Summer Internship Project Report

On
Sales and Customer Relationship Management at Om Book Centre

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the award of the degree of

Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA)

To

Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi

Guide:
(Guide Name)
by: (Student name)
Designation

Submitted
Roll No.:

(Name of the Institute)

Batch (2014-2017)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Customer Relationship management is the strongest and the most efficient approach in
maintaining and creating relationships with customers. Customer relationship
management is not only pure business but also ideate strong personal bonding within
people. Development of this type of bonding drives the business to new levels of success.
The study is on measuring the impact of CRM on customer loyalty at Om Books. The
project aims at understanding the CRM implementation at Om Books and its impact on
the perception of

Om Books Services. Customer Relationship management is a

discipline that covers all the elements needed to build successful relationships with
customers. The core theme of all CRM and relationship marketing perspectives is its
focus on cooperative and collaborative relationship between the firm and its customers,
and other marketing actors. It includes the information need to understand customers
better; the process management needed to deliver efficient and appropriate experiences to
customers; the software tools that allow us to use that knowledge; and the training and
change management elements so people and organisations understand and are capable of
delivering experiences that build stronger relationship and increase loyalty. It is called
customer management, customer information systems, customer value management,
customer care and sometimes customer centered. But clearly now the term 'Customer
Relationship Management' (CRM) has overtaken the market. We have gone back to the
old way of doing business, a customer at a time, but millions of customers. CRM is a
business strategy to select and manage the most valuable customers. CRM is customer
centric business philosophy and culture that supports effective marketing, sales and
service process. CRM ' applications are effective provided that the enterprise has the right
culture, strategy and leadership.
The initial part of the projects explains the origin of CRM, the importance of
Relationship Marketing and the challenges being faced by marketers in implementing
CRM. The following chapters give a brief about Om Bookss Company Profile, Its
History and Present. This is further followed by the initiatives taken by Om Books
towards Relationship Marketing and the functioning of Customer Care Division of Om

Books in its endeavors to generate Customer satisfaction and loyalty. Further the finding
and analysis give us a view on Customers perception of Om Bookss Services.

CHAPTER -1
INTRODUCTION
INDUSTRY PROFILE
RETAILING
The distribution of a product begins with a producer and ends with a consumer. The
retailer is the middleman that is found in between the producer and the consumer. A
retailer is a person, agent, agency, company which forces the products to be reached to
the ultimate consumer. Retailers are the one who perform various tasks of obtaining
market information of a product, news of competitors, consumer needs and wants and
pricing. Retailing has today become a part of every mans life, therefore for a firm or a
brand today to survive in a market; it is very essential that it first sets up its identity and
builds up loyal customers.
The Global Retail Scenario
Large format retail businesses dominate the retail landscape in the United States and
across Europe, in terms of retail space, categories, range, brands, and volumes. Indian
retail industry cannot hope to learn much by merely looking at the Western success
stories in retail. Their scales of operations are very huge, the profit margins that they earn
are also much higher and they operate in multiple formats like discount stores,
warehouses, supermarkets, departmental stores, hyper-markets, convenience stores and
specialty stores. The economy and lifestyle of the West is not in line with that of India
and hence the retailing scene in India has not evolved in the same format as the West nor
can we learn valuable lessons from their style of operations.
In retailing, the conventional wisdom used to be, that, the critical success factor was
location. But precise location no longer matters and geo-demographics is increasingly
becoming irrelevant. The leading multiple chain retailers, superstores and malls create

their own centers of gravity, attracting customers by car, bus, train or even by plane to
wherever they are located.
The growth of multiple chain retailers has been relentless for many years in the west and
this has been accompanied by the development of retail names as brands in their own
right. Discount retailer Walmart has catapulted to the top of the Fortune 500 rankings in
the U.S. with a turnover of $258 billions, ahead even of oil major Exxon Mobil and the
mammoth manufacturing giant General Electric. A ruthless policy, of, Always Low
prices. Always. has brought Walmart to the top. On the day after Thanksgiving Wal-Mart
sales hit $3.43 billion in one single day.
Walmart and Nordstrom in the U.S. and Sainsburys and Marks & Spencer in the U.K.
have grown by rapid geographic expansion in their own countries. Specialists like
Benetton of Italy and IKEA of Sweden and The Body Shop of the UK are international
Building Successful Indian Brands by Sundar Bharathidasan Institute of Management,
Trichy and the fast food chains like McDonalds and Pizza Hut are everywhere. The same
products are increasingly available from the same names on every continent. Retailers
worldwide have immensely benefited from the sustained growth of the disposable income
of their global consumers.
Geographic saturation
The end of the nineties has signified a turning tide of retailer power. The limit to retail
ambition is geographic saturation. There is already a fear that the U.S is over-malled,
that available shopping space exceeds customer demand for products. The retailer logic
that if we build new stores they will come, is being belied. Many retailers have started
postponing their store expansion plans. The track record of some of their international
store expansions is also not promising.
Category killer competition
The threat of saturation is accompanied by a new competition from the low cost category
killers. Specialist competition is eating away at the market share and forcing down the

prices and gross margins of the multiple chains. The success of the giant killers in the
toys segment Toys R Us and in home furnishings Home Depot, in the are a case in
point.
The newest retail format that is showing growth in the U.S., and is more frightening for
retailers than for consumers, is the Internet. The potential for on-line shopping which is
growing in the U.S. questions retailers investments in more physical sites and stores and
makes it imperative that they too explore the new agenda of E-retailing or e-tailing.
The Indian Retail Scene
India's organised retail sector may have turned a corner in the year ended March, having
managed to reduce losses while substantially increasing sales with a focus on costs by
pruning poorly performing locations and resorting to more efficient supply management.
Big unlisted retail chains such as Reliance Fresh of Reliance Industries, Aditya Birla
Group's More, Bharti Retail's Easyday and Tata-owned Star Bazaar all posted doubledigit sales growth, reflecting their increasing popularity among shoppers despite
economic growth slumping to a 10-year low and consumer price inflation not easing
appreciably.
According to financial statements for 2012-13 filed with the corporate affairs ministry,
the food and grocery retailers listed above saw their combined losses shrink to Rs 1,176
crore from Rs 1,277 crore in the previous year, while combined sales jumped 34 per cent
to Rs 8,770 crore. Excluding Bharti Retail, which was in expansion mode, the sector cut
the loss figure by about half. While Bharti Retail's losses swelled 37 per cent to Rs 538
crore, all other conglomerate-owned supermarket chains reduced losses as they shut
unviable stores and focused on supply chain efficiencies.
In the last two years, most retailers have been closing, relocating or rationalising
unprofitable stores after they found themselves saddled with mountains of inventory and
gripped by a cash crunch following hasty expansion. "These retailers have reached their
maturity with many stores opened during initial expansion, (they) are now six-seven

years old. At the same time, there has been more focus on profitability and employee
management per square foot apart from better inventory planning unlike the carnage we
saw last year when retailers had to sell stocks at a huge discount," said Kumar
Rajagopalan, chief executive of the Retailers Association of India trade lobby.
The numbers bear witness to this shift. Despite not opening a single store last year, Trent
Hypermarket recorded a 21 per cent increase in total revenue to Rs 801 crore last fiscal
and a loss of Rs 72 crore. Aditya Birla Retail added just three hypermarkets and two
supermarkets under the More brand and posted a 10 per cent sales growth with a 5 per
cent decline in losses as it shut over a dozen unviable stores. The numbers also indicate
that despite, or perhaps because, of the economic gloom, Indian shoppers have embraced
the value proposition offered by organised retail.
Modern trade has surely taken a share from unorganised retail due to a sharper
proposition in terms of cost and quality. For a consumer, a full basket at modern trade
works out cheaper compared to traditional trade and obviously more savings," said
Abheek Singhi, partner and director, The Boston Consulting Group, India (BCG).
Bharti Retail's losses widened as it opened more than 30 Easyday supermarkets and
hypermarkets in calendar 2012, taking its tally to 210 stores. The sharpest decline in
losses was posted by Reliance Retail, down 80 per cent to Rs 55 crore while sales jumped
36 per cent to Rs 5,256 crore.
To be sure, the issues that make organised retail a high-investment, low-return sector are
still unresolved, according to experts. These include the high cost of real estate, a paucity
of skilled manpower and the lack of infrastructure such as cold storages and efficient
supply chains. "Retailers are looking at profitable and moderate pace of additions under
10 per cent in FY14 against the range of 15-30 per cent seen in the last two-three years,"
said Janhavi Prabhu, analyst at India Ratings & Research that has maintained a negative
outlook on the retail sector for second half of 2013.
The focus should be on branding the retail business itself. In their preparation to face
fierce competitive pressure, Indian retailers must come to recognize the value of building

their own stores as brands to reinforce their marketing positioning, to communicate

quality as well as value for money. Sustainable competitive advantage will be dependent
on translating core values combining products, image and reputation into a coherent retail
brand strategy.
There is no doubt that the Indian retail scene is booming. A number of large corporate
houses Tatas, Rahejas, Piramalss, Goenkas have already made their foray into
this arena, with beauty and health stores, supermarkets, self-service music stores, newage
book stores, every-day-low-price stores, computers and peripherals stores, office
equipment stores and home/building construction stores. Every retail category has been
attacked, by the organized players today. The Indian retail scene has witnessed too many
players in too short a time, crowding several categories without looking at their core
competencies, or having a well thought out branding strategy. To illustrate, the Indian
lifestyle/fashion retail scene is already exhibiting the following characteristics, which do
not augur well for its future:
Lack of store differentiation : Leading retail stores like Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Ebony,
Globus, and Piramyd, offer common brands, similar ambience, and a commitment to
improved service. Where is the scope for differentiation and brand building? Can these
retailers hope that location and ambience alone will do the trick?
Merchandising muddle: Mumbais original retailers of Mumbai , Amarsons,
Akbarallys, Benzer, Premsons have experienced no decrease in traffic in their stores,
even after Piramyd and Westside opened shop. These retailers exploit what they know
best what the customer wants with regard to product, selection and price and ensure
their customers do not go back disappointed. Consumer insights built over their years of
experience in business is helping them to hold the fort against the onslaught of the new
players on the horizon.
The organized new generation Indian retailers (Shoppers Stop and Westside) have
recruited senior retail persons from abroad, who have the expertise in setting up systems

and procedures, but they are going to take a long while to tune into the psyche of the
Indian consumer.
With the permutations and combinations of seasons, fashions and regional preferences,
merchandising is at the best of times a complex task. Indias cultural diversity poses
additional challenges to the merchandisers requiring them to be aware of local tastes and
to be able to compete with the local retailer in terms of market knowledge and speed of
response. While technology and systems are no doubt enablers, there can be little
substitute for experience and insight.
Lack of labels/suppliers: Organized Indian retailing has to face the situation of lack of
professional suppliers who are accustomed to deadlines, systematic in their production
and consistent with their quality. Often, the local suppliers do not have financial strength
or production infrastructure or discipline. Indian merchandisers are forced to compromise
due to a true lack of choice which leads to huge unsold stocks and reduced
profitability to the retailers.
Discounting: Given widespread availability of the same brands, large retailers have
tocope with the phenomenon of discounts offered by the smaller retailers. Large stores
are able wrangle larger margins from most suppliers, but these margins are retained to
meet the higher operating cost. Small retailers are tempted to pass on the lower overhead
in the form of a discount to the customer to get them to their stores. In a middle class
dominated, price-sensitive market like India, price manipulation is a strong weapon in the
arsenal of the small independent retailer.
The large retailers themselves further dilute the strength of the retail market. With
promotions becoming the order of the day, they too have entered into price wars against
each other. Up to 50% off sales and Two for one price offers have now become
commonplace even at the top retail outlets across our country. Deep price cuts may not be
the answer to maintain their relevance against the small retailers nor does it auger well
for the brand building of the store.

