CRM Integration with EFM
Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Thu, Feb 11, 2010
The majority of organizations with an EFM (enterprise feedback management) platform do not integrate it with their CRM (customer relationship management) system. CRM integration with EFM is a classic case of 1+1=3. Integration is easier to do than ever before (thanks to web APIs), and the small added investment in integration can pay tangible and intangible dividends, while leveraging both systems that you already have in place. The ROI comes from higher customer retention, more accurate data and cost savings.
Higher customer retention -- Out of 24 best practices studied in our CE IQ study, integrating CRM data with customer feedback responses was one of the top two CEM best practices with the highest positive correlation to customer loyalty. By "integrating what you already know with what you want to know," as Brian Koma puts it, you come across as knowing and understanding your customer as an individual. Failure to integrate means that you have to ask questions that the customer believes you should already know the answer to (e.g., what products and services they buy), creating a sense of distance between you and the customer. Data integration, on the other hand:
- Provides a contextual experience for the customer and shows that you know their history
- Respects their time by eliminating questions to which you already know the answers
- Reduces fatigue
- Enables you to conduct in-depth analysis and segmentation on short surveys.
More accurate data -- Integration gives your surveys access to more accurate information and improves response rates, also increasing accuracy. Most organizations with CRM systems invest regular resources in cleaning and validating the data in those systems. By using this data with your survey feedback, you develop more accurate analyses. The data is often more reliable than what customers could recall (they don't remember the date of first purchase, when their contract is up or exactly which product configuration they use). You'll get greater survey response rates from personalized emails and greater completion rates from shorter surveys (shorter because many of the questions are hidden and populated by the CRM data).
Cost savings -- Typically customer contact records are exported manually from the CRM system and then imported as temporary mailing lists into the EFM platform. By setting up automated data integration with your EFM panel management, you remove this ongoing labor cost.
If you have both a CRM and an EFM system, you'll get a greater benefit from your investment in both systems by integrating them.