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Customer Relationship Management – Group Project

Last Date of Submission: 10th October 2009


Maximum Marks: 20

Case Study

CRM IN BANKING : A CASE STUDY OF ICICI BANK

Globally, regulation and technological improvements are responsible for the vast majority of innovations in
banking over the past quarter century. The introduction of personal computers and the proliferation of
ATMs in the 1970s captured the bank management’s attention. The regulatory changes in the 1980s
fuelled much of the industry’s growth, which was followed by downsizing as bankers focused on creating a
market presence which resulted in significant merger activity. Recent technological improvements are at
the root of the bankers’ focus as well as a target for their significant investment today. In fact, according to
recent projections, bankers and their financial service company brethren will spend almost $ 7 billion this
year on CRM and increase that by 14 per cent each year for the next several years.

Why CRM? – The Changing Environment

The environment within which financial institutions operate has changed in recent years. It is now one of:

• Increased competition
• Growing product commoditization, and
• Diminishing margins

Banking customers have also changed in recent years. Customers today are more knowledgeable,
sophisticated and assertive than ever before. They demand higher levels of customer service, are less loyal,
and more inclined to switch to a competitor. Modern customers thus necessitate flexibility in hours of
operation, greater convenience, customization, transparency, accessibility and control.

This has led to a shift in business focus from transactional to relationship marketing.
CRM Strategy

Customers are the lifeblood of the business and the way in which a bank can protect and increase its
customer base – and ultimately its profitability – is to build strong customer relationships through the
delivery of superior quality service and to meet customer needs better than the competitors. The CRM
approach focuses on maximizing value for the customer and the bank.

Research has shown that the key drivers of customer loyalty are:

• Positive staff attitude


• Honesty, integrity and reliability
• Proactive advice and deliver of promise
• Consistent delivery of superior quality service
• Simplicity and ease of doing business
• Good after-sales service
• A fair effective complaints resolution policy.

Focus on ICICI Bank’s Initiatives

The use of CRM in banking has gained importance with the aggressive strategies for customer acquisition
and retention being employed by banks in today’s competitive milieu. This has resulted in the adoption of
various CRM initiatives by these banks to enable them achieve their objectives.

The steps that banks follow in implementing CRM are:

• Identifying CRM initiatives with reference to the objectives to be attained (such as increased
number of customers, enhanced per-customer profitability, etc.),
• Setting measurable targets for each initiative in terms of growth in profits, number of customers,
etc. and
• Evaluating and choosing the appropriate CRM package that will help the company achieve its
CRM goals (a comparison of pay-offs against investments could be carried out during the
evaluation exercise).

CRM has been deployed in retail banking. The challenges in managing customer relations in retail banking
are due to the multiple products being offered and the diverse channels being used for the distribution of
the products. Customer expectation from banks can be summed up as:
“Any time anywhere service, personalized offers, and lower payouts”.

Aggressive marketing and promotions on the part of the banks have resulted in most customers happily
switching loyalties to enjoy better privileges, thereby making the task of retaining them more difficult for
the banks.

The use of CRM in banking has been essentially done for the following purposes:

• Targeting customers

It is necessary for banks to identify potential customers for approaching them with suitable offers.
The transactional data that is generated through customer interactions and also by taking into
account the profile of the customer (such as the lifecycle stage, economic background, family
commitments, etc.) needs to be collated into one database to facilitate its proper analysis. For
example, a customer interacts with the banks for savings accounts, credit cards, home loans, car
loans, demat accounts, etc. the data generated through all these services needs to be integrated to
enable effective targeting. After the integration is done, a profitability analysis of the customer
needs to be undertaken to acquire an understanding of the profit-worthiness of the customer before
targeting him with new offers.

• Sales reference material

A consolidated information database on all products, pricing, competitor information, sales


presentations, proposal templates and marketing collateral should be accessible to all the people
concerned. These prove to be very helpful in Sales Force Automation (SFA) wherein the
salesperson gets instantaneous access to all relevant material as and when it is required (especially
when he/she is in a meeting with a client.)

• Consistent interface with customers

The communication to customers from various departments like sales, finance, customer support,
etc. should be consistent and not contradictory. Therefore, all departments should be privy to a
unified view of the customer to enable a consistent approach. Removal of inconsistencies is
necessary to ensure that customers are not harassed and frustrated owing to poor internal co-
ordination. This is bound to enhance customer satisfaction. The contact centres used to interface
with customers should ensure consistency in customer interaction, irrespective of the medium used
for the interaction such as telephone, Internet, e-mail, fax, etc.

Banks can use the data on customers to effectively segment the customers before targeting them. Proper
analysis of all available data will enable banks to understand the needs of various customer segments and
the issues that determine “value” for that segment. Accordingly, suitable campaigns can be designed to
address the issues relevant for that segment and to ensure higher loyalty from these customers. When data
analysis is done in the right manner, it helps in generating opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling.

ICICI Bank’s CRM Initiatives

ICICI Bank has to manage more than 13 million customers. The bank has over 550 branches, a network of
2025 ATMs, multiple call centres, Internet banking and mobile banking. Its customers often use multiple
channels, and they are increasingly turning to electronic banking options. Business from the Internet.
ATMs and other electronic channels now comprises more than 50 per cent of all transactions.

In the process of making its business grow to this level, ICICI Bank has distinguished itself from other
banks through its relationship with customers.

The Teradata solution focuses on a CRM platform. Information from various legacy and transaction
systems is fed into a single enterprise called wide data warehouse. This allows the bank to generate a
single view of its customers. The warehouse has the capability to integrate data from multiple sources
comprising Oracle and flat files. The Behaviour Explorer enables profiling of customers and querying on
various parameters. These enable the bank staff create suitable campaigns for targeting individual
customers on the basis of their requirements.

