You will hear a college lecturer talking to a group of students about two case studies in Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Part One. Questions 1 to 12.
You will hear a college lecturer talking to a group of students about two case studies in Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
As you listen, for questions 1 to 12, complete the notes, using up to three words or a number.
After you have listened once, replay the recording.
You now have 45 seconds to read through the notes.
[pause]
Now listen, and complete the notes.
[pause]
Today we’re going to look at Customer Relationship Management - better known as CRM -and I’ll start by giving you examples of two companies that have benefited from introducing CRM systems, in a radical - and expensive - reorganisation of the way they service their customers.
A few years ago, Unicorn, a major telecoms company, installed CRM software which holds details of all its customers. This system uses an interactive voice response software application, so that callers can define the subject that they’re calling about before being put through to an adviser. And advisers can view customer details on-screen as they answer calls.
One element in the introduction of CRM was the establishment of a working group tasked to examine the utilisation of all its buildings, something that was long overdue, as until then, Unicorn had never examined whether they were being put to the best use. This resulted in a seventy-five per cent reduction in the number of contact centres. Those remaining are located in several time zones, and are linked by the CRM software to provide a service twenty-four hours a day. Customers call a central number and are routed to whoever is free to take their call and has the right information to deal with their query. And this adviser can be in any contact centre. With advisers better able to resolve problems at the first point of contact, the number of calls to be handled has dropped considerably.
Unicorn integrated several business divisions, making it possible to cut support staff by two thirds, mostly from IT and training sections. The number of desktop PCs, too, was reduced significantly. As a result of changing to the new system, the most important measure, customer satisfaction, has shown a marked improvement.
A key factor in the company’s success was that it made strenuous efforts to ensure staff involvement right from the start. Another was the policy that there wouldn’t be any compulsory redundancies, and in this way the company avoided demoralising the workforce.
OK. Now another major company that has successfully implemented a CRM system is Northlands Water, a publicly owned business formed in 2002 through a merger. The new company replaced three regional water authorities which had previously been government controlled. Within four years, Northlands had achieved the targets it was set on its formation: costs reduced by forty per cent and better customer service, without any deterioration in product quality.
For its contact centres, the company bought a CRM system from Parchment, one of the biggest vendors in the sector. One reason for the choice was that the same supplier had already been used for Northlands’ back-office systems. In addition, Parchment was able to provide the software much sooner than most of the other potential suppliers.
One result is that the call-centre staff can answer enquiries faster and more effectively, so there are now far fewer repeat calls. This has of course been welcomed by the company and customers alike.
Water companies like Northlands have a large network of pipes, and the public needs access to water day and night. This means there has to be a large and complex field operation, and in this area, too, the CRM system has produced great savings, in both time and money. For example, instead of coming into the office to be given work, and information about customers, the engineers are connected to the system via laptop computers, giving them access to all the information they need. This gives them autonomy, and means they can do a much better job than before.