Limited margins and high real estate costs: It is well accepted that Indian retailers work
on low margins compared to international chains. The retail margins in India are a
meager 30 to 35 per cent for fashion brands (as, say, compared to 50 to 100 per cent
across Europe). With overheads and allowance for dead stock, the Indian retailer is not
left with much scope for error. Cost of prime land for the retail store is prohibitive. Land
prices in prime localities across the metros have themselves become a major deterrent to
sustaining a profitable retailing model for organized players. A number of the new chains
have therefore preferred to spread in smaller metros, hoping to offset lower revenue
potential with lower real estate costs.
Time abundant consumers: In recent years, it would seem that the consumer has thrown
the adage time is money to the winds. The customer is willing to spend more time if
he/she is getting a better deal. Scarcity of time seems to be the prerogative only of a few
consumers. The crowds inside Sarvana Stores or Jayachandran textiles in Pondy Bazaar
in Chennai, drive home the point that consumers are prepared to travel to reach stores that
promise best prices.
The Indian model of organized retailing is still in a stage of evolution, and retailers need
to understand the value of retail as a brand rather than remaining as retailers selling
brands. However, the characteristics of the branding process, which are of interest to the
retailers, are still the characteristics of the traditional product brands they are simply
extended to the intangible part of the business. Thus, the characteristics of a branded
product, are simply applied in a different space.
What are the fundamental characteristics of a brand? While a myriad of characteristics
have been catalogued by several researchers on this subject, five characteristics deserve
mention:
(1)

Recognizability: A true brand is instantly recognized and identified. The brand

name passes into every day use (Nikes Just do it) or becomes satirized (Dont
be such a Duracell) or appropriated (Make a Xerox of this document). Indian
retailers like Shoppers Stop, the RPG Groups Food World and Music World have

already earned national recognition. Subiksha in Tamilnadu and Margin Free

supermarkets in Kerala are household names in the two states.
(2)

Meaning, story, value: This is the second characteristic of a brand. The brand
must have a value proposition. It must stand for something and one of the most
effective ways is to have a story to transmit those values. Examples abound of
effective leaderships that have helped to build corporate brand values in other
sectors, but few retailers have succeeded in building a story to carry brand
meaning. When they do so, their power will increase.

(3)

Legitimacy: The meaning of the brand should be obviously appropriated by

the target customer group. Legitimacy rests on authority, earned by the brand and
granted by the customers. Lessons can be learned from social organizations like
Greenpeace, Medicins sans frontiers, CRY and Helpage India.

(4)

Consistency, alignment: A brand story should contain no internal

contradictions and should be appear to be consistent over time. It should be
applicable across the business and attempt at total brand integration.

(5)

Proximity: The brand building process should culminate with assuring the
brands proximity to the consumer. The brands definition gets expanded by
opening stores in a number of locations to make it convenient to the consumer.

Book retailing trends

In many bookstores, Mago said, you could sit down in a corner to read a book by your
favourite author without being under any obligation of buying the book. Moreover, a
book store does not make a distinction between a high-end buyer and someone who is
shopping around for a 10-rupee magazine or 5-rupee stationary item. It is not a hierarchybased place.
Giving fillip to book reading

Along with book retailing comes book reading and both have a symbiotic relationship,
stated Mago. In fact, book reading receives a huge fillip from the variety of reading
material available to us today at the click of a button. And, book retailers carry the onus
of fashioning the taste of the reading crowd.
Mago suggested that a bookstore can organise multifarious activities to promote books:
book launches, book readings, meet-the-author and book-signing events, genre-inspired
festivals, and so on.
He said, Children love to throng to a bookstore to see their favourite comic character in
person, or for story-telling sessions, a puppet show, or that odd painting competition.
Market size and growth
The Indian book market grew by 45% in volume and 40% in value over the first half of
2011, with adult fiction the fastest-growing area of the market, according to Nielsen
BookScan India figures as the panel marks its first full year of sales monitoring.
The panel now covers about 35% of the total trade retail market and has signed up over
70% of organised book retail chains. In 2011, it measured 13 million book purchases,
worth Rs 3.28bn, covering more than 286,455 different titles.
Adult fiction was the fastest growing area of the market over the first half of 2011,
growing by 82% in volume and 49% in value, with Nielsen reporting fiction titles also
showing "steep growth in volume during the second half of 2011", attributed mainly to
the release in the fourth quarter of Chetan Bhagat's title Revolution 2020 (Rupa & Co)
which had volume sales of more than 280,000. Jeffrey Archer's title Only Time will Tell
(Pan Macmillan), took fifth position in the charts, selling more than 48,000 copies.
Fiction as a whole was up 49% in value terms over the first half of the year, with adult
non-fiction growing by 36% in value terms and 41% in volume. Rashmi Bansai's title I
Have a Dream (Westland Books) and Walter Issacson's Steve Jobs biography (Little,

Brown) took the two top spots in the 2011 charts, selling more than 49,000 and 44,000
copies respectively.
The Children's, Young Adult and Educational sector has also shown growth, up 27% in
volume and 38% in value over the first half of 2011. The number one slot for the
bestselling title was taken by Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney (Puffin)
which sold more than 17,000 copies, followed in second position by Inheritance: Book
Four: Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini (Doubleday Children's) which sold more
than 16,000 copies. The third, fourth and fifth positions in the chart were also taken by
Wimpy Kid titles.
In the Nielsen figures, growth rates were calculated by using like-for-like shops, stripping
out the shops that signed up to the panel later in the year, while value figures were based
on full panel data.
Last week, Bloomsbury announced its intention to set up an India division, to be based in
Delhi from May 2012 and headed by former m.d. of Macmillans Indian operations Rajiv
Beri. Simon & Schuster, Lonely Planet, agent Aitken Alexander and the Hay Festival
have all recently established a presence in the country, with Penguin celebrating 25 years
in India. Hachette, which with Penguin is one of the biggest publishers in the Indian
market, launched in the country in 2009, with HarperCollins, Macmillan and Random
House also having offices in the region. Amazon launched its e-commerce site in India,
junglee.com, at the beginning of February, and in January announced it was setting up its
first warehouses in the country.
UK indie Oneworld's publisher Juliet Mabey said the Indian market was now
"challenging the Middle East in terms of net sales" for the publisher, which is anticipating
very rapid growth in the market. She said: "India has become one of our strongest
markets since moving our distribution to Penguin India last year, with sales increasing
500%. It is now challenging the Middle East in terms of net sales. For such a large and
diverse country, the arrival of Amazon will certainly increase our sales further.
A multi-pronged operation model

Om Book Shops has nine outlets across NCR, and also has good presence over online
medium as well. Sharing thoughts on the same, Mago said, Customer visits to brick-andmortar retail or online stores are dependent on a number of factors that make up for
consumer comfort. So the traffic is diverted to all platforms rather erratically. That move
pushes up the sales of books offered at attractive discounts. That could be a healthy trend
because it helps people manning the vending points to promote the platforms in a manner
that takes into account the present market reality.
In conclusion, Mago said that book retailing still needs to constitute itself into an
organised sector in India. Delhi has had some very fine booksellers who have been
walking-talking encyclopedias.
Traditional book-retailing model still remains unshakeable
Om Books International, one of the largest English language trade publishers in the
subcontinent, has been a leading force in the Indian book market for several years. Ajay
Mago, Publisher & Sanjay Mago, Director-Sales & Marketing, Om Books International,
let in the secret about book retailing to Retailer magazine.
How do you see the present day reading preferences in India? What kind of books are
more in demand in your store?
The perennial bestsellers are still crime thrillers, murder mysteries, romances,
biographies, books for children, including the evergreen fairytales. Then there is a huge
resurgence of interest in the Indian market in our epics retold. Add to that a keen interest
in world cuisine, fashion, Bollywood, health, self-help and fitness related books. Diet
books are a runaway seller, especially when endorsed by a celebrity. With our lifestyles
getting more hectic, light frothy reads also work very well. Besides these, chick lit and
other forms of popular commercial fiction sell very well. And I take great pride in
pointing out that Indian authors are as popular with readers as international authors. Om
Books International, our publishing division has some of the finest-selling authors in the
country in various categories: Raghu Rai, Anupama Chopra, Mushtaq Shiekh, Darius

Cooper, Anna M.M. Vetticad, Kris Gethin, Arfeen Khan, Vikas Khanna, Sushmita Bose,
Srishti Khanna, to name just a few.
Do you think the book-fairs help in book-retailing business in India?
Book fairs are a boon for booksellers as well as publishers. We are lucky to enjoy a twin
status because we have our retail chain of stores called Om Book Shop and our
publishing division, Om Books International. My elder brother, Sanjay Mago and I look
after both these divisions.
In the Delhi book fairs, the atmosphere is most vibrant and we receive over 2,500
customers who drop by at our stall in search of great bargains on books not only
published by us but by so many other publishing houses in the domestic and international
market.
Book fairs are also a great platform for trade negotiations, especially for schools and
other educational institutions. Many people get the chance to meet their favorite authors,
hear them speak, get their copies signed, pose for a picture, and carry home the memory
of a lifetime.
A 10-day book fair typically provides such a concentration of readers that the sales peak
during these times. Book lovers also manage to pick up books which may have gone out
of circulation, but magically emerge from the warehouse during such fairs.
How do you find the present day e-reading trend? How is it complementing or hindering
your business growth in India?
In India, we enjoy a special relationship with the printed word, especially the word
printed on paper. We are one of the only countries in the world where books constitute a
part of worship during a festival. Even though many religious texts are available in eform, people still prefer the canons in paper form on festive or religious occasions, or
during everyday worship.

It is interesting to note that the worldwide sales of e-books is not as vibrant today as it
was 3-4 years ago. It seems to have reached the plateau.
What are the popular titles and who are the popular authors in your store?
All the titles by these authors are in demand: Chetan Bhagat, Amish Tripathi, Vikas
Khanna, Dan Brown, Christopher C Doyle, Kris Gethin, Preeti Shenoy, Mushtaq Shiekh,
Raghu Rai, Srishti Khanna, Ravinder Singh, Arfeen Khan And this is just the tip of the
iceberg.
Online retailing is an alternate source of revenue in book-retailing trade. It could be a
very positive parallel vending platform if its sales strategies are not detrimental to the
philosophy of our favourite corner bookstore. When the competition turns unhealthy
between different sales platforms, the biggest casualty is the book itself because it loses a
traditional and time-tested platform of reaching the reader.
The ideal situation that all book retailers in India look forward to is parity in the discount
structure offered on multiple platforms. That would provide level playing field for all,
and has already happened, for example, in France.

