The implementation of CRM systems in banks: The case of Caisse d'Epargne

Résumé du document

Since a few years, many banks have adopted strategies of Customer Relationship Management. CRM can be defined as an approach based on new communication and information technologies, in order to identify the customers' needs and expectations to provide them with adapted products and services. One of the objectives of this method for a firm is to make customers more loyal and to build a long-term relationship with its clients, which will high chances in resulting to an increase in profits.

To implement this new type of relationship with their customers, banks call on relational marketing which is very popular among services firms like banks, and new information and communication technologies, in order to reconcile in real time the clients' expectations with the available supply. Faced with this major challenge of implementing a CRM system, banks wonder about the methods and tools to use in order to better monitor the relationship with the customers.

Extraits

[...] Indeed, CE needs to earn the loyalty of the already existing clients, and not the prospects. With this precise goal in mind, CE has decided to invest in a new CRM system, capable of managing the retention of the client and the relationship with the clients. This new system will allow CE to: - Have a deep and complete knowledge of its clients and not just an approximate knowledge - Anticipate the clients' needs on the long-run in order to generate more value for the client - Develop a better knowledge of the market and its evolutions - Have more profitable clients The financial means deployed in order to implement this system were huge: more than 10 consulting cabinets were hired for this specific project. [...]

[...] What are the limits of the CRM used by the CE ? The CRM system used by CE has a few limits. First of all, by focusing too much on making their clients more profitable, there is a considerable risk that CE moves away from its initial strategy, the social and educative mission. Consequently, there is a high risk that CE loses its competitive advantage which is that special relationship that it has with its clients. Therefore, clients might start leaving the bank and the CRM system would have opposite consequences than what it was initially implemented for. [...]

[...] Therefore, the new CRM system does not really take into account the problematic of the trust between the clients and the proximity banks, which was however underlined by the researchers and experts. Despite the communication done, the training planned, the change accompaniment, the employees still do not appear to be reassured by this new system. What's more, the commercial directors fear that their profession might be discredited because all they would need to do now is to apply an algorithm found by a software. They also fear a loss of their autonomy and of their know-how. [...]

[...] Faced with this major challenge of implementing a CRM system, banks wonder about the methods and tools to use in order to better monitor the relationship with the customers. Our study will focus on the particular case of French “proximity banks”, where the relationship with the client is even more fundamental than in the other types of banks. We have chosen the particular example of Caisse d'Epargne because, as we will see later, it is faced with new challenges which have led the bank to implement a new system of CRM in 2006. [...]

[...] What is more, it is still too early to assess the profitability of CE's investments in terms if IS. Cf : introduction Stephen Robbins est titulaire d'un doctorat en sciences de gestion. Après avoir travaillé pour Shell puis pour Reynolds, il a enseigné dans de nombreuses universités (Nebraska, Concordia à Montréal, Baltimore, Illinois du Sud et San Diego). Il est l'auteur de nombreux manuels de cours dans le domaine du management, dont le best-seller mondial Organizational Behavior et Prenez la bonne décision ! [...]