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e-Management best practices

Customer
R
itu Kumar is one of India’s leading designers.
Her boutiques showcase the very best of Indian
design, with specially produced range of high-
fashion garments and accessories using silk,

Delight at leather, and cotton. The company has been

growing steadily at a rate of eight to ten per cent in the
last five years to achieve a turnover of Rs 27 crore (270
million) in 2002-03.

Ritu
The CRM (customer relationship management)
initiative at Ritu Kumar’s establishment started in April
2002. A study of the marketplace helped them identify
the opportunities to become a leading player in the
emerging fashion-retail industry. Director Amrish Kumar

Kumar’s
explains, “Due to the nature of the market and the posi-
tion of the company within it, we realised that we were
in an ideal scenario for implementing a CRM solution.
Customer focus was the primary driver behind our

Fashion houses like that of Ritu Kumar’s know exactly what

customised selling means. In addition to improving their
designs and material, what brings maximum value to their
business is knowing their customers’ tastes well. In the year
2002, the fashion house experimented with a software to
achieve customer delight and, apparently, it proved to be
worth the effort.

>> BUSINESS BenefITs

! Track customer behavior to evolve products

! Track customer requirements better

! Improve profitability and customer retention

26 / October 2004 / BenefIT

CMYK
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CRM initiative.”
Amrish goes on to explain the
need for a CRM solution in the
company, “Our small volumes en-
able us to provide individual cus-
tomer service across the board.
Also, the nature of our luxury
brand makes a strong case for
pampering customers and provid-
ing them with the little extra.”
Amrish and his team had a
couple of consultants look at their
business and realised that by Ritu Kumar, Fashion Designer
using technology effectively they
could become pioneers in a niche segment. “The motiva-
tion of staying ahead and gaining competitive advantages
made us embark on this CRM initiative,” shares Amrish.
The nature of Ritu Kumar’s business attracts lower foot-
falls as compared to mass retailers like Shoppers’ Stop. And,
every person who walks in, does not necessarily end up
buying. It was evident to Ritu Kumar’s team that if they
could somehow track the reasons for people not buying
their wares, it would become possible for them to tap into
a bigger pool of customers.
In their line of business, it is important to maintain close
ties with customers. The sales staff tracked customer re-
quirements in an informal manner—nothing was recorded.
It was all part of the interaction that the staff had with the
customers while in the store. A need was felt to make cus-
tomer interaction a formal process in which the staff would
record the interaction they had with the customers. Stores
were spread across several cities in the country. In order to
get business value out of the customer-interaction, data
collected in these stores, the data would have to be put
together in a central location—the corporate office.
The Blueprint
The company realised the value customers would bring if
their inputs were tracked. If the customers could be
patronised, referrals from them could become a source of
The Selection Process
The top management initiated the selection process by identifying
various solution providers. A list of criteria was drawn to shortlist the
product vendors. Some of the key criteria included:
1. Ease of use. This was very important as the interface had to be
simple enough for the front-line sales staff to comprehend.
2. Level of customisation. This was necessary to capture the
customer details, as well as, integrate with the existing PoS solution.
3. Comfort levels with individuals from the solution provider. It was
crucial to find a service provider who would most easily fit in with
the company’s objectives.
4. Affordability. The available solution would have to be affordable.
5. Scalability. This feature was essential keeping in mind future
market expansions.
CMYK
best practices e-Management
new customers and growth. It was
therefore decided to profile store
walk-ins and link the data collected
across the marketing, merchandis-
ing, and customer support teams.
Such an effort would capture
what customers were looking for;
their requirements could then be
co-ordinated across teams to get
business value out of them.
It was realised that the utopian
solution for Ritu Kumar’s establish-
ment should have the following
features:
" An interface simple enough for the front-line
sales employees
" Integration with the existing point-of-sale (PoS) systems
" Tracking prospects who came but did not buy
" Tracking purchase preferences of customers
" Tracking customer complaints and feedback
" Record requests or inquiries for products that did
not exist
The team zeroed on SalesLogix, a CRM solution promoted
by Delhi-based Interact Commerce Corporation. The solution
was customised to handle all the above requirements.
The Customer-friendly Features
The CRM solution had to be customised to have the following
features in order to get the true value out of their investment:
Easy to use. Interface screens were required to be simple
and descriptive so that the front-line sales personnel could
use them easily. The customisation of the CRM solution
involved mapping the existing customer interaction
process on to the solution. A prototype was first deployed
in the Hauz Khas outlet (in Delhi), where a cross-functional
team ensured that the interface had all that they were
looking for. From here emerged a screen flow that would
later be made the de-facto across all branches.
Work with existing systems. The outlets already had PoS
terminals (computers that were capturing sales-related
transactions) deployed across the chain. They did not want
to waste their investment by replacing these PoS systems
with new ones for the CRM solution. Hence, the solution
was designed such that it could work on the existing PoS
systems.
Customers who do not buy. To handle cases where a
prospective buyer walks in but does not buy, basic
information about the prospective buyer is entered into the
system. This information is entered by the front-line
sales staff based on their interaction with the prospective
buyer. Basic information that is entered includes: name,
size, colour, style preference, etc. The data collected is used
to profile prospects and get their preferences for product
improvement or development. The CRM solution is able
BenefIT / October 2004 / 27