COMPANYPROFILE
Om Book Centre are the Leading Material providers for CFA, FRM, PRM, CAIA, CISA,
CFP, ACCA, ERP, CIA, CIMA, GRE, CMA and other Financial Certification Exams.
Also We Provide the Official Exam Calculators i.e. Texas Instruments BA-II and Texas
Instruments BA-II Professional (TI BA-II & TI BA-II Professional)
Advantages of visiting Om Book centre:

One stop shop for all Financial exams material

Best quality material

Best Rate Material

Totally printed material(NO PHOTOCOPYING)

Money Back Guarantee in case of unsatisfactory performance to clients.

3yr complete guarantee on calculators with bill (guarantee indicates straight

replacement with a new calculator in case of faults)

Delivery across India.

Delivery Overseas (for International candidates)

All the updates mailed to candidates as received from the original publisher.

All our stores are strategically located and all, without exception, have excellent footfalls.
Across the NCR, there are six Om Book Shops and one in Vasant Vihar Market. Even in
Bengaluru and Mumbai, Om Book Shops are in malls. Malls today have undeniably
redirected footfalls from the traditional high streets for a variety of reasons that are self
explanatory.

MISSION
The mission is to provide customers with a wide selection of current and classic science
and science fiction titles, comic books, and to encourage the creation of a community of
science fiction fans through periodic in-store meetings and guest authors.
Competition
Competitors in the local market fall into two categories: large national chains, such as
Barnes and Noble Bookstores, Borders Books & Music, Hastings Books, Music, &
Videos, and independent bookstores, like Aunties Bookstore and Merlyn's. There are
currently three large chain bookstores and approximately four independent booksellers in
the area, which would compete directly with Om Books.
Currently, the Delhi area market does not have a bookstore that specializes in science and
science fictions books. Male baby boomers are the major consumers of these types of
books, and the size of that market in Delhi is growing, representing a unique opportunity
for a bookstore with a wide selection of these books and knowledgably staff. Om Books'
unique focus and wide selection, along with exclusive purchasing contracts for hard to
find domestic and foreign comics and graphic novels, will provide a significant
competitive advantage over the competition. In addition, our in-stock inventory will be
supplemented with an almost unlimited number of hard to find titles readily available
through our company Web site. Both in-store and online customers will receive quick and
personalized service from a knowledgeable staff.

CHAPTER -2
THEORETICAL DISCUSSION
Customer Relationship Management is a management process of acquiring customers by
understanding their requirements, retaining customers by fulfilling their requirements
more than their expectations and attracting new customers through customer specific
strategic marketing approaches. The process invites total commitment on the part of the
entire organisation in evolving and implementing relationship strategies that would be
rewarding to all concerned.
Relationship marketing as a tool to turn current and new customers into regularly
purchasing clients an then progressively move them through being strong supporters of
the company and its products to finally being active and vocal advocates for the
company
CRM is marketing-oriented towards strong lasting relationships with individual accounts.
Relationship marketing is attracting, maintaining and enhancing customer relationships.
Relationship marketing is an integrated effort to identify, maintain and build a network
with individual consumers, and to continuously strengthen the network for the mutual
benefit of both sides through interactive, individualised and value-added contacts over a
long period of time. Customer relationship marketing is the infrastructure that enables the
delineation of and increase in customer value, and the correct means by which to
motivate valuable customers to remain loyal-indeed, to buy again. Customer relationship
management is a comprehensive strategy and process of acquiring, retaining and
partnering with selective customers, to create superior value for the company and the
customer
Once a business organisation selects its target market, it has to collect customer database
and develop customer preference. The relationship cannot be a one-sided approach. It
should involve the other side equally with value sharing proposition. Hence, CRM can be
defined as 'development of lasting strategic alliances with customers on a value sharing
basis.' This definition implies future orientation and a win-win proposition between the
seller and the customer. The benefits that the business concerns accrue, due to a loyal
customer base, should be shared with customers in order to make CRM effective and

future oriented. Due to cooperative and collaborative processes with customers, the
company's transaction cost as well as development cost gets reduced. From that point of
view, CRM increases marketing efficiency.
Relationship marketing is a philosophy of doing business on strategic orientation that
focuses on keeping and improving current interactions with the parties concerned rather
than acquiring new parties. The philosophy has an underlying assumption that the
customers prefer to have an on-going relationship with an organisation than to switch
continually in search for value. According to James L. Schorr the market as a big bucket.
The sales, advertising and promotional programmes pour businesses into the top of the
bucket. As long as these programmes are effective, the bucket stays full However, there is
a hole in the bucket. When the business is running well and very few customers fall
through, the problem may not be serious. When the operation is weak and the customers
are not satisfied, people fall out through the bucket faster than they can be poured in
through the top, problem will be serious. This theory illustrates how a relationship
strategy that focuses on plugging the holes in the bucket makes so much sense.
MANAGEMENT OF RELATIONSHIPS
A sale becomes merely a starting point of a prolonged relationship between a seller and a
buyer. A customer is no longer a one-time or even a multiple purchaser; he or she is
someone who patronises your labels over an entire lifetime.
Management of relationships has become an issue of pivotal significance for businesses
in recent times. A business organisation needs to interact with a variety of persons groups
and organisations for the successful management of operations. Right from suppliers, the
business organisation has to interact with intermediaries and other channel members, the
government and its agencies, shareholders, community groups, trade and professional
associations to which the organisation is affiliated, trade unions, financial institutions
and, most importantly, customer groups. The interactions with the public cannot be taken
for granted. Transaction-orientation, hitherto practised, opened up its weaknesses in
continued interactions. As a result, the organisations publics have not developed loyalty
towards the organisation and are always on the lookout for a better opportunity elsewhere

organisation have now realised the need for a shift in focus from transactions
relationships.
There are essentially three goals to be achieved in relationship marketing. They are:
Building relationships To achieve this goal, companies have to focus on attracting the
public to respective business areas for interaction. The have to list out the prospects and
qualify them as to whether they are good for the organisation or not. All the parties may
not always be right. Sometimes a relationship with a wrong party may cause severe
damage to the organisation. This is particularly so in the case of suppliers and business
customers. Companies should offer a package of promises build relationships with the
selected set of persons, organisations and groups.
Maintaining relationships The goal is to build long-term relationships. The maintenance
of relationship is possible only when a company fulfills its promises to the satisfaction of
the respective parties. Anyone will prefer to continue the relationship for a long term if
he/she considers relationship beneficial. Research studies have shown that retaining:
party is less costly than building a relationship with a new party. Companies enjoy a
number of benefits with the continuation relationships. Apart from the economies,
organisations will gain free advertising through word-of-mouth, employee retention, risk
minimisation and, more importantly, greater psychological strength to face competition in
the market.
Enhancement of relationships Companies should strive for promoting relationships
beyond the line of transactions. They have to build relationships that are more rewarding.
They have to carefully promote each party from the stage of prospect to buyer, buyer to
customer, customer to client, client to supporter, supporter to an advocate an": advocate
to a partner in the hierarchy of relationships. Moving the parties up in the loyalty ladder
is not a simple task. The organization has to show a lot of care and concern in addition to
offering special beneficial packages to the customers.
CRM IN SERVICE MARKETING
There are at three approaches to relationship marketing.
Customised Relationships
Customised relationships are person-to-person or organisation-to-person relationships.
Each relationship will be considered special and a unique strategy will be adopted to

build, maintain and enhance the relationship with the party. Situations where the parties
have greater influence on the business activities and where the parties have expectations
of special recognition and treatment, this approach can be considered best fit. Since
customised relationships involve high costs and operational complexities, organisations
cannot have such a relationship with large] groups. They have to be selective in this
respect.
Organisation-to-Group Relationships
Organisation-to-group relationships are possible when different group related to the
organisation have more or less homogeneoud characteristics and common expectations as
far as the relationship with the organisation is concerned. Organisations can offer special
packages to each group to achieve the goals of relationship marketing. This approach
facilitates the establishment of relationship with a relatively larger group with low
involvement of costs. As long as an organisation does not distinguish the persons within
the group, the group sentiments will b positive towards the organisation.
Non-personal Relationship
Management of non-personal relationships is somewhat difficult when compared to the
other two approaches. Under this approach organisation develops relationships with
customers who are far away. through non-personal communication media. This approach
is particularly suitable when the organisation wants to establish relationships, with a
fairly large group, and that too spread widely. This is possible only when the group has
low expectations from the organisation beyond the transactions and there is low
involvement problem solving in either buying or selling processes. Organisations will
generally try to interact with the group by mail or telephone or any other public media or
a combination of them. This approach is used by the organisations to establish
relationships with opinion leaders, large volume buyers, loyal buyers and other important
sections.
Service companies have to have separate strategies to manage relationships within the
organisation-among the employees in various divisions and among various divisions in
the organisation and with parties outside the organisation.

Relationship within the Organisation

The importance of relationships within the organisation has bee accepted all over the
world and greater orientation is now being given to convert the formal structured
interactions into informal relationships. Team spirit, group cohesiveness, objective
orientation, high level of motivation and morale, less labour turnover, total quality
management, work performance and so on are the fruits of effective relationships within
the organisation. supervision and control can be reduced to the lowest point, if
relationships are to be built on sound lines. The abundance of intelligence, skill,
knowledge and expertise that is available in the human resource of the organisation can
be exploited for the betterment of the future of the organisation through relationships.
The planning process will be made easy. The entire organisation will be transformed to a
strategic body. Goods relationships within the organisation prove to be a great strength.
Relationship with Outside Parties
Relationships with parties outside the organisation are helpful in many ways to service
companies. Apart from gaining competitive advantage in transactions, the relationships
are helpful in having referred markets, employment markets, good quality and a
distinctive image. The relationships act as a barrier against minor failures of the
organisation and provide a chance for rectification, without losing the party. The longterm orientation in relationship also helps in the planning process by offering some
amount of certainty in future.
A new dimension that is being observed, of late in the business world is that the
relationships are built up among competitors too. Service companies have realised that in
the era of multi-product and multi-business activity, there is a need to build relationships
for mutual gain with the competition. Competition is not viewed now as rivalry. A
competitor in one business area can be a collaborator in some other areas. The
'philosophy, as such, is that if we cannot work together in one area, there are many areas
wherein we can work together. Interdependency has become the rule of the game and no
one can be totally self dependent. The sharing of strengths and plugging of weaknesses
with mutual co-operation and co-ordination will make organisations face markets

