Question

1. Explain the CRM cycle.
2. What is Data Mining?
3. Classify Consumer products.
4. Differentiate Convenience products and shopping products.
5. Classify Consumer products.

answer all the above questions.

Answer 1

(a) CRM CYCLE

Business owners use CRM(Customer relationship management) applications for finding out details about their customers, deciding on what kind of marketing campaigns are suitable for them, to effeciently maintain the account and contact database, to track the leads and converting them to oppurtunity, for effectively resolving customer issues, and for providing better customer service.

Customer relationship management (CRM) accomplishes the complete set of activities ranging from customer acquisition and retention to service. This cycle of customer related activities is termed as CRM cycle.

It mainly consists of four stages :

1. Marketing 2. Sales 3. Product 4. Support

Marketing stage :

The main objective of Marketing stage is to identify customers by running different marketing campaigns( like emails,blogs, advertisements etc.), Creating the database for account pertaining to the organisation and contacts pertaining to individuals, and then generating leads by analysing the collected customer data.

Sales stage :

The main focus of the this stage remains on Leads. They are the ones who have expressed some kind of interest in the product offering. They are further categorized into Open,contacted, qualified,and Unqualified.

Product stage :

The main focus of this stage is on delivery of the product. It can include product management functionalities that capture details about the product price, vendor, and description, etc.

Support stage :

In this stage , the main focus is on resolving customer issues and providing customer support. In CRM terminology this is called Case management.

CRM cycle provides insights into various stages of Customer relationship management from customer acquisition to retention and service. It lays down the framework of how our business can connect with our customers in a more effecient manner and serve them more effectively.

(b). Data mining

In today's world we deal with huge amount of data in the field of finance, internet, retail marketing, science, tele-communication and so on. It will consume a large amount of time to look at and deal with these datas. This is solved by the powerful technique of data mining which extract the information from huge amount of data. It automatically analyze,classifies and summarises the data into useful information.

It discovers patterns in large data sets. Database technology, statistics, machine learning, Visualisation, information science etc. go in hand with data mining.

(c). Classification of Consumer Products :

Consumer products are the products that satisfy a customer's wants or need. They are directly consumed or used by buyers without any processing. They are classified mainly into four types :

1. Convenience products

They are are the products in which consumer takes little thought while buying and is routine, purchased often and appeals to a large target market. Customers usually buy these products with little planning.

Examples includes laundry detergents,fast food,sugar,and magazines etc. They are usually low- priced and placed at locations readily available to the customers.

2. Shopping products :

Next one is shopping products. They are consumer products that customer usually compared on attributes such as quality,price and style in the process of selecting and purchasing. It is less frequently purchased than convinence and more carefully compared.

3. Specialty products :

Speciality products are consumer products with unique characteristics or brand identification for which a significant group of consumers are willing to make a special purchase effort.

Examples include specific cars,professional photographic equipment, designer clothes etc.

4. Unsought products :

They are the products which consumers are usually not aware of or knows about but does not consider buying under normal conditions. Most new innovations are unsought until customers become aware of them.

Examples are insurance,pre-planned funeral services etc.

(d). Convenience and shopping products :

• Customer buying behaviour :

Convenience : low customer involvements,frequent buying,less planning,little judgement or shopping effort.

Shopping : Low frequent purchase,higher planning and shopping determination specially for comparison of brands and prices quality,style etc.

• Distribution and price :

Convenience : Low price, convenient locationsz general distributions.

Shopping : High price , careful delivery in less channels.

• Promotions :

Convenience : Bulk campaign by the manufacturer.

Shopping : personnel selling with advertising by the resellers and producers.

• Examples

Convenience : Laundry detergents, magazines, toothpaste.

Shopping : Major appliances, clothing, furniture, televisions.

" If you liked the answer please give an Up-Vote. it will be quite encouraging for me. You can also give feedback through the comment option. Thank you "