CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) System is a key part to the success of any business. A CRM helps you understand the buying behavior of your customers, their wants and also their needs. Imagine if you will that you owned your own Bank. With a CRM tool you track how each customer uses your banking services. Such as what time of the month they withdraw money from a checking or savings account, where they shop at, and the amount both you and your spouse make each month. You will also know what how much debt they are in with car loans, home mortgages, and maybe you might be able to determine how many children they have and what ages they are. You might be saying to yourself right now, "That's great, why should I care?" Here is why, you now have a leading edge in marketing your services to that person.
Say you know that Mr. and Mrs. Jones have two children, and your system has recorded that they have had a child about every two years, and each time they have a child they set up a College Savings Fund for that child. The system knows that it is about two years since they have had their last child. Would it not be an opportunistic time send the Jones Family a reminder that they need a College Savings Fund that will benefit their future child? Of course it would!
Now lets make things a little more interesting. Your system begins to notice an irregularity in the deposit amount that is made by Mr. Jones each month both the savings and checking account. The deposit amount has dropped $3,000 a month, what has happened? It would be easy to determine through past data that Mr. Jones is no longer depositing a pay check, meaning he has lost his job. An investment opportunity would be just the ticket for Mr. Jones right at this moment, because you know he has a family and that he probably wants to secure his families financial future. Not only are you able to provide your services, but more importantly provide a need for the Jones Family.
Lets broaden our interests outside of just the Jones Family for a bit and begin to look at the bank as a whole. You begin to see that allot of your customers are withdrawing money from ATM's that are outside of your network. This will help you determine that you need to spread your network coverage, and also that you need to send some sort of incentive to your customers so that they will stay loyal to you and to your bank and not go to another bank where they think they could get better service. You have now just kept your customers loyal as well as expanding your coverage area. You could also run ads letting the public know that you are growing and that you are able to provide better coverage verses what their bank is able to provide them.
Lets return our attention back to the Jones Family once again. Your system is seeing allot of purchases from an Online Adult Book Store made by the families credit card. By checking previous information on purchases made on the card, you see that no purchases have ever been made to that type of institution before, and that they typically use that credit card to buy Christian Books, and other related items. You are now able to freeze the credit card and contact the Jones family to check to see if they have had their credit cards stolen from them. Sure enough they did have their credit card stolen and you were able to take action before damage was done.
By using this CRM system you were able to help the Jones family through credit card theft, Mr. Jones losing his job, setting up a College Savings Fund, and help your whole customer basis in setting up access to ATM's that would have been normally outside of their coverage area. A question may now come up that is, "Do I know to much information about my clients?" The answer is no. Why? Look at what you were able to accomplish in helping your customers. You are developing your bank to better adapt with their needs, and leave them with a feeling of assurance that you are looking out for their best interests.
By learning more about CRM systems you will get to know who your customers are, grow your business, and be more competitive in your market. If you are not now currently implementing this system I would strongly suggest taking immediate action in doing so.