confidently with quality offerings. Open-mindedness and positive approach is the real
strength in this direction.
Importance of Customers
There exists a wide-spread mistaken notion that CRM is some kind of a manifestation of
technology only. Another interesting thing is that even those who have implemented
highly technological installations for their CRM initiatives, quite often can be seen to
have forgotten the basis of this modern concept, i.e., making profitable relationships with
their customers. This significant part is left to the technology alone. Such a situation
arises mainly because of the inability or reluctance of the management to accept the
importance of customers and serving them to keep them satisfied and happy, which
otherwise may result in low sales and hence low profits. "One widely accepted marketing
rule-of-thumb claims that the average, unhappy customer tells eight other potential
customers about his negative experience."
Some decades ago, most of the companies concentrated mainly on higher productivity
through higher levels of efficiency of employees as well as machines, cost-reduction
tactics and on attracting more customers through the classic marketing tactics such as TV
advertisements, mass mailings, bill boards etc. But the sudden growth and expansion of
services sector proved that these would not convert into profits, as was expected.
Moreover, the emergence of faster, cheaper and more efficient systems of
communication, transport and information technology has made the business enterprises
realize that the competition is just a mouse click away. These changed, new environment
of business unveiled the importance of keeping the existing customers loyal so that they
would not switch over to the competition, without much thinking. This led to the
increased awareness of companies about the importance of serving the customer needs
with a higher level of quality and in a way which is convenient and beneficial to both the
companies and the customers.
Customers to a business are those people or enterprises which are benefited by the use
of a service or product offered by that particular business, certainly for something in
return, generally a price. When a customer pays a price, he expects some specific thing
with a specific quality and features. If his expectation exceeds what he has been given, it

leads to an unsatisfied customer. If the offer exceeds his expectations for a stipulated
price, it leads to a highly satisfied customer and he is said to be enjoying customer
delight.
Today, the customer has more choices to choose from. So it is

more likely for any

customer to switch from one company to another in search of better quality or service.
But the companies have found out that creating new demand i.e., finding out new
customer is much costlier than keeping the regular demand, i.e. Existing customers for a
regular inflow of cash and hence profits. "The reports on new customer acquisition costs
vary, from as low as three times to as high as

thirteen times of servicing an existing

customer."
In a customers viewpoint, there is very little reason to switch loyalties often, if things are
going comfortably with the existing vendor and the level of service is good. Switching
involves changes and disruptions in service levels that most regular customers try to
avoid. Realizing these facts in its

true sense, many companies have stuck to making

long-term profitable relationships with their prospective customers. (Hart et al, 2002)
And this has been proved to be, in a way, mutually beneficial to both the parties. This has
resulted in managing these relationships as a strategic tool and in the evolution of
Customer Relationship Management or most commonly known as CRM.
CRM - Operational and Analytical
Depending upon the different functions it fulfills, CRM is classified into two,
(a) Operational and (b) Analytical.
a) Operational CRM
This involves the areas where direct customer contact occurs. This is also known as frontoffice CRM. The customer contacts can be an inbound contact - e.g. a call to a companys
customer care centre or an outbound contact - e.g. a call from a telemarketing executive.
Operational CRM enables and streamlines communications to and from customers. A
majority of CRM products/softwares in the market comes under the operational category.
b) Analytical CRM

This involves understanding the customer activities that occurred in the front-office and
requires technology-to compile and analyze the customer data - and new business
processes - to refine customer facing practices to increase loyalty and profitability.
Analytical CRM is also known as "back-office" or "strategic" CRM. CRM analytics
provide the means for an

enterprise to ensure effective customer segmentation and

profiling, identification of cross and up selling opportunities, customer retention and

customer profitability analysis.
Four Parameters to Measure CRM Success
(a) CRM's ability to impact corporate strategy
Without a corporate strategy, giving emphasis to a customer-centric approach, no
CRM initiative can be made fully successful.
(b) Successful technology integration
The technology which has been used across different departments of an enterprise
should be integrated to give a comprehensive and successful CRM application.
(c) Enhanced strategic partnerships
For a good CRM implementation, there should be a co-ordinate effort among the
different partners to the enterprise.
(d) Assimilation of CRM related technologies
Those who are responsible for the CRM activities should thoroughly be conversant with
the technological aspects of that particular technique. Otherwise, misuse or under
utilization of these technologies may take place resulting in partial or full failure of those
activities.
Return on Investment (RoI) of CRM
Rigorous financial scrutiny of all Information Technology IT) investments have now
become the rule. This same rule is applicable to the technology used in the CRM also.
The failures of some CRM installations in some of the industries have given way to think
about the Return on Investment (RoI) of CRM.

Now there are specific analytical tools which will

help organizations to measure their

return on investment of CRM. According to George Varghese, Head (Marketing), SAS

India, "Operational CRM can improve efficiency but it is difficult to calculate RoI. To
calculate
RoI, enterprises need to build organizational intelligence, customer intelligence and
supplier intelligence to get a unified 360 degree view of customers, suppliers and
organizations."
Factors to be considered while calculating RoI.
a.

Savings in the form of reduced use of time to manage customers and customer
transactions.

b.

Savings in the form of time needed to assemble and consolidate sales forecasts.

c.

Additional revenue in terms of increased lead generation.

d.

Additional revenue in terms of increased sales due to increased customer loyalty.

CRM is an integration of contact management, sales automation, marketing automation,

customer service and support, e-commerce, partner and channel management etc. It is not
just a software solution, but also, a set of skills and competencies that will enable a
company to better leverage and profit from each and every customer relationships.
When the goal of cheaper, faster, better service is considered, the results far outweigh the
challenges. Several big organizations have failed to know what the customer really wants
and several others, after knowing, could not really translate these requirements into
deliverance. At the same time we are able to see small shop keepers doing CRM
extremely well. Good CRM is all about replicating the same experience with the use of
technology.
CRM IN BOOK RETAIL SECTOR
Service providers in the Book retail sector have traditionally maintained a database of
their customers. This database can now be used to establish customer relationship in new
product areas. DestinationCRM.com, quoting David Pramer, global manager and partner
of CRM for high-tech businesses at Accenture, reports that the Book retail sector can

push the sales pitch of its new products by expanding the existing customer base. CRM
can help the companies achieve their target in several areas.
New products are financially more viable for the Book retail companies, but the
implementation of a single billing system for both traditional and new products is a
requisite for easier management of customer relationship. Book retail companies are also
looking to offer their customers package deals where different products are offered
together at a lower price. With more competition coming in, particularly in service areas
such as Voice over Internet Protocol, Book retail companies are looking for a CRM
program to project their company better. Another area where CRM is required is adequate
training of the customer service representatives. And finally, CRM can also help
companies ensure that their employees understand the goals and continue their support to
meet those goals.
DestinationCRM.com provides several case studies for each of these areas of expansion
in the Book retail sector, and emphasizes the need for a CRM program:
Many Book retail and cable providers have bundled together telephone (analog or VoIP),
video (cable or satellite TV), and broadband Internet (cable or digital subscriber line)
services for the past year or so, and are starting to expand from primary into secondary
markets. Some are also adding a fourth servicewireless Book retailas the industry
moves from the triple play to the grand slam in service offerings. This and other customer
retention efforts require top-notch customer relationship practices.
KEY RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT AT OM BOOKS
Relationships are not built and sustained with direct e-mails themselves but rather
through the types of programs that are available for which e-mail may be a delivery
mechanism. The overall goal of relationship programs is to deliver a higher level of
customer satisfaction than competing firms deliver. Managers today realize that
customers match realizations and expectations of product performance, and that it is
critical for them to deliver such performance at higher and higher levels as expectations
increase due to competition, marketing communications, and changing customer needs.

In addition, there is a strong, positive relationship between customer satisfaction and

profits. Thus, managers must constantly measure satisfaction levels and develop
programs that help to deliver performance beyond targeted customer expectations.
A comprehensive set of relationship programs includes
Customer service
Frequency/loyalty programs
Rewards programs
Community building.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Because customers have more choices today and the targeted customers are most
valuable to the company, customer service must receive a high priority within the
company. In a general sense, any contact or touch points that a customer has with a firm
is a customer service encounter and has the potential to gain repeat business and help
CRM or have the opposite effect. Programs designed to enhance customer service are
normally of two types. Reactive service is where the customer has a problem (product
failure, question about a bill, product return) and contacts the company to solve it. Om
Books CALL CENTRE have established infrastructures to deal with reactive service
situations through 800 telephone numbers, faxback systems, e-mail addresses, and a
variety of other solutions. Proactive service is a different matter; this is a situation where
the manager has decided not to wait for customers to contact the firm but to rather be
aggressive in establishing a dialogue with customers prior to complaining or other
behavior sparking a reactive solution. This is more a matter of good account management
where the sales force or other people dealing with specific customers are trained to reach
out and anticipate customers' needs.
LOYALTY/FREQUENCY PROGRAMS
Loyalty programs (also called frequency programs) provide rewards to customers for
repeat purchasing. Such programs have become a competitive necessity.
CUSTOMIZATION

The notion of mass customization goes beyond 1-to-1 marketing as it implies the creation
of products and services for individual customers, not simply communicating to them.
The idea is that it has turned customers into product makers rather than simply product
takers.
COMMUNITY
One of the major uses of the Web for both online and offline businesses is to build a
network of customers for exchanging product-related information and to create
relationships between the customers and the company or brand. These networks and
relationships are called communities. The goal is to take a prospective relationship with a
product and turn it into something more personal. In this way, the manager can build an
environment which makes it more difficult for the customer to leave the family of other
people who also purchase from the company.
CUSTOMER PROFITABILITY ANALYSIS- IMPORTANCE
The Customer as Financial Asset
"Assurance" is Book retail's equivalent of the American Idol. Assurance usually refers to
financial assets like cash, network equipment, vehicles, and buildings. Squishy things
like customer loyalty, meanwhile, don t fit neatly in an accountant s general ledger. But
while customer delight is certainly tough to quantify, it s a financial asset nonetheless
and as vital to a Book retail s future .
In short, Book retails are warming to the idea that customers are financial assets that need
to be assured. Book Book retailing firms care a lot about "customer assurance". It's just
that they know it by many different names.
Customer assurance spans an array of business systems and best practices from customer
care and analytics . . . to churn management and CRM. Yet no single one of these terms
captures the essence of customer assurance in a holistic way. So the definition:
Customer Assurance: Strategies that synchronize business intelligence, customer
interactions, and marketing programs to optimize customer value.
KEY

FUNCTIONS

UMBRELLA

THAT

COME

UNDER

CUSTOMER

ASSURANCE

 Profitability Assessment: Tying costs and revenues to specific customer segments

to ensure products yield maximum profits.
Churn & Loyalty Management: Predictive modeling & other techniques to
proactively retain and increase the revenues of profitable customers.
Business Intelligence/Analytics: Data warehouse & mining techniques to enhance
decision making and uncover profitable data patterns.
Self-Care: Web- and IVR-based techniques for lowering call center and billing
costs, keeping customers informed, and making customer interactions more
efficient.
CRM/Customer Care: Personal interaction techniques and policies that improve
the effectiveness of the call center, trouble desk, and field sales.
Credit/Fraud/Collections: Processes to ensure the financial integrity of customers.
Campaign Management: Coordinating and measuring advertising, direct
marketing, and sales programs.
Data Integrity: Detecting, correcting, and maintaining the accuracy of data used in
customer assurance.
Having said that it should be realised that not all customers are equal. There are some
who give bread and butter and others who provide the jam. And there are those who
actually take away a good part of the hard earned meal! Evaluation of customer
profitability breaks the myth that .all customers, big or small, near or far are profitable. A
good understanding of customers (be they direct customers or trade) and their
profitability helps in allocating differential resources towards them. This in turn would
translate into higher profits for the organisation as a whole.

