Cnb Cashes in with Use of Quick Base

CNB cashes in with use of QuickBase

For many businesses, a CRM system can sometimes be only as good as the people who are using it. And companies that have a customer-facing workforce - many banks and financial institutions, for example - will often put high expectations on staff for managing their CRM products. The trouble is, these staff are more often than not financially trained bankers and managers, not DM experts.

So for providers of CRM products, it's important to set up ways of working with non-experts, to help them improve tracking of prospective customers, and ultimately to keep tabs on the relationship bankers are having with potential customers electronically.

Putting the customer in the center

"Many financial service companies have difficulties understanding and connecting with their customers," says Thorsten Ruehlemann, director of digital strategy at Unit 7. "To improve marketing expense-to-revenue ratios is one of the biggest challenges they're facing. But they also struggle in providing everyone who is in contact with the customer, with the consumer contact history and a profound customer overview."

Ruehlemann adds that in order to interact with consumers profitably, and with the best level of service orientation, a consistent view of each customer's behavior is critical. Unfortunately, many companies find that customer data is scattered across the enterprise.

Especially for financial service companies, it is challenging to have a 360-degree view of customers when data on customers from marketing, service, online, operations and partners are all stored in different places. This information in also sometimes stored in different formats. This removes a consistent view across different products or categories.

One company that was in need of a user-friendly CRM program was Citizens National Bank, since it was experiencing a great deal of direct interaction with customers.

Citizens choice for CRM

CNB began using QuickBase, an online...