e-Management best practices
to track prospects when they come in, maybe six months
later, and buy some products. The PoS links to the CRM
Solution through a smart-search capability. And, data is
available, for analytical purposes, to match the buyers’
preferences that were entered six months earlier with the
products that were purchased.
What did they buy? When a customer buys, more
detailed information is entered into the system. This
includes—purchase value, colour, age group, size, etc. In
fact, information related to alterations (including paper-
based graphics used by the sales personnel to take in the
details) are also fed in. Thus, the complete purchase
history of the customer can be tracked. Plus, additional
useful information, such as, the places where they usually
shop is entered, so that the decision regarding the location
of the next store(s) is backed by data.
Complaints and feedback. Previously, complaints and
feedback were being recorded in registers kept in stores.
However, information from such a manual method was
subject to delays, and made consolidation of the data at
the corporate office a Herculean task. With the CRM
solution in place, complaints and feedbacks are brought in
from the outlets into the corporate office. The data is con-
solidated and then shared with marketing, sales, merchan-
dise, customer service, and design at the corporate office
on a daily basis.
What do customers want? Customers who want
products that are not currently available also find a friend
in this solution—their requests do not go unheard. The
front-line sales staff uses the CRM solution to capture
requests, and they pass this information on to the corporate
office. At the corporate office, trends can be identified and
products developed based on popular demand.
The Implementation
After selecting SalesLogix, the project was initiated by
identifying the needs of key stakeholders, including
marketing, sales, service, merchandising, and IT.
Customisation involved the solution provider’s team
collaborating with the cross-functional team set up at the
Ritu Kumar’s corporate office in Hauz Khas, New Delhi.
After the implementation was complete, in order to get
28 / October 2004 / BenefIT
CMYK
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maximum mileage from the solution, the next important
task was to train the staff. The design of the CRM solution
was such that the personnel from a department did not
need training beyond their departmental applications.
Training of the staff across the outlets was conducted over
a period of time in stages. “The entire deployment was
planned in a dynamic manner so as to find the best fit by
learning as we went along. We continuously enhanced our
own understanding of the requirements and limitations,”
says Amrish.
In the End
The system allows calendaring, activity scheduling, and even
mass mailing. Trends that can be indicated by the system
include analysis of alterations sought, product returns, and
customer complaints. Informative reports include footfall
to sales-conversion ratio, direct-mail campaign analysis,
and campaign RoI (return on investment). Over and above
all these reports, Ritu Kumar’s establishment is now better
equipped to provide customer delight as it has access to
vital information, such as, customer profiles, interaction
history, and purchasing preferences. !
— Subhasis Chatterjee, BenefIT Bureau
Technical Details
The hardware required was not enormous: a centralised SQL Server
database on Windows 2000 server for the back-end in Delhi; a high-end
desktop with a Pentium 4 processor; 128 MB RAM; and a 40-GB hard
disk does the trick at the front end.
Using the central synchronisation server, incremental sales data is
pulled from all the retail outlets once a day, and subsequently pushed to
the outlets elsewhere using a file-transfer mechanism over the Internet.
So, at the end of each working day, sales data is available across all the
outlets and inventory is planned accordingly.
As part of the organisational restructuring, merchandising and
customer service structures were amalgamated at the top. The role of
the customer service cell was enhanced by giving additional
responsibility for maintenance of shop requirements. Accordingly, staff
reshuffling and realignment of responsibility was done to accommodate
these changes.
The next challenge is to leverage the customer information to enter
into emerging business opportunities including mass retailing.