Many organizations cannot even begin to improve the management of their customers
simply because they lack the information of where to start and where to focus their
efforts. Some organisations have made significant investments in IT and tried to take
advantage of the benefits on offer. But more often than not they have not integrated their
investments. CRM as a concept may be appreciated but its spin-offs have not been
measured and adapted for business benefits.
In order to assess the profitability of customers, all costs need to be allocated to each of
the customer. It is relatively easy to glean direct costs like transportation cost, cost
incurred in handling returns, discounts offered etc associated with each customer.
The challenge is to allocate overheads in proportion to the resources deployed for each
customer. Activity based costing system is used for measuring costs of activities and
tracing the customer cost to the activities it consumes. e.g. Sales personnel salaries can be
allocated in proportion to the time spent in servicing the customer. Such an exercise can
become tedious in OM BOOKS. In addition, one must bear in mind that the cost of
gathering data for computing customer profitability has to be in line with the benefits
sought from the initiative.
They would normally expect the 80:20 rule to apply when discussing the distribution of
customer profitability with 20% of the customers providing us with 80% of profits. But it
is found that the distribution of profitability in many circles is much worse.

Om Books also bears in mind that few customers would be unprofitable for reasons such
as new customers with high potential, new product developed for them which is
understabilization and so on.
The solution they adopt by focus on the following three initiatives to improve overall
profitability:
Better customer management
Targeted selling efforts, and
Focused customer retention
Subscriber usage patterns
Rate packages and retention incentives
Focused costing model for all customers.
These combined elements enable profitability analysis by various groupings and can
serve as the basis of effective marketing programs and product and service launches. This
approach minimizes churn and maximizes profitability.

MAKING CUSTOMER DATABASES MORE PROFITABLE

For years, Om Books have attempted to maximize customer value through the use of
general ledger reporting systems and segmentation. However, thanks to modern
technology, today are seeking to extract even more information, not just from their
existing financial systems, but from customer management and operational systems as
well. To accomplish this, they are looking for an environment that can help them
understand and maximize the profitability of their existing customer base. This is
particularly true in the current economic environment where companies can no longer
sustain growth through the purchase of customer databases alone. Instead, companies are
finding that to be truly competitive in the 21st Century, they must grow profits from
existing customers.

For Om Books the 80/20 rule, that roughly 20 percent of a company's customer base
accounts for 80 percent of its revenues. This formula also implies is the remaining eighty
percent of a company's customer base is either marginally profitable or possibly even
profit-eroding for the organization. So by merely adding more customers to its base
through direct acquisition, a company might actually be reducing its value while it's
increasing revenue. A potential formula for disaster.
Om Books's need for organization to sustain and grow profits from internal opportunities
has led companies to search for retention and cross sell solutions that differentiate service
levels based on the total value exchange of a customer. In other words, the customers that
drive the most value for the company should be the customers that receive the highest
levels of value from your organization in the form of service and product offerings. This
means focusing more time on retaining the best customers, while spending less time on
marginally profitable customers, and ridding unprofitable ones. For this, it needed a shift
in technology.
To understand the dynamics of customer profitability, it's important to understand the
drivers of profit or loss as these interactions flow through a customer's record and to
evaluate the specific risk and spread funding characteristics of individual products and
services held by the customer. If only looks at organizational-based reporting measures
that average customer revenue, funding, cost, and risk information regarding products
and services, it is missing specific information critical to understanding the true behavior
based profit of the customer.
While organizationally-based information represents a level of "truth" within the
organization, it lacks access to deeper levels of customer data to determine true
profitability. Behavior-based analysis offers this deeper level of access to customer
actions, reaching its full potential when tied to the big picture.
TRADITIONAL ORGANIZATIONAL REPORTING

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE

GENERAL LEDGER
From the beginning of modern business, organizational information has been based on
profit and service center activity, and the financial activity of business units that drive the
detail of general ledger reporting. Once the basic available information has been

collected, a business can use it for budgeting, planning, and forecasting

all primary

financial control tools.

This information comes from a Om Books's business units and is then tied directly to the
general ledger. It is both highly accurate about the activity of the business unit and highly
aggregated with respect to the underlying details of the customer behavior that drives
balances, revenues, and costs for customer activity. Without this valuable information, an
organization could not operate effectively. However, as Om Books realize that customer
databases can now be turned into goldmines of potential profit, the general ledger system
alone has not been able to effectively access this customer information and turn it into
bullion. This is where behavior based measuring comes in.
BEHAVIOR-BASED PROFITABILITY -- IT'S ALL ABOUT THE DATA
To get a deeper view of customer profitability that reflects the profit and loss behaviors of
individual customers requires a great deal of data about a customer's activities. This level
of information based on a customer's revenue generating and cost-incurring interactions
with an organization is stored in the company's database and is driven by the profitability
model.
These specific profitability models start from base level profit objects, such as accounts,
passenger records, subscription numbers, and shipment figures combined with transaction
and interaction information, and other customer details that are required to give a
company a full view of the customer's value to the organization. In addition, there are
costs and revenues that are not transactional-based

such as the fees and costs of

establishing, maintaining, and closing a relationship these must be captured and allocated
to get true profitability.
To find the true value of behavior-based profitability, it's important to look at four areas
within this methodology that can help OM BOOKS calculate their most valuable
customers, but also identify and track those that are least profitable.
FEE REVENUE
Specific fee revenue figures at the account/customer level are usually quite easy to
correlate to the general ledger. However, some level of modeling or approximation may

be needed to make allowances for small buckets of revenue as the application accounting
system or back room operations likely hide the necessary detail needed to account for this
revenue. In general, between 95 percent and 99 percent of the detail is available, but 100
percent of detail must be accounted for and allocated to achieve true customer account
accuracy.
COSTS
Customer activity level costs are often difficult and time-consuming to capture and they
are generally not as up-to-date as the figures available for a company's products and
services. This is often the case because the time and effort involved in capturing customer
level activity costs often lag the organization's creation of new products and channels as
they enter the market. Any remaining costs not typically identified in the general ledger,
such as overhead costs that do not directly tie to customers or their level of individual
activity, should be apportioned to customers and the activities to which they apply. In
order to attain accurate data at this level, it's important that well-thought-out and specific
apportionment schemes are in place so the right groups of profit objects get the right
amount of cost.
In addition, some of the costs of doing business just do not happen at the customer level.
For instance, capital for business, market, and operational risks are only indirectly related
to customer activity. And fixed assets expense and organizational infrastructure costs
arise from organizational mandates and are also very loosely tied to customer activity.
But by capturing these activities that are most common and represent the highest amount
of cost, the organization can identify and allocate essential costs that both drive and affect
customer profitability. Once these figures are captured, additional costing work could
then be driven by customer activity levels and product offerings so that the most
important costs are always part of the profitability calculation.
RISK-ADJUSTED FUNDING COSTS AND VALUES
Customer balances are generally correct to the general ledger, and include both monthly
and/or cycle-end balances. However, to achieve detailed level profitability often requires
the use of daily average balances for calculation of spread revenue and risk, making this
level of information not readily available in general ledger.

The actual interest amount paid or received by customers can be tracked in detail at the
account level by the application accounting systems.
RISK
Just as the attributes of behavior determine revenue and expense, it is the attributes of the
profit object that determine the level of credit risk that should be assigned to customers.
Om Books use credit scores to accomplish this task. Profit objects without a credit score
can, at a minimum, use a portion of the monthly reserve for losses to approximate the
cost of credit risk. There exist many complex and highly accurate ways of determining
the risk of loss given default on a specific profit object. Additionally, there are many
highly sophisticated and accurate ways of deterring the potential for loss on a specific
profit object. All of these methodologies can be reconciled in detail back to the financial
results from the general ledger, therefore improving analysis and projections going
forward.
While all of these areas improve the level of accuracy of behavioral-based reporting, they
reach their full potential when tied to a company's general ledger to achieve true customer
profitability.
MERGING

BEHAVIOR-BASED

AND

ORGANIZATIONAL-BASED

REPORTING IT'S ABOUT CUSTOMER PROFITABILITY TAKING FLIGHT

Maintaining both behavioral-based and organization-based reporting methods can be
costly to an organization. Yet, both systems serve essential roles in the organization and
neither can be dispensed with. To merge these two methods of analysis, it's necessary to
create an environment that captures the detailed data and serves the need of management
to plan for people and pencils. Further, this solution must accomplish its tasks in a timesaving manner and be able to be quickly corrected when new and unforeseen issues arise.
For successful development of financial management capabilities, whether this is G/L,
Risk Management, Budget & Planning, Cost Allocation, Fund Transfer Pricing, Customer
Value Management, Performance Management or Statutory reporting a comprehensive
architecture that addresses all financial management needs is essential. Having such an

architecture enables an OM BOOKS to detect the "white spots" and to prioritize future
customer development activities.
CORE ACCOUNTING AND DELIVERY SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
The central piece of a successful financial management architecture is the enterprise data
warehouse which brings together all of the essential elements that support an
organization's financial needs, including G/L, Risk Management, Customer Value
Management, and so forth. As more detail is supplied by the application systems and
brought into the structured warehouse environment, the information becomes more
consistent and reconcilable. This allows Om Books's business to have a complete view of
its customers and its organization while supporting the specific financial reporting needs
of the company.

