Customer Insight: In the Pursuit of Bringing Back 'C' in CRM

Additionally, CI also develops highly-customized CRM solutions as per its clients’ requirements. In 2012, after partnering with Microsoft Korea in the CRM domain, CI built a system that can effectively utilize their CRM strategy by using Dynamics 365, Power BI, and Azure Service. To that end, CI’s CRM system is oriented toward a ‘Strategy Embedded System’.

On the outsourcing service front, CI implements its CRM strategies under an annual contract. By becoming a partner or staff member of a client’s CRM department, CI provides segmentation or aggregation of right target, measurement or evaluation of campaigns, and more as a part of the contract.

However, to gather data and design customer-centric CRM services is not a cakewalk in Korea’s dynamic market, which has a history of coping with complex economic environments—the Lehman Brothers financial crisis in 2009, the big data craze in 2013, and the recent digital transformation issues. Also, since government-sanctioned technologies emerge on a daily basis, the CRM activities of enterprises are significantly affected.

Despite these challenges, CI has been unstoppable, primarily because of the dynamicity it holds in its ability to navigate through the changing market structure. Jeong says, “To cope with the changing and industry-specific needs of customers, we have inflated our business portfolio to develop real-time recommendation models using machine learning techniques. We have also given importance to analyzing unstructured data (click logs or IoTs) that represent current customer needs.” In collaboration with Microsoft’s SQL, Power BI, Data lake, HDInsight, Databricks, and Machine Learning from Azure Service, CI has been able to offer top-notch analytics services and attain a distinct position in the Korean market.

Associated with some of the top MNCs in the world, CI has delivered its CRM services to various businesses per their specific requirements. As an example, Nike Korea leveraged CI’s one-stop CRM hub to succeed in its pursuit to deliver better messages to members through various efficient channels such as SMS/LMS, mobile push, and email. CI could fetch this service by organizing the end customer/members’ data from the online store of Nike Korea, and by creating new variables on analyzing online web clickstream for right targeting. This exercise also facilitated Nike Korea to raise the forecasting level for sales and customer behavior.

Although it has facilitated the birth of such efficient and market-aligned CRM services, there is a lot more that separates CI from its competitors. Rather, it is the commitment to the happiness of its employees and the satisfaction of its customers that CI takes pride in. Jeong adds, “I have tried to create a working environment where employees don’t feel any stress from upper management. The only stress they can put on themselves is a result of their own efforts while serving clients because the client comes first.”

With its C-centric CRM services and high employee- and client-retention rate, CI has moved beyond its country’s boundaries to deploy its services. “It was 2009 when we first experienced market outside Korea as the strategic consultants for the adiCLUB. Recently, a Vietnamese company has approached us for developing customer strategy employing CI consulting services. We want to expand farther and share our knowledge and experience with the other Asian countries,” concludes Jeong.