DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a term used in the information industry to describe methodologies, software, and, in most cases, internet capabilities that assist an enterprise in managing customer relations in an organized manner.

For example, an enterprise may create a database about its customers that describes the relationship in sufficient detail so that management, salespeople, service providers, and possibly the customer directly can access information that matches customers’ needs with product plans and offerings, reminds customers of service requirements, knows what other products a customer has purchased, and so on.

1.2  GOALS OF CUSTOMER RELATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CRMS)

Relevance: The CRM developer should identify one major priority that necessitates a significant investment in computer and/or human resources. Following that, the developer proposes a specific initiative to address this priority. The resource should meaningfully address the organization’s issues and opportunities. For example, a billing system that only processes individual invoices may be irrelevant in a world of complicated payment options.

Accuracy: Any system that relies on estimating financial data is allowed a margin of error. The resources must compile and report summary data in a logistically sound manner. For example, when sales orders are initially recorded in the field or over the phone, the subsequent data input procedure is frequently notoriously inaccurate.

Validity: The underlying systemic assumptions should be consistent with the organization’s nature.

business. A financial accounting program, for example, that calculates costs per unit in accordance with traditional retail product transactions may not be valid for private services contracts. Even if the cost information is relevant and the calculations are correct. The information’s nature may be invalid for the purposes of running a service business.

Reliability: The information should be available when it is expected. Many businesses have failed to develop flat fee guaranteed services contracts because they were unable to reliably process cost and utilization and thus could not decide on a prudent pricing schedule. A serious organization should have a service provider available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Every ISP, for example, should be consistent.

Accessibility: When necessary, the appropriate end user should have access to the information. The

The best internet-based application in the world may be rendered useless if its cable connection or dial-up modem is constantly unavailable and employees do not understand how to create data queries.

Speed: The information should be analyzed and conclusions drawn quickly enough to justify the investment in the management information system. End users, for example, must be able to retrieve, review, revise, and replicate information in minutes.

Cost: The resources should be affordable to the organization and/or system users. Affordable must include all of the benefits and costs of the CRM system, strategy, such as the benefits of becoming more efficient and the costs of training employees to use the newly developed system.

1.3 THE STUDY’S BACKGROUND

Management of Customer Relationships

(CRM) system was created when businesses wanted to strengthen their bonds with their customers. CRM, as defined by [Kenbrell, 2002], is the process of managing detailed information about individual customers and carefully managing all customer “touch points” in order to maximize customer loyalty.

I-cell Telecommunication Nigeria Ltd is a Nigerian telecommunications company. This telecommunication was fully operational in 2008, but due to the manual way in which they organized their customer relationships, I decided to develop a web-based application to provide the customer with an effective and interactive interface.

It is impossible to define Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for everyone. The term has been applied to almost every aspect of business that has even the slightest interaction with a customer. In its early stages,

CRM systems, as defined by [Kosh (2004)], were a collection of mainframe or server-based applications dedicated to sales, marketing, and support business functions.

The applications were light by today’s standards, doing little more than capturing and archiving critical data. However, as organizational cultural boundaries weakened, individual information freedom gave way to sophisticated applications that could open business functions. As a result, these applications created the vision of a unified customer view.

For the first time, businesses could track and analyze changing customer needs, link marketing campaigns to sales results, and monitor sales activities to improve forecasting accuracy and manufacturing demand.

a. Development in the 1990s

Companies began to improve customer relationship management in the 1990s by making it more of a priority.

Instead of simply gathering data for their own use, they began giving back to their customers not only in terms of the obvious goal of improved customer service, but also in the form of incentives, gifts, and other perks for customer loyalty.

This was the start of the now-famous frequent flyer programs, bonus points on credit cards, and a slew of other resources based on CRM tracking of customer activity and spending patterns. CRM was now being used to increase sales both passively and actively by improving customer service.

b. Prospects for the Future

In May 2011, a material accessed on the website: http://www.wikipedia.com stated that the time had come for systems to be moved from extranets to the internet.

Customers have fully integrated into the value chain and have access to the same customer relationship management systems as manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, or facilitators.