By deploying this new type of enterprise database architecture, it's now possible to marry
the accounting system information that drives the books as well as the account and
customern level behavior based profitability information that identifies customer
profitability. As all components of both reside in this single architecture, the comparison
and contrasting of the reporting results are made into one efficient task. And while the
results of the profitability metric may not always balance directly to the financial

statements, they are certainly reconcilable within this environment. This reconciliation
process can provide companies with a roadmap to improve the accuracy of such things as
the costing system, operations for the collection of revenue, the tying of a credit score to
the provision for losses.
OM BOOKS S STRATEGY MAKING CUSTOMER PROFITS SOAR
It's becoming increasingly clear that typical general ledger environments alone are not
enough to support a company's need to generate highly accurate and actionable customer
profitability models. Equally, it's clear that pure behavioral-based information is not
enough to maximize corporate profitability if it is not tied to the general ledger. However,
when these methodologies are merged in a company's enterprise database architecture,
organizations are able to maximize products and services to their most profitable
customers and reduce or replace unprofitable ones. Together, they are helping
organizational profits to soar.
Yes, it took mankind thousands of years to realize that a simple shift in technology would
allow humans to fly. A similar shift in technology is making it possible for companies to
access a deeper level of customer information, helping businesses to better understand
and increase customer profitability in ways that were undreamed of just a few years ago.
Data warehouse technology allowing true customer profitability to fly.
KEY FACTORS THAT KEEP COMPANIES FROM ADOPTING AND USING
CUSTOMER PROFITABILITY ANALYSIS.
A lack of comprehensiveness.
The majority of customer P&Ls lack enough detail to provide a true view of total cost
and customer contribution. The most valuable customer profitability analysis captures
data across all functions and includes customer-allocated cost metrics related to
manufacturing, distribution, logistics, sales, trade marketing, order management,
administration and support, and customer overhead.
Manual vs. automated processes.
Data for customer P&Ls are typically extracted manually from various sources and
entered into a spreadsheet for review and analysis. This time-consuming process creates

inconsistent data gathering and analysis and infrequent updates, making its use and value
limited. In addition, customer cost and investment data need to be continually updated, as
actuals come in to replace estimates. If this continuous feed of data isn't automated, it s
very likely that it never will be updated.
A lack of integrity and user buy-in.
Manual and non-comprehensive processes create results that tend to lack integrity. Data
quality compounds the issue, as critical data such as promotion cost/investment may be
found only on salespeople s laptops. Data integrity issues cause business owners to
second guess analytical results and not use them to engage in a mutually beneficial and
productive dialogue with their channel customers. Without sound data integrity, business
owner buy-in is a challenge.
Point-in-time and single use.
This needs to be developed and automated for continuous use and measurement, vs. a
onetime tactic for negotiation purposes or leverage.
The process is overcomplicated.
Customer P&Ls need not be fully loaded and reconciled to corporate financial reporting
statements and systems. The focus should be on business use and reporting vs. financial
use and reporting.
The "80/20" fallacy.
Promotional investment and spending are no longer representative of total investment and
the cost of doing business with a customer. Years ago, an understanding of customer
specific trade promotion ROI would have provided with 80 percent of the cost category
of investment in a total customer profitability analysis. Today, size, complexity and
individual customer requirements generate other significant costs and investments critical
for accurate analysis, such as freight, inventory carrying cost, HR support investment,
display ready pallet cost, nuisance fees and so on.
No linkage to strategy.

As industries have rushed toward a solution, putting technology before strategy was a key
shortfall. Companies must develop a transformation roadmap and plan for how they will
use this type of analysis to affect their bottom line. How customer profitability analysis
will be used is a key element to developing a strategy. An effective strategy and the use of
customer profitability analysis should outline mutually beneficial (to manufacturer and
customer measurable and actionable uses and results. The manufacturer and the customer
can engage in reinvestment dialogue, using the analysis to highlight mutually ineffective
and inefficient activities such as returns, unsaleables, random-case picks and emergency
orders

that are driving cost and, therefore, investment that could be more effectively

reallocated and reinvested toward mutually beneficial activities, such as consumer

marketing, branding and retailer equity development.
BUSINESS CONTINUITY STRATEGIES FOR CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
With the growing adoption of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) initiatives in
just about every type of industry, call centers today are much more than cost centers.
They are increasingly considered strategic business assets."
Call centers helps the company achieve customer-centric objectives as well as provide
world-class customer service and technical support. CRM is designed to optimize
profitability, revenue and customer satisfaction by organizing the business around
customer segments and encouraging customer-satisfying behaviors.
For many companies, call centers represent the principal link between their customers
and themselves. But for Om Books , it s a Successful call center differentiate companies,
directlyi mpact their annual turnover and competitive position, and are critical in
achieving CRM goals.
As a key element in CRM, call centers use three building blocks to satisfy their
customers:

People

Technology

Process.

People - The human element is probably the most important component in a call
center.

Technology - Call centers use network services to connect customers with the call
center, Book Book retailing systems including Automatic Call Distributors (ACDs)
and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems; and IT products such as workstations,
computing platforms, Local Area Networks (LANs) and Computer Telephony
Integration (CTI).

Process - To make everything work harmoniously and cost-effectively, and to

satisfy CRM objectives, a series of processes are needed to define how systems and
people work together.

With the increased emphasis on customer service, the bar has been raised on customer
expectations. Customers expect 24x7 availability, as well as e-mail and Web integration.
Access and availability are among the keys to top-drawer customer service. But what
about the relationship of these three elements? For today's high-tech call center, people,
technology and process are truly integrated. The loss of any of the key elements - whether
accidental or deliberate - can put call centers at risk.
RISKS TO PEOPLE
Successful call centers base their success on how well their staffs perform. If call center
staff members are unable or unwilling to perform their assigned tasks, the call center is at
risk.
RISKS TO TECHNOLOGY
Call center systems such as ACDs and IVR are at risk from fires, floods, loss of power,
system failure, component failure, loss of data (with no backups), vandalism, and human
error. Voice network services are at risk from cable cuts, power failures, security
breaches, and service interruptions. Data communications equipment at risk includes
routers, hubs, switches, and power supplies. Data network services, such as switched or
private circuits, or Internet-based services, face the same risks as voice networks.
Business applications require hardware, such as mainframes, mid-range systems, and
servers, plus business applications, utilities, and web-based programs. Threats to

hardware are the same as for Book retail equipment, while human error, viruses, security
breaches and theft of information threaten software.
RISKS TO PROCESS
Without documented procedures on how to operate, call centers cannot function
smoothly. The overall business process, e.g., Customer Relationship Management, is
comprised of numerous sub-processes and functions, each of which link together in
various combinations.
CRM STRATEGIES
PRINCIPLES FOR BUILDING STRONG CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS
How to acquire, strengthen, and retain strong customer relationships in the era Principle
1: By knowing more about the customer value and anticipating relationship needs better
than when the customer was involved in a high-touch relationship.
Principle 2: Consolidate and make available all customer interaction information from all
channels/touch points
Principle 3: Develop a customer centric infrastructure that can consistently support the
customized treatment of each customer.
Principle 4: Assign dedicated people, process and technology resources to achieve
profitable results.
OM BOOKS S CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MODEL
Developed a Customer Relationship Model based on experiences attained from CRM
project engagements globally. The Model shows that the customer relationship is
strengthened by Relationship Building tactics, which are continuously measured through
time. The end result is a strong customer relationship, which lead to acceptable customer
loyalty, profitability and retention. Success criteria such as share of wallet, profitability
and cross-sell rations are also applied as part of the continous measurement to ensure that
Business Case requirements have been achieved.

With the increased penetration of CRM philosophies in organizations and the

concomitant rise in spending on people and products to implement them, it is clear that
Om Books see improvements to establish long-term relationships with their customers.
However, there is a big difference between spending money on these people and products
and making it all work: implementation of CRM practices is still far short of ideal. Om
Books is recognizing the importance of creating databases and getting creative at
capturing customer information.
They are continuous learning how to develop better communities around their brands
giving customers more incentives to identify themselves with those brands and exhibit
higher levels One way developing an improved focus on CRM is through the
establishment or consideration of splitting the marketing manager job into two parts: one
for acquisition and one for retention. The kinds of skills that are need for the two tasks
are quite different.
People skilled in acquisition have experience in the usual tactical aspects of marketing:

advertising, sales, etc. However, the skills for retention can be quite different as the
job

requires a better understanding of the underpinnings of satisfaction and loyalty for the
particular product category. In addition, time being a critical scarce resource makes it

difficult to do an excellent job on both acquisition and retention. As a result, Om

Books has appointed a chief customer officer (CCO) whose job focuses only on
customer interactions.
In this organization, the person overseeing the company s marketing activities, the VP
Marketing, has both product management and the CCO as direct reports. The CCO s job
is to provide intelligence to the VP from marketing research and the customer database
for use by product managers in formulating marketing plans and making decisions. In
addition, the CCO manages the customer service operation. Although it would perhaps
seem more logical for the CCO to report to product management, the reporting
arrangement to the VP Marketing is a signal to the company of the prominence of the
position.
The notion of customer satisfaction is being expanded to change CRM to CEM,
Customer Experience Management. The idea behind this is that with the number of
customer contact points increasing all the time, it is more critical than ever to measure the
customers reactions to these contacts and develop immediate responses to negative
experiences. These responses could include timely apologies and special offers to
compensate for unsatisfactory service. The idea is to expand the notion of a relationship
from one that is transaction-based to one that is experiential and continuous. As with any
decision with substantial resource implications, a cost-benefit analysis of CRM
investments must be performed.
Though it is continuously spreading its wings, expanding its capabilities, and exploring
new horizons, one rule at Om Books remains unchanged: seek out the world s best
technology and put it at the service of customers. CRM is part of this process.
Today Om Books is using the Oracle CRM platform. As part of their vision, they intend
to provide Om Books services anywhere and at any time.
A customer should get the same quality of service no matter which of our call centres he
contacts. This has been the vision, and because of that they have gone in for a centralised
application like CRM. The implementation of CRM also helped Om Books in having a
unified workflow and unified processes across the country.

Before choosing its CRM tool, Om Books evaluated many options. It considered factors
like

proper workflow automation

facilitation of knowledge sharing

integration with the billing system.

After a thorough evaluation, it decided to go ahead with the Oracle CRM platform.
SEGMENTATION OF CUSTOMERS, which has helped in providing customers more
value for their money. It is important to understand and segregate customer needs
depending on the product and services he is buying.
METRICS
The increased attention paid to CRM means that the traditional metrics used by managers
to measure the success of their products and services in the marketplace have to be
updated.
Financial and market-based indicators like profitability, market share, and profit margins
have been and will continue to be important. However, in a CRM world, increased
emphasis is being placed on developing measures that are customer-centric and give the
manager a better idea of how her CRM policies and programs are working.
Some of these CRM-based measures are the following:

Customer acquisition costs

Conversion rates (from lookers to buyers)

Retention/churn rates

Same customer sales rates

Loyalty measures.

Customer share or share of requirements (the share of a customer s purchases in a

category devoted to a brand).

All of these measures imply doing a better job acquiring and processing internal data to
focus on how the company is performing at the customer level.
CUSTOMER INITIATIVES
In fact, most book retailers to be the leader , left much to be desired in meeting Book
retail Regulatory Authority of India s Quality of Service (QoS) standards. In such a
scenario,
business intelligence solutions such as analytical CRM can help companies gain a 360degree view of the customer s needs to address a wide range of customer initiatives
ranging from profiling and segmentation, maximising cross and up sell opportunities,
customer retention, customer loyalty and lifetime value.
Using analytical CRM solutions, companies are empowered with answers to questions
such as:

Who are their best customers?

Which customers likely to leave?

What can you do to retain them?

How can you attract others like them?

How can you improve the profitability of all your customers?

ANALYTICAL CRM SOLUTIONS WORKS

The first step involves creating a central repository of customer data. This is created by
extracting, cleansing and transforming data from multiple sources such as the billing
systems, call detail records, customer demographic and tariff data. Once all of this data is
organised, consolidated and stored in a repository that is scaleable and extensible, it is
ready to be used for predicting the propensity of churn for a possible segment of
customers or an individual customer.
The churn model that is built using predictive capabilities throws up a score or a number
that ranges anywhere from 0 to 1 for a particular customer. This number typically depicts
the likelihood of a customer to churn. For example a number like 0.9 shows that the
propensity of a customer to churn is extremely high.

