable efficient productive customer interactions across all communications channels

Enables web collaboration to reduce customer service costs

Integrates call centers enabling multi-channel personal customer interaction

Integrates view of the customer while interaction at the transaction level

Benefits of a Customer Relationship Management

A properly implemented CRM system can bring significant b e n e f i t s t o organizations. But when

I talk about a system, I mean the 3 P's, the complete consortium of people (employees, culture),

procedures (way of doing business) and programs (supporting applications), not just an application

running on a computer.

CRM is more than just the next wave of computer-aided marketing; it's a way of doing business. Let’s

take a look at the advantages that a CRM or Customer Relationship Management system can bring.

1. Shared or distributed dataAs companies realize that customer relationships are happening on many levels (not just through

customer service or a web presence), they start to understand the need for sharing all available data

throughout the organization. A CRM system is an enabler for making informed decisions and follow-

up, on all the different levels.

2. Cost reductionA strong point in Customer Relationship Management is that it is making the customer a partner in

your business, not just a subject. As customers are doing their own order entry, and are empowered to

find the info they need to come to a buy decision, less order entry and customer support staff is needed.

3. Better Customer ServiceAll data concerning interactions with customers is centralized. The customer service department can

greatly benefit from this, because they have all the information they need at their fingertips. No need to

guess, no need to ask the customer for the n-th time. And through the use of push-technology, customer

service reps can lead the customer towards the information they need. And, most of the time, the

customer can do this on their own,

as the CRM system (remember, the 3 P's) is more and more able to anticipate the need of the customer.

The customer experience is greatly enhanced.

4. Increased Customer SatisfactionThe customer feels that he is more "part of the team" instead of just a subject for sales and marketing

(the proverbial number), customer service is better, his needs are anticipated. There is no doubt that

customer satisfaction will go up. If the products sold exceed the customers expectation, of course, no

CRM system can help you with shoddy products. In my opinion, the term satisfaction is a contaminated.

Many companies think that if customers are satisfied that this is a good predictor for repeat business.

However, this is not the case. Only delighted customers have a great level of loyalty.

5. Better Customer RetentionIf a CRM system can help to enchant customers, this will increase customer loyalty, and they will keep

coming back to buy again and again, hence customer retention.

6. More repeat businessThe repeat business is coming from the delighted customers, who are turned from doubting clients

into loyal advocates.

7. More new businessIf you are delivering the ultimate customer experience, this will seed the word- of-mouth buzz, which

will spawn more new business.

8. More Profit!

More business at lower cost equals more profit.

E –CRM in banks

What is E-CRM?As the internet is becoming more and more important in business life, many companies consider it

as an opportunity to reduce customer-service costs, tighten customer relationships and most

important, further personalize marketing messages and enable mass customization Together with the

creation of Sales force automation (SFA), where electronic methods were used to gather data and

analyze customer information, the trend of the upcoming Internet can be seen as the foundation of what

we know as eCRM today.

We can define eCRM as activities to manage customer relationships by using the Internet, web

browsers or other electronic touch points.

The challenge hereby is to offer communication and information on the right topic, in the right

amount, and at the right time that fits the customer’s specific needs.

Channels, through which companies can communicate with its customers, are growing by the day,

and as a result, getting their time and attention has turned into a major challenge. One of the reasons

eCRM is so popular nowadays is that digital channels can create unique and positive experiences –

not just transactions – for customers. An extreme, but ever growing in popularity, example of

the creation of experiences in order to establish customer service is the use of Virtual Worlds, such as

second life. Through this so-called eCRM, companies are able to create synergies between virtual and

physical channels and reaching a very wide consumer base. However, given the newness of the

technology, most companies are still struggling to identify effective entries in Virtual Worlds.

Suggestions Bank should increase staff.

Bank transaction should be fully computerized.

Customer care service of the bank should be improved for convenience of the customers.

Customer care service of the bank should be fast and responsive. ATM’s should be increase.

CONCLUSION

Providing excellent customer service is no easy task. This aspect of business is a major force that can

make or break profits. However, customer service is rarely mentioned in an organization's mission

statement nor is it the top of the discussion list for staff meetings or training sessions.

Providing the type of customer service that is expected by customers take a lot of thought and

flexibility on the part of management as well as staff members. The challenges faced by banks and

their customers are many but the trick lies in de-mystifying complex financial relationships. Technical

solutions deployed by banks today are flexible, user friendly and meant to facilitate specific

workflow and requirements in implementation processes. In order to simplify lives, banks have begun

to implement end-to-end technology through all departments with the intention of removing human

error from processes previously existing manual environments could not have been adequate for future

visions, growth plans and strategies. In this day and age, customers enjoy complete luxury in terms of

customized technical solutions and banks us the same for long term, mutually beneficial relationships.

ASIAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENTHYDERABAD

Subject- Customer Relationship Management

Topic- CRM at Union Bank of India

Submitted To, Submitted By,Prof. R.Satish Kumar Vikash NishadASBM, Hyderabad PGPM/2010-12/12