Reengineering principles are likely to be incorporated further into customer management systems in the future. It is claimed that rather than organizing a company into functional specialties and examining the tasks that each function performs, we would examine entire processes ranging from material acquisition to serving our subscribers to marketing and distribution. This approach will be used by an increasing number of software applications. Eventually, there will be a fully integrated business information system in which all types of business information will be moved seamlessly throughout the firm.

1.4   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The main issue that drives this research is the company’s poor communication approach to old and new customers, which did not account for dynamic online business. They are as follows:

1. Difficulties with promotion and advertising.

2. Ineffective marketing strategy.

3. Subpar products and services.

1.5   OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The demand for higher-quality information, combined with rapid technological advancements, has necessitated the embankment of this project. This project, which involves an automated customer management system, is being used to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between the tasks of managing in a large business organization and the technology that has become an essential component of the task customer management systems.

However, the goals of this project are to seek and play an important role in the development of a customer relationship management system, as well as to increase the productivity of the case study business organization (I-cell Telecommunication Nig Ltd) through the managed use of the organization’s technology.

– Create a web-based customer relationship and management system.

– Create a customer information database.

system to ensure proper management of customer details record.

– Ensure that growing customer records are handled using the Microsoft Access database for its customer records.

– Increase sales and advertising by sending out mailers during exhibitions and sales.

– Save time and effort for the employee who is currently manually entering customer information, accounting, and marketing.

– Improve service to customers, organization staff, and anyone else who will be impacted by the new system.

– To create a user-friendly system that provides enjoyment and entertainment to system users through the use of visual basic, which has a friendly graphical user interface.

1.6   SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This project would be useful in a communication system because of the following benefits.

– It conserves time.

– It works effectively.

– It is modern and dependable.

– It is extremely fast, accurate, and security conscious.

1.7   SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The investigation of the information system will be limited to a single telecommunications organization, which will serve as the case study; I-cell Nig Ltd. The system to be developed is a customer relationship management system that is intended to improve business customer relationships; these are the components required.

– Call center department record keeping: recording of all customer information details.

– Sales department order processing: The processing of customer orders.

– Accounting department bill generation and processing: Customer payment tracking and document generation in connection with bill preparation for each business type customer. The bill is determined by the customer’s tariff.

– The call center department’s SMS message shot generation: The production of e-mails to all customers in order to increase sales, advertising, and marketing.

1.8     LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Transportation, typing, and photocopying costs reduced the amount of detail information presented. I was limited to some of the organization’s equipment.

The system does not encourage customers to complain. Carefully consider the complaints you receive; if there is no one to relay them to us, these are the only things that matter. It is frequently much easier for your customer to simply get up and leave.

1.9   DEFINITION OF TERMS

Customer

– A person or organization that purchases goods and services from a store, shop, or business.

Relation/relationship

– The manner in which two people, groups, or countries treat or interact with one another.

– The means by which two or more things are linked.

Management

– The people who run and control a company or similar organization.

– The act of running and controlling a business or similar organization.

– The act or skill of dealing with people or situation in a successful way.

System

– An organized set of ideas or theories or a particular way of doing something.

– A group of things pieces of equipment e.t.c. that are connected to work together.

Information

– Consist of data than have been processed and are meaningful to a

user. It can be shared if it is on a hard copy or software.

Warehouse of Data

– A data warehouse is a storage location for an organization’s electronically stored data. Data warehouses are intended to make reporting and analysis easier. This traditional definition of a data warehouse is concerned with data storage. However, the ability to retrieve and analyze data, extract, transform, and load data, and manage dictionary data are all important components of a data warehousing system.

Diagrams of Data Flow

– Data flow diagrams show how a system processes data in terms of inputs and outputs. Data flows are pipelines through which information packets flow, with the arrows labeled with the name of the data that moves through it.

Return on Vestment

In The finance rate of return (ROR), return on investment (ROI), or simply return, is the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment to the amount invested. Interest, profit/loss, gain/loss, or net income loss are all terms used to describe the amount of money gained or lost. The money invested is known as the asset, capital principal, or cost basis of the investment. ROI is typically expressed as a percentage rather than a decimal value.