The logistics in the system have also led to other benefits like interactive reports, unearthing cross-selling
opportunities as well as finding out about the channel usage undertaken by a segment. The data access was
facilitated through the use of Cognos Power Cubes.

The Benefits of CRM

• Customers’ usage pattern

ICICI’s CRM data warehouse integrates data from multiple sources and enables users to find out
about the customer’s various transactions pertaining to savings accounts, credit cards, fixed
deposits, etc. The warehouse also gives indications regarding the customer’s channel usage.
• New product development

Analysis at ICICI guide product development and marketing campaigns through Behaviour
Explorer, whereby customer profiling can be undertaken by using ad hoc queries. The products
thus created take into account the customer’s needs and desires, enabling the bank to satisfy
customers through better personalization and customization of services.

• Central data management

The initial implementation of CRM allowed ICICI to analyse its customer database, which
includes information from eight separate operations systems including retail banking, bonds, fixed
deposits, retail consumer loans, credit cards, custodial services, online share trading and ATM.

Some Noteworthy CRM Initiatives of ICICI Bank

Mobile ATMs

Customers of ICICI Bank can access their bank accounts through mobile ATMs. These ATMs are kept in
vans and parked at locations that have a high traffic of bank customers such as the commercial areas in a
city or upmarket residential areas ICICI Bank now provides standard ATM facilities through ATM vans.
This facility has been tried at Mumbai, Chandigarh and various places in Kerala during specified timings.

Table – Mumbai Mobile Van

Timings Locations
9.00 am to 10.00 am Junction of Nehru Road and M.O. Road, near Ram
temple, Vile Parle (E)
11.00 am to 12.00 noon Opp.J.W. Marriott Hotel, Juhu
1.00 pm to 2.00 pm Lokhandwala Circle, Andheri (W)
3.30 pm to 5.00 pm Outside Vasanth Sagar, 120 ft. Road, Hakur Village,
Khandivali (E)

Bulk Deposits

The ICICI Bank’s Bulk Deposit ATMs enable customers to deposit large amounts at one time. Unlike
conventional ATMs, which are able to accept only 30 notes at a time, these ATMs allow the deposit of
huge amounts. The Bulk Deposit ATM is available in Mumbai’s Vashi sector branch office of ICICI.
The bulk deposit facility can be availed of by select customers who need to deposit huge amounts of cash.
ICICI Bank issues a special card called the `Deposit Only Card’ to facilitate this service. This card allows
for deposit transactions only. The service is further facilitated by the provision of special bags at ATMs in
which a customer can put his money. After the deposit slip is filled, the bag can be inserted in the ATM.
The transaction slip is then generated by the ATM as an acknowledgement of the deposit. ICICI Bank also
has cash pick-up service for business customers under the business banking segment.

ATMs for the visually challenged

ICICI Bank has launched ATMs with special voice-guided systems, which guide a visually challenged
person to access ATMs without any help. The jack on the terminal enables headphones to be connected to
it and voice commands enable the customer to transact business. Customers may choose a suitable
language to get voice commands. After the language selection is done, the customer is guided to ensure
that the ATM card is inserted in the right slot and thereafter, guidance is provided for entering the PIN by
using the keypad. A raised button is provided on number 5 to enable users to identify the numbers easily
through touch. The slot for cash collection has such raised `pips’ that enable easy identification through
touch.

Other Services through ATMs

Apart from the usual transactions involving the bank, some other services can also be availed of by ICICI
Bank customers. These include:

• Prepaid mobile recharge


• Buying and renewing Internet packs (such as those of TATA Indicom Internet service provider
and Sify).
• Making donations for Tirupati Tirumala Devasthanams, Nathdwara temple and Shri Mata
Vaishnodevi shrine.
• Mutual fund transactions, and
• Bill payments

Mobile phone as a Virtual Wallet

The mobile phone has been transformed into a virtual wallet – a new innovation in mobile commerce. On
September 19, 2005, Airtel, ICICI Bank and VISA announced the launch of mChq – a revolutionary new
service – which is a credit card using the mobile phone. This is the first mobile-to-mobile payment option
which enables Airtel customers and ICICI Bank Visa cardholders to pay for their purchases with their
Airtel Mobile phones. The service has eliminated the need for carrying physical cash for making a
purchase and also the problems associated with the point of sale (POS) terminal since the mobile phone
services as a secure POS and a payment mechanism.

Social Events

ICICI Bank organized the largest domestic invitational amateur golf event for HN1 (high-net-worth
individuals) customers. This nation-wide golf tournament had over one lakh high-net-worth clients of
ICICI Bank’s private banking division participating in the event.

Mobile Banking Benefits

Mobile banking enables the customer to avail of many facilities by just sending an SMS. These facilities,
which are currently offered free of cost, are as follows:

• Locating ATM
• Locating branch
• Locating drop box
• Alert facilities like salary credit, account debit/credit, cheque bounce, etc., and
• Queries on banking, cards and demat account
Case Questions
1. Explain the initiatives take by ICICI Bank to promote CRM.
2. Discuss the benefits of the initiatives taken by ICICI Bank to promote CRM.
3. What should be the core elements of CRM that ICICI bank in your opinion should follow, besides
what they are already following to make themselves a distinct bank from their competitors
4. Outsourcing CRM is one activity that most organizations follow. Is it a viable option. Give your
views keeping in mind the cost involved in implementing CRM and enhancing business also.

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