The main strategy was segmentation and retention of the profitable customers through personal service. Market segmentation is one of the most fundamental concepts in marketing, and one's choice of which approach to use will directly affect the impact of segmentation on a business. The Likert scale will be used in some areas of the questionnaire to determine opinions on an agree-disagree scale.
All interviews will take place in Harare, as the capital is the best representation of what is happening in the rest of the country.
INTRODUCTION
THEORETICAL LITERATURE REVIE\V
What does the "space" look like - what are the main dimensions in the category. However, in the 1990s their orientation became 'business financial services', with a much broader focus on relationship management. They state that the goal of CRM is to integrate marketing, sales and service functions through business process automation, technology solutions and information resources to maximize every customer contact.
In fact, a pragmatic view of CRM is that a financial institution should be able to sell all its products to its customers during their lifetime, also referred to as life cycle marketing.
THE BENEFITS OF SEGMENTATION & CRM
Most international banks such as Citibank, Royal bank of Canada and Lloyds have realized this shortcoming and are addressing it through Customer Relationship Management. In our local market, the major banks, Kingdom Bank, Trust Bank, Standard Chartered, Barclays, Stanbic Bank, Jewel Bank and NMB Ltd have introduced various forms of relationship management. The form of relationship management and whether they achieve their intention is an interesting area of study.
The battleground has changed to achieving differentiation through intangibles such as customer relationship management services and programs.
PERSPECTIVES ON CRM
This perspective seeks to use information from all customer touchpoints - including direct sales, telesales, websites, customer service, resellers and channel partners - to get a coherent view of the customer. Here, the firm emphasizes the economic value of each customer - relative to other customers in order to allocate resources for the retention and growth of the most valuable customers (Pepper and Rogers 1997). The value of the customer is the NPV of all future profits of that customer taking into account margin earned, customer-specific service charges and profits earned on referrals by that customer.
The perspective assumes that growth in the total value of the customer base is a key driver of financial profit and shareholder value.
CRM DRIVERS
In particular, it allows organizations to identify their most valuable customers, gain intimate knowledge of customer needs through establishing learning relationships, improve value delivery, and more efficient marketing and sales actions (Harrison 1993). For business accounts it is mainly according to the nature of the business and the size of the balance sheet. This allows banks to benefit from economies of scale due to deep customer knowledge.
The four Ps of the traditional marketing mix (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) have been replaced by the four Cs of relationship marketing - Customer Needs and Wants, Costs, Convenience and Communication (Hamil 2000).
CAPABILITIES FOR FORGING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS
This includes value equity, the customer's objective assessment of the brand's usefulness (based on perceptions of what is given up for what is received). Brand equity, the customer's subjective and intangible assessment of the brand, which goes beyond objectively perceived value and retention value, and reflects a customer's propensity to stick with a brand, beyond their objective and subjective assessment of the brand . The strongest positional advantage is obtained when there is information exchange and mutual coordination of interdependent activities, such as new product development, relationship-specific investments, or the adoption of common interface standards (Blanknburg, Erikson & Johanson 1999).
The ability to relate to the market is of greatest value in markets with high personalization potential (McKenna 1991, Wayland and Cole 1997, Peppers and Rogers 1997-1998).
INTERNET SUPPORTED CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
The Internet provides companies with new opportunities to achieve sustainable competitive advantages by utilizing the Internet's interactive tools to support customer relationships. The Internet allows banks to integrate, sell, e-commerce and customer service through a single customized website, i.e. the overall advantage of the e-crm strategy is that it provides seamless integration of all areas of the business that touch the customer - marketing, sales, customer service and field support, etc. through the integration of people, process and technology, leveraging the revolutionary impact of the Internet ( Hamill: 2001).
SEGMENTATION, RELATIONSHIP MARKETI G AND TECHNOLOGY
Interfaces to the operational environment to maintain the marketing database and communication channels to deliver the messages. Despite increasing spending on CRM, questions remain about how to measure CRM's contribution to the bottom line. The highest level of customer profitability is obtained from the loyal customer who is retained for long periods.
If a customer's LTV value can be predicted, the company can quickly determine the maximum amount to invest in developing the relationship.
STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK FOR CRM
From business-focused interactions designed for business efficiency and convenience to customer-focused interactions designed for customer efficiency and convenience (Sue & Morin 2001). In this situation where products and services become commodities, it is the ability to interact with the customer so that each interaction is positive and strengthens the relationship that differentiates one institution from another. The value of CRM is that such management is able to communicate with the customer so that every interaction is positive and strengthens the relationship, for example CRM should allow departments to be aware of each other's interactions with the customer.
It is critical that organizations develop models to best manage different types of customer relationships.
CRM CASE STUDY
Businesses gain three main benefits from the CRM strategy, namely increase in revenue, decrease in costs and ability to respond to competition or changes in the market. If there is no viable alternative, the benefits are the contribution the increased sales will make to the bottom line (sales revenue less direct costs). CRM-related technologies fall into two main categories, gathering and mining customer data and executing strategies at the customer interface.
Although customer interaction technologies are critical to the execution of a CRM business strategy, it is the customer knowledge capability that enables the creativity of customer-specific sales and service strategies (Stone, Woodrock & Starkey: 2001). Simply put, customer insight capability drives CRM business strategy and customer interaction technologies deliver it. It is precisely these low-level skills, labeled customer insights, at which Royal Bank excels.
Royal Bank has adapted key banking initiatives to its social environment as follows: -Sales culture - The bank has developed a sales infrastructure that includes weekly sales, regular sales meetings and a system of sales incentives. Sales conversations are firmly based on understanding the customer's financial needs and objectives. Service Culture - Royal Bank's service focus is to provide critical customer information at customer touch points.
Royal Bank realized that an organization that truly focused on CRM had to remove the operational activities that were an obstacle to implementing a CRM business strategy. Royal Bank has found that creating customer segments (small business, agriculture, commercial customers) allows for greater precision in the sales/marketing arena and in seeking to personalize customer interactions.
SUMMARY
Most of the studies that have been conducted on CRM have been done outside of Zimbabwe, mainly Europe, America and Asia. Value chain analysis is a tool developed by Michael Porter to examine organizational production and support processes for their contribution to competitive advantage. Similarly, the more subjective aspects of the internal environment such as organizational values and culture are not addressed through the application of this tool.
The value chain analysis suggests that we analyze any business in terms of its primary activities; and support activities. Support activities are those activities that are necessary to support or enable the effective functioning of the primary activities. Since the value chain is concerned with ensuring that a functional organization supports business-level strategy, it should be applied at a level where there is a coherent set of functional activities aimed at serving a particular market.
In order to use the value chain, it is important that the organization HAS clear goals. Identify the actual activities performed by business unit III each of the gene categories nominated in the model. Examine how flows in and out of the organization take place and whether internal process changes can improve the interface with suppliers or customers at different stages in the value-adding process.
Review resource allocations with a view to allocating resources consistent with the task's contribution to strategic direction. Once the organization's value chain analysis has been undertaken, attention must be paid to how it relates to the value chain of suppliers and customers.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The researcher ensured that the data was reliable through the correct identification of the respondents to be included in the study. NMB is said to be the major competitor of ABC (65%), followed by Standard Merchant Bank (29%). First Merchant Bank and Syfrets Merchant Bank are said to be the third and fourth largest competitors of ABC (24% and 23% respectively).
ABC was also said to be strong in providing high quality products (10%) and having a good reputation (10%). In addition to banking services, ABC's competitors were said to be actively involved in property insurance (35%) as well as unit trusts (16%). According to 45.2% of respondents, products offered by ABC's competitors aim to satisfy a target market similar to ABC's.
More than half of respondents (51.6%) see wealthy individuals and corporate organizations as ABC's main customers. However, about 29% of the respondents believed that ABC's competitors were more profitable than ABC. On the other hand, Syfrets is said to be strong on affordability (29%) and quality products and services (29%).
The main positive side of Standard Chartered in the eyes of customers is excellent public relations and a wide branch network (33%) and good marketing (33%). Compared to NMB, ABC is said to be an under-known bank that is too unique (40%). The majority (64.5%) of respondents believe that there have been no changes in the target market segment of competitors.
More than half of the sample (55%) said that ABC's rivals have a competitive advantage mainly in terms of their well-located premises in the central business district (15%). First Merchant Bank and Syfrets Merchant Bank were said to be ABC's third and fourth main competitors. Compared to NMB, ABC was said to be a little known and very unique bank.
QUESTIONNAIRE
How current customers rate the following ABC business feature compared to the competition.