On the basis of such information, and in keeping with various other parameters like the
average bill value of a customer, payment patterns, usage, etc., an organisation can
strategise on various initiatives to retain the customer. This initiative is increasingly
gaining strategic importance in Book retail on the basis of the fact that it costs 3 times
over to acquire a new customer vis-a-vis retaining an existing one.
Additionally, business intelligence (BI) solutions can also help to optimise network
planning and capacity, analyse, validate and monitor network fraud, run effective and
efficient marketing campaigns across multiple channels that result in higher levels of
customer satisfaction and revenue stimulation. In light of the above it is important to
arrive at a holistic view of BI. BI encompasses customer intelligence, supplier
intelligence and organisational intelligence to deliver true enterprise intelligence.
Customer Intelligence is thus a subset of BI and includes analytical CRM, marketing
automation, marketing optimisation and interaction management is a integral component
of BI. Thus in an industry where your customer is your competitor s prospect and an
organisation as good as the last call, it is imperative to maintain optimum levels of
customer
satisfaction in order to foster customer loyalty and maximise lifetime value. The time for
customer intelligence has arrived!
CREDIT SCORING
Credit scoring is regarded as one of the most successful data modeling applications in
business area. It involves an evaluation of your customers based on their application and
behavioral data. This analysis can be used in various situations concerning any kind of
credit offering to a customer, for example renting a valuable products or devices, mobile
phones exchange, deciding on new contracts length with the customer, evaluation and
tolerance of billing delays, credit scoring for leasing purposes etc
CUSTOMER LOYALTY / CHURN ANALYSIS
The goal of this analysis is to identify customers that are likely to leave company and join
the competition, what is especially critical in highly competitive market of Book retaling
sector, where profit is directly related to number of customers and loosing a customer

means he/she will most probably use the competitor's offer. Churn modeling helps to
increase the loyalty of customers towards your company in several ways. Discovering the
factors causing a churn enables a company to address them properly. Additionally,
separating the particular group with high churn likeliness allows to focus more on your
loyal customers.
SURVIVAL TIME ANALYSIS OF A CUSTOMER
Survival analysis estimates life time value of a customer and his/her churn hazard over a
time (a churn means a customer is turning to different product provider). The analysis
describes distribution of the survival time for individuals in a given population,
investigates the strength of parameter influence on expected survival time and allows to
compare survival time distributions among different subpopulations. By using this
method the company can get valuable insight into customer behavior and find ways to
increase his/her survival time.
Especially within Book Book retailing companies, the survival time analysis finds a wide
set of applications e.g. deciding when is the best time to update a contract with customer,
designing new contract duration and other conditions customized to specific client.
FRAUD DETECTION
Fraud detection has proved to be powerful method capable of saving significant amount
of money to a company as well as maintaining good relations with their customers.
Detecting the frauds means identifying suspicious fraudulent transfers, orders and other
illegal activities against your company. Models of fraud scoring can be divided into
application and behavioral scoring. Application fraud scoring detects suspicious clients at
early stage of signing a contract with the company based on data from the client's
application form.
Another model - behavioral fraud scoring, is built on data collected during the client'slife
time activities e.g. billing data, usage of services or history of actions. Fraud detection is
often applied to avoid Book Book retailing fraud (various misuse of communication
services), computer systems intrusion, Internet transaction fraud, telemarketing fraud,
identity theft etc.

SEGMENTATION OF CUSTOMERS Om Books is now able to give its customers

more value for money.

Able to provide customers different schemes and services depending on airtime

usage.

Customer is a heavy user then they have some specific schemes; for normal users
they have other schemes.

They have also managed to segregate their workflow with the help of the CRM tool.

CHALLENGES - Roll it
The biggest challenge for Om Books was to have a unified process in place. Once this
was done they faced the challenge of imparting training. When you go in for such a
large-scale implementation you will definitely have problems. They also had certain
technical difficulties during implementation, but were able to overcome them.
CRM STRATEGY:
The CRM strategy at Om Books revolves around two aspects:

Operational CRM

Analytical CRM.

Operational CRM is about helping their call centres in the workflow part, helping them
in their day-to-day activities.
Analytical CRM provides staff with the required information on customers; this is used
for business development activities.
Altogether they help Om Books provide better services to its customers.
MANAGING CUSTOMERS FOR VALUE ENHANCEMENT
Om Books believes in, don't talk about exceeding customer satisfaction - that's passe
the time has come to `dazzle the customer'. But to do that, first you must get customer
relationship management (CRM) in place.

For Om Books, "Managing customer relationships is not only complex but is also multifaceted and thus calls for an inter-disciplinary approach."
Particularly, as in the New Economy, the customer has become very demanding and the
emphasis needs to be on being consumer-centric. "Technology solutions as applied to
various front-end functions could aid in building a viable link between the organisations
and customers irrespective of geographical separation. This has to be backed with
appropriate systems and processes to mine the right type of data by the right function in
an organisation."
Besides technology, systems and processes, another important link is human
resource.
ONCE CRM IS IMPLEMENTED, WHAT MAKES IT CLICK
``The success of CRM hinges on how it is implemented . Uneven focus is bad for its
implementation. Also in the new economy, targets and objectives change every few
weeks.
The priorities then become very different,'' he added. The solution lies in putting in place
a set of people across the organisation focused on implementing CRM. What is required
is building relationship over a period. This could be the most integral approach and go a
long way in harvesting CRM profitability. For CRM to succeed, enterprise-wide solution
is required - this was the common refrain at the meet.
BECAUSE GOOD RELATIONS MATTER
In a competitive Book retail marketplace, where operator service offerings look
deceptively similar, the only differentiator is the quality of customer contact
responsiveness through improved internal process management. The expansive nature of
the operators

business processes coupled with an ever-increasing subscriber-base

unwittingly introduce service errors, which could adversely impact customer retention.
Customers would unlikely talk of a satisfying experience but would definitely let out a
customer service failure, impacting operator credibility.

Todays consumers can no longer be treated as a homogenous collection of revenue

generating units, but rather as individuals whose specific wants and needs determine
unique behaviour (buying patterns, channel usuage, etc.).

CHAPTER-3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Title
Sales and Customer Relationship Management at Om Book Centre

Justification
The study is on measuring the impact of CRM on customer loyalty at Om Books. The
project aims at understanding the CRM implementation at Om Books and its impact on
the perception of Om Books.
Research Objectives

The main objective of this research work is To evaluate the relation between
customer relationship management services and sales in Om Book store.

To apprise the CRM Process that has contributed in the integrated growth of Om
Book Store.

Research Design
A research design is purely and simply the framework or plan for a study that
guides the collection and analysis of data. The survey research was used in this
project, because consumers feedback was necessary for obtaining the data.

Data Sources
Primary data was collected by the questionnaire based market survey. Secondary
data was obtained from journals, magazines, newspapers, books and of course the
Internet.

Research Instrument
For doing the survey research, structured questionnaire with both open-ended
and closed-ended questions was used.

Mode of Survey
The mode of survey was personal interview with the respondents during the
filling up of the questionnaires.

Sampling
The sampling used for this study was probability sampling. Since the study is
only meant for certain specific categories within the total population (Om Book
customers), a stratified random sample was used.

Sample Size
A sample size of 100 respondents is used for the study.

Universe
This study was basically an opinion survey of the residents of Delhi and NCR
region who are customers regarding their views on the Om Book Centre.

Sampling Area
Delhi and NCR region
Limitations
The two limitations of the study were
1. Authenticity of the response given by the respondents.
2. The correctness of the available data.

CHAPTER -4
DATA ANALYSIS
(Customer)
1.
Do you believe that Indian Book retail sector is one of the best examples of
improvement in customer relationship?
Yes
80
No
6
Cant Say
14

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Yes

No

Cant Say

Most of the customers believe that Indian Book retail sector is one of the best examples
of improvement in customer relationship .

2.
To what extent, you find that Om Books seriously consider your expectations and
complaints.
To great extent
To some extent

40
60

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
To great extent

To some extent

It is necessary, therefore, to measure customer satisfaction regularly by surveying the

customers to know whether they are highly satisfied, satisfied, indifferent, dissatisfied or
highly dissatisfied Customer complaints are one of the important sources to track the
level of customer satisfaction. 3.
Are you satisfied with after sales service/support of
Om Books?
Yes
No
Cant Say

48
36
16

Cant Say; 16%

Yes; 48%
No; 36%

48% of the respondents agrees that they are satisfied after sale support of Om Books.

4. Do you find that Om Books is comparatively for more innovative in providing service
to customers?
Yes
40
No
43
Cant Say
17

Cant Say; 17%

Yes; 40%
No; 43%

43% of the respondents said that Om Books is comparatively for more innovative in
providing service to them. 5. Would you like to rate Om Books as delivering total
customer satisfaction?
Yes
70
No
30
Cant Say
0

No; 30%
Yes; 70%

70% of the respondents said that their service provider delivering them total customer
satisfaction. A customer satisfied with a given product may soon become a dissatisfied
customer in view of the changes that take place in his expectations. Customer's
expectations go much beyond physical tangible things.

6.
Do you find any difficulty as a book retailers, since Om Books has become more
innovative in technology?
Yes
16
No
80
Cant Say
4

Cant Say; 4% Yes; 16%

No; 80%

7.
Do you come to the conclusion that todays Indian book retailing is wholly
customer centric?
Yes
100
No
0
Cant Say
0

Yes; 100%

(Officials Level)
1. Do you believe that Indian Book retail sector has a need of CRM?
Yes
No

20
0

Yes; 100%

3. Do you agree that CRM integrates strategy, people, process and technology to
maximize relationships with the customers?
Yes
20
No
0

Yes; 100%

2. Do you find that Om Books has a good CRM solution?

Yes
16
No
4

No; 20%

Yes; 80%

4. To what extent do you feel Om Bookss customized solutions are successful in

satisfying the customer requirements?
To great extent
15
To some extent
5

16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
To great extent

To some extent

5. To what extent e-business intelligence solutions of Om Books have succeeded greatly

in retaining and attaining the customers?
To great extent
20
To some extent
0

To great extent; 100%

6.
Do you agree that Indian Book retail sector is one of the best examples of
championing technology for making improvement in customer relationship?
Yes
17
No
3

No; 15%

Yes; 85%

17 respondents of Om Books should be aware of the technology advancements and

provide quality services in tune with the customer's expectations

7. Do you think data warehousing is a strategic and powerful CRM technology?

Yes
No

18
2

No; 10%

Yes; 90%

8. Do you find that Om Books has well-managed research and design department for
creating an atmosphere of innovation inhibiting effective CRM solution?
Yes
14
No
6

No; 30%
Yes; 70%

9. Do you agree that Indian Book retail sector is faced with shortage of experts, who can
able to collect customer information and deploy it for taking effective business
decisions?
Yes
8
No
12

Yes; 40%
No; 60%

10. To what extent does Om Books is responsive towards your problems (regarding
operational problem) in relation to CRM software?
To great extent
8
To some extent
12

To great extent; 40%

To some extent; 60%

11. Do you agree that the success of service sector like Book retail today largely depends
on effective CRM solution (in the context of todays customer-centric business)?
Yes
20
No
0

Yes; 100%

CHAPTER -5
FINDINGS

Customer relationship management (CRM) applications have been found to

improve the relationship between the Om Books and its customers.

