Defining CRM One of the greatest problems with CRM is what it means. Financial services that are transaction based, such as credit card companies or bill payment providers, want to manage the customer relationship to drive up transaction volumes and squeeze out expenses from individual transactions. One customer generally has one account and it doesn t matter if others within the same household have accounts. The goal is to provide incentives that get the customer to use the service more.
Transactions become commodities.
The customer responds to price incentives and loyalty programs. There is almost no opportunity to cross-sell to the individual customer. Consultative financial services , such as investment advisors and financial planners, use CRM to deepen the trust the customer has in the service provider in order to increase fees for services. These companies earn fees regardless of the number of transactions the customer makes. They may be able to increase their fee base by cross-selling additional financial services to individuals, or obtaining additional account relationships from the same household.