Australian CRM Survey

[Doug Heywood]

Australian companies look beyond usual customer care approach

by Peter Dinham
iTWire, Sunday, 23 August 2009

Australian companies recently polled about their IT investment intentions, including their plans for looking after customers, say they are ready to “go beyond” traditional customer relationship management in their customer care services as a way of generating more revenue.

According to an Advance Customer Care & Retention (ACCR) survey by IDC, Australian companies that are focusing on growth are more likely to explore advanced areas of customer care, with nearly half seeing the main value of 'customer care' as being a way to generate revenue, and many are ready to “go beyond traditional customer relationship management.”

IDC Australia associate research director, Linus Lai, says the survey indicated that although most Australian companies are “reducing or freezing their investments in IT during this economic downturn,” 23 percent of respondents “will still invest in IT solutions that can help them increase earnings or save costs.”

Lai said companies that are focusing on growth are significantly more likely to explore advanced areas of customer care.

"Australian companies see customer care as essential to growing top line revenue and not just keeping customers happy to achieve their growth strategies despite the downturn.

“New advanced customer care tools such as customer analytics, customer database management and new web-based tools, are much more on the agenda for these types of companies. They tend to appreciate the value of customer targeting and engagement more than companies with a more reactive approach.

"These solutions can make a huge difference to how companies position themselves for the future and may be the most important IT investment a company can make in today's economic climate."

And, despite the impact of the economic downturn, IDC's poll showed that the top business priority of more than half the companies surveyed was to increase earnings over cost control.

According to IDC, as organisations move out from the downturn they shift their focus from cost reduction to earnings capability. At the same time, nine out of 10 companies said they had increased their focus on the customer because of the economic downturn.

Lai said the survey highlighted how important the web had become in how companies connect and engage with consumers.

"It also revealed that consumers actually prefer to seek help in ways that circumvent the companies they bought their products from, such as web searches and online forums. This means that companies will need to be more imaginative in how they engage their customers if they want to maintain relationships with their customers.”