Through study, it is learnt that timely service provisioning, response to customer

queries, and reporting on network performance are aspects of CRM.

Databases containing information on outside plant infrastructure, signal quality,

and equipment can be integrated using GIS and made available using a corporate
Intranet.

It is realized that call centers today are much more than cost centers ie to solve
customer queries before it brings higher cost to the company.

The customer for Mobile Services is found to be very price sensitve, which has
made the competition among Companies a more of a Price War.

Book retail companies major focus is on Customer Retention. As it is understood

that the cost of acquiring a new customer is more than five times that of retaining
an existing customer. To attain this Om Books has used a no. of value added
services, to increase the stickiness of the customer.

The CRM is understood to be strengthened by Relationship Building tactics,

which are continuously measured through time.

This reference model is logically layered model that includes touchpoint, business
application, process, CRM, Data management and Decision support layers. It was
developed as a result from customer feedback and extensive research in the
marketplace on Enterprise Customer Relationship Management

Om Books has customized the IT solutions as per the requirements of its

customers and has leveraged it to provide the best in class Customer Services.

CHAPTER-6
RECOMMENDATIONS
Book retail companies must focus constant attention on the competitors' performance,
their strategy and style of operations and compare same with its own performance.
Customers always make this comparison and decide their future purchase pattern. Such
analysis done by organisation would help in in-creasing its strengths and reducing its
weaknesses. The organisation's performance must always be a step ahead of its
competitor and it must know that the customer feels the difference. As long as the c
.stomer understands and agrees with this comparatively better performance, the
relationship will continue to exist.
Customers referred here include the present customers consuming the products of an
organisation also the prospective customers who are presently consuming the products of
competitors. These customers must be periodically analysed from several perspectives
such as who constitute the inventory, level of customer retention, what makes them buy,
what their level of satisfaction is, where they are placed in the loyalty ladder, what makes
them disloyal, and so on. This analysis is to be performed not only on the existing
customers but also on the former customers, so that corrective actions may be instigated
to retain current customers. Periodical customer satisfaction audit program would provide
a meaningful insight into the customer attitude and their behaviour and also would form
the basis for developing appropriate strategies to retain relationship with the customers.
For customer analysis and competitor analysis, the organisation may depend on external
agencies, so that an unbiased report can be obtained, which in turn would enable the
organisation to further minimise its errors
An organisation must focus attention on the cost of the product or services. Always, there
must be sincere attempts towards cost reduction without compromising on quality. The
organisation must perform value analysis and try to reduce costs and retain the same good
quality or improve quality of product or service. This would help to avoid switching over
of the customer to other brands.

Concentration on the Paying Ability of Customers - Pricing decisions are to be governed

not merely by cost related factors. Before fixing price, the paying ability of the potential
customers must also be viewed. To some extent prices are to be adjusted in tune with the
fluctuations in the paying ability of potential customers. In this process, an organisation
may have to sacrifice small portions of the profit tentatively. But, considering long-term
relationship and future opportunity of earning, such price adjustment is worth practising.
If customers were lost due to price factor their non-availability of prices, then the
organisation would have to invest heavily in trying to get them back but with no
guarantee for the same.
Om Books should have a thorough knowledge of the purchase behaviour pattern of their
customers. The influencing factors of the purchaser decision process and the ultimate
outcome are to be analysed in-depth. The outcome of purchase decision may be anyone
of the four viz. (1) Purchase, (2) Rejection, (3) Postponement, (4) Search for substitutes.
The organisation should have an idea about what percentage of customers arrive at what
sort of a decision and appropriate steps are to be initiated towards making them buy the
products on a continued basis. With regard to organisation's purchasing decisions, the key
persons influencing the decisions, their characteristics and expectation, etc. have to be
understood in clear terms.
Differentiation in Prices and Quality Standards - An organisation may come forward to
offer services or brands of different varieties with price variations. To meet a particular
need, three or four brands of varied quality and at differing price level must be- available
so that, the customer depending on his financial position, may prefer at least one of the
varieties available. This would prevent the customers from switching over to other
brands.

Focus on Reducing Dissatisfaction - Irrespective of the standard of a product or services

offered by an organisation, it is likely that the customers would reach a level of
dissonance and seek for remedial actions. An organisation must be pro-active to such a
situation. All dissatisfied customers will not come forward to show their displeasure.
They may simply make a brand switch-over. This will badly reflect on the prospective
customer's attitude. To avoid this, the causes for dissatisfaction' are to be identified and
have to be attended well. If a complaint is well attended, then the dissatisfied customer
becomes more loyal to the organisation and thereby, the relationship would continue to
exist.

CHAPTER -7
CONCLUSION

An organisation's strategies towards developing and maintaining sustainable relationship

differ from one organisation to another depending on certain factors. These include nature
of business, its size, its market share, nature of product type, volume of sales, geographic
concentration, socio-economic status and life style of the customers concerned,
competitors strength, and so on. The rest of the chapter provides a wide spectrum of
strategies that are practised by customer driven organisations with national and global
perspectives. The reader may concentrate on those strategies or combination of several
strategies that suit his business context.
People within the Book retail companies have the basic role in developing and
maintaining relationship with customers. Everyone in the organisation must realise the
fact that their work is towards satisfying customers. Everyone from the lowest to the
highest level irrespective of their functional specialization and responsibilities must
integrate their activities towards one of the main objectives of the organisation - customer
satisfaction. The marketing department can coordinate integrated activity towards
customer satisfaction. Obviously, people within the organisation form the basis for
building customer relationship.
A customer not only expects quality products but also quality services. Organisation is
expected to render services in all three phases viz. presales, during sales and after sales.
During presales when the customer develops expectations. the organisation must ensure
quality and availability of the product in time. During sales, when the customer
experiences the sales process, the organisation must provide the customer an opportunity
to' inspect, and treat them with courteous attentiveness, prompt reply, etc. During after
sales, when the sales are finalised, the organisation must provide supporting services such
as speedy replacements, simplified complaint procedure, efficient maintenance and repair
services and so on. Such services, which are provided immediately and instantly will
bring total customer satisfaction.
The following two illustrative approaches serve as guidelines to the Book retail
companies for developing a CRM strategy.

Customers as Friends - In the services business, personal relationships and warmth are
critical to success. A small automotive repair business in Mexico has blazed a new trail in
service leadership by treating customers as 'friends'.
Customers as Guests -Instead of focussing on organisational design, managerial hierarchy
and production systems to maximise organisational efficiency, it forces the firm to look
systematically at the customer experience from the guest's point of view. The key factors
that determine quality and value in the eyes of the guest, analysing them, measuring their
impact on the customer experience, testing various strategies that might improve the
quality of experience and then providing a combination of factors or elements that
attracts loyal customers. Only after developing this total guest orientation, can the rest of
the organisational issues be addressed. The goal is to create and sustain an expertise that
can respond to the customers' needs and expectations and still make a profit
Om Books should allow to float plans which involves giving a handset and a connection
as a combined offer, restricting the customers to use Om Books for over a period of time.
Om Books also has lagged behind in the price war, it is perceived as a costly mobile
service. The Company should not forget that the Indian mass consist of more of middle
class consumer which is the largest market. Again, the need has also arised for the
Company to go for global collaborations and spread its wings across nations. Likewise,
Om Books has made its presence in many countries, Om Books should take the steps in
this front to increase its strength.

FUTURE SCOPE
Since very little work is done on CRM practices followed by Indian book retailing
Industry, there is a wide scope for the researchers to work on. The scope of the study is to
assess the overall customer satisfaction, response of customers with regard to the
availability and quality of books offered at Om Book centre and the comfort level of the
respondents towards buying from malls. This study is restricted to Om Book centre only.
Factors influencing the customer to shop in the shopping malls of such as socio economic profiles, frequency of visit, period of relationship between the respondents and

malls, purpose of visit, occasion to visit Om Book centre are some of the aspects studied
in the present study.
Limitations
The two limitations of the study were
1. Authenticity of the response given by the respondents.
2. The correctness of the available data.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hiebing, Roman G.; Cooper, Scott. W. The Successful Marketing Plan, 2 nd

Edition, NTC Business Books, 2008

Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the value of a brand name David A Aaker
(The Free Press)

Building Strong Brands David A. Aaker

Customer Relationship Management, Kinkaid, 2013

The Free Press Journal

The Economic Times 1ST May2015, etc

Businessworld 7TH May 2015

Business Today 5th Jan 2016

www.Ombookcentre.in

www.thehindubusinessline.in

QUESTIONNAIRE
(Customer)
Name

Address

Occupation

Gender

Age

Book retail Operator:

CHOOSE () FROM THE OPTIONS TO SUPPORT YOUR ANSWER:

1. Do you believe that Indian Book retail sector is one of the best examples of
improvement in customer relationship?
Yes
No
Cant Say
2. To what extent, you find that Om Books seriously consider your expectations and
complaints.
To great extent
To some extent
3. Are you satisfied with after sales service/support of Om Books?
Yes
No
Cant Say
4. Do you find that your service provider is comparatively for more innovative in
providing service to customers?
Yes
No
Cant Say
5. Would you like to rate Om Books as delivering total customer satisfaction?
Yes
No
Cant Say

6. Do you find any difficulty as a book retailing, since Om Books has become more
innovative in technology?
Yes
No
Cant Say
7. Do you come to the conclusion that todays Indian book retailing is wholly customer
centric?
Yes
No
Cant Say

(Officials Level)
NAME

ADDRESS

OCCUPATION

GENDER

AGE

CHOOSE () FROM THE OPTIONS TO SUPPORT YOUR ANSWER:

1. Do you believe that Indian Book retail sector has a need of CRM?
Yes
No
3.

Do you agree that CRM integrates strategy, people, process and technology to
maximize relationships with the customers?
YES
NO

2. Do you find that Bharti Om Books has a good CRM solution?

YES
NO
4. To what extent do you feel Bharti Om Bookss customized solutions are successful in
satisfying the customer requirements?
To great extent
To some extent
5. To what extent e-business intelligence solutions of Om Books have succeeded greatly
in retaining and attaining the customers?
To great extent
To some extent
6. Do you agree that Indian Book retail sector is one of the best examples of
championing technology for making improvement in customer relationship?
YES
NO
7. Do you think data warehousing is a strategic and powerful CRM technology?
YES
NO

8. Do you find that Om Books has well-managed research and design department for
creating an atmosphere of innovation inhibiting effective CRM solution?
YES
NO
9. Do you agree that Indian Book retail sector is faced with shortage of experts, who can
able to collect customer information and deploy it for taking effective business
decisions?
YES
NO
10. To what extent does Om Books is responsive towards your problems (regarding
operational problem) in relation to CRM software?
To great extent
To some extent
11. Do you agree that the success of service sector like Book retail today largely depends
on effective CRM solution (in the context of todays customer-centric business)?
YES
NO