Read this article on CRM in the agricultural industry. What is the benefit of adding CRM as an approach to business? How did the banking and agricultural industry meet business objectives using CRM?
The consumer goods industry employs marketing techniques to a great extent to ensure wider publicity. Similarly, the agricultural market must take advantage of these tools exploited over the years by other business segments to advance its profitability. Even minimal efforts taken to advertise can bring in sizable sales expansions or even tap into a specific desirable market sector.
With the burgeoning number of methods and the present ease of access to information, an escalating quantity of potential customers can be made aware of the diversity of the same offer, for the same product that is available at a point in time. The question raised is what are the possibilities, in connection with the agricultural machinery and equipment sector, to ensure that the companies of this branch show increased results, which can remain stable? Is it enough only to introduce a policy change in the pricing alone? While 'price' may be a good way to draw a customer into doing business, it may not be the best method to sustain it for a long period. A significant point to bear in mind is that it costs five times less to hold onto the current customers than to acquire new ones. Keeping customers is equivalent to loyalty.
Particularly in the agricultural sector, any discussion on seeds, phytosanitary products, fertilizers or agricultural machinery, places high value on the product quality. Every brand boasts of having the best product; however, with the soaring investments sunk into research and development, the product quality of the different companies has been matched. Wider variations are available in the whole product range, like different sizes of new models of agricultural machines, in keeping market demands. This factor; however, is controlled by industries, and not by the product supplier, which in this case is the resale of agricultural machinery.
A manager of a reseller must work around several limitations, particularly in the area of pricing, because the factory provides the price lists. Neither can he change the quality or product range. Another factor that the manufacturer anticipates is marketing the factory which makes the products; however, to boost the resale market, the manager will need to develop his own specific marketing strategies, apart from product marketing. Customers must be able to look upon the reseller as the one with the answers to their problems.
In the face of the intense competition in which the companies of the same branch vie to make offers on identical services, in order to be a cut above the others, great investment must be done in building a relationship with the clients. The same authors insisted that Relationship Marketing programs will become self-sustaining over the medium- and long-term periods, only because they enable the resources previously invested in low-value customers to be rerouted to attract the high-value customers. In a case study done on a car dealership with respect to the implementation and application of CRM, it was very obvious that the company had fulfilled its goals by utilizing this technique. The present study deals with the findings of the researcher on a department focused on the research and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
Dealers in agricultural machinery ought to offer their customers a variety of services, and endeavor to optimize the quality of these services to distinguish themselves as better than their competitors. The effectiveness of such services can dramatically alter the customers' perspective of the resale, being more than just a product distributor. According to Payne, providing an exceptional service is the main factor which clearly and consistently distinguishes one dealer from another.
KOTLER stated that building customer loyalty necessitates the capacity to distinguish between the customers as profitable and non-profitable. KOTLER also declared that companies utilize 70% of their marketing budgets on acquiring new customers, despite the proven fact that 90% of their incomes flow from the current customers. Therefore, for effective customer retention, the companies must know their expectations and meet them. CRM is; therefore, inserted into the business plan, to get to know the customers' needs and expectations.
The company as a whole unit must refocus its efforts on customer satisfaction. At every level of responsibility, right from the salesperson to director, through secretaries and technical assistants, every employee must completely concentrate on satisfying the customers' expectations and only then, customer relationship management be implemented. BRITO advocated that training can be given to the employees, as well as motivation to understand customer expectation and need. All the departments in the company need to be integrated in this effort, else the success of implementing CRM will be remote.
A company that gets to know the preferences and behavior of the potential customers will have a competitive advantage over the competitors. When the current customers and potential customers are identified, ranking them and distinguishing as the most profitable customers from this hierarchy, becomes easier. This will enable the company to decide which resale customers are to be retained. CRM thus enables the company to offer a high level of customer satisfaction by systematizing and utilizing the database containing customer information. This tool also promotes customer segmentation and thus the customization of the offers available to each segment. This raises the quality of the products and services provided, from the customers' perspective.