An Analysis Report
On Customer Relationship Management at
Aptech Ltd.
Submitted By:
Abhishek AnandAbhishek Dwivedi
Anshul Kumar Deepak Soni
Himanshu ChaudhryNikhil Raj
Priyanka Singh Sengar
(Group: CRM)
……………………………………………………………………………….
Batch: 2009-11
IILM Institute for Higher Education, Gurgaon
Acknowledgment
We express our hearty gratitude to our course instructor Mrs. Kavita Shukla, Assistant Professor, Department of Marketing Management – Institute for Higher Education, Gurgaon on her excellent guidance, constant advice and granting personal freedom in the course of this work.
Abhishek AnandAbhishek Dwivedi
Anshul Kumar Deepak Soni
Himanshu ChaudhryNikhil Raj
Priyanka Singh Sengar
Contents
Executive summary
Introduction
o Introduction to information technology Education Industry
o Structure of information technology Education Industry
CRM at Aptech Ltd
o Customer care at Aptech Ltd
o Classification of CRM at Aptech Ltd
Customer Response System (CRS) of Aptech Ltd
o Technology behind CRS
o CRS interface
o Knowledge management module
Customer feedback system
How does CRM work at Aptech Ltd
CRM implementation
Customer’s point of view
Profitability analysis for CRM at Aptech Ltd
Conclusion
References
Annexure
Executive Summary
A narrow perspective of customer relationship management is database marketing emphasizing
the promotional aspects of marketing linked to database efforts.
Another narrow, yet relevant, viewpoint is to consider CRM only as customer retention in which
a variety of after marketing tactics is used for customer bonding or staying in touch after the
sale is made.
An important facet of CRM is “customer selectivity”. As several research studies have shown
not all customers are equally profitable (In fact in some cases 80% of the sales come through
20% of the customers). The company must therefore be selective and tailor its program and
marketing efforts by segmenting and selecting appropriate customers for individual marketing
programs. In some cases, it could even lead to “outsourcing of some customers” so that a
company better utilize its resources on those customers it can serve better and create mutual
value. However, the objective of a company is not to really prune its customer base but to
identify appropriate customer programs and methods that would be profitable and create
value for the firm and the customer.
Two important processes for CRM include proactive customer business development and
building partnering relationship with most important customers. These lead to superior value
creation.
The case of APTECH Ltd. Deals with an organization in the intensely competitive information
technology education and software services industry. In such markets where technology is
changing by the minute, organizations take initiatives to obtain even the slightest competitive
edge. The company described in the case is in the process of implementing a Customer
Response System across its 1500 odd centers. The impact of such a move is being felt on
customer satisfaction ratings and the critical word of mouth that attracts new inquiries. There
are of course certain implementation issues to be tackled. In order to evaluate the system
implementation at test centers, and to work through the implementation in the remaining
centers. APTECH is considering some cultural and organizational issues within the organization.
Also, besides its relationships with customers, it is working on its relationship with business
partners and employees.
This report is an effort to list of the all essentials of Customer relationship management at
APTECH including tools such as a skilled customer care staff and leading edge automation and
workflow management software platforms. With these tools, it is possible for APTECH to track
sales enquiries, trouble tickets, emails, telephone calls, and customer satisfaction surveys.
Keeping in view the conceptual framework, it is also analyzed whether the heavy investments in
Information technology education sector, have been making to achieve long-term goals are the
best CRM strategies or whether less-costly projects with faster paybacks might make more
sense.
An by using secondary sources of data collection it was found out that APTECH is in the early
stages of implementing CRS, the only two parameters currently that they are looking at is the
response time and the resolution time on a feedback. As the system matures, two of the major
metrics that will be looked at is product delivery and time for delivery.
Introduction to Information technology Education Industry
Today, computers are not restricted to computer software field only; in fact they have become
a necessary part of every business industry. This has led to tremendous rise in the demand for
trained computer professionals. With the increasing focus on computer software development
by the Indian government and NASSCOM along with many software export houses, this demand
is bound to increase even further in the near future and in the years to come. The Indian
computer software industry itself has grown from a mere 0.3 billion ten years back to 70 billion
today.
The rapid growth of this industry has led to high growth in the computer education and
training business. Private institutes today produce about 65% of the software professionals and
remaining by government affiliated institutes. The growth in the demand in future is expected
to be spurred by the growth in the information technology sector both domestic and
international, which is growing by the rate of 30-40%.
The demand for computer software professionals has shown an increasing trend over the years.
As a result of this many entrepreneurs took to this opportunity and opened computer-training
institutes. Over the years these institutes have developed rapidly to become huge in terms of
their spread and the number of students churned out. Notably among them are companies like
NIIT, APTECH, SSI, TULEC, BITS, IEC, LCC, SOL-STAR etc.
Structure of information technology Education Industry
The information technology education industry in India is estimated to be around 625 crores.
Although there are many players, it is mainly dominated by NIIT and APTECH in the organised
sector. This sector is growing at the rate of 20%.
NIIT40%
APTECH30%
Others30%
Market Shares
NIIT APTECH Others
CRM at APTECH
“There are tow sides to APTECH’s business: student education, and corporate consultancy,
training, software, etc. Eighty percent of the students enroll at APTECH because of word of
mouth. There is qualitative and quantitative research. However, what experience was shared is
not documented. Therefore, we now have a system known as Customer Response System (CRS)
that captures any suggestion, complaint or query made by a student. As far as reusable
templates are concerned, they are widely used in e-commerce and ERP solutions. For ERP
solution we have an e-link template that reduces development time by sixty percent. We also
have a service portal where plug and play solutions can be downloaded. As far as students are
concerned CRM is providing unlimited access to anyone in the organisation.”
Aptech CRM: customer care
Firstly, APTECH was in the knowledge management business.
There was a need to be able to practice what one preached.
Secondly, there was the business imperative. The need to be at
the vanguard of the quality initiatives was recognised. There
were already manual systems in place, both formal and
informal. Formal mechanisms included feedback forms, while
informal channels included faculty interaction and open
houses. However, these contained an element of subjectivity. If a student had a good rapport
with the centre staff his/her feedback, complaints, suggestions, and queries were paid
cognisance.
A need was felt for more quantifiable metric. Students, being young, are wary of expressing
their concerns. An element of monotony had crept into the manual systems – students said
what they were expected to say. In the feedback forms emphasis was placed on the contents of
the course.
Classification of CRM at APTECH
There are two units of CRM – CRS and CAS. Using CRS, a student gives feedback on the Centre,
Product, People, and Specific Issues, Product Design, and General Management for Monitoring
Centre Performance, Improving or revamping the product, making policy decisions, and for
Overall improvement in delivery process using this feedback. Where policy decisions are taken,
they affect CAS (Centre Automation System) and RAS (Regional Automation System) and
changes are incorporated as necessary.
The second unit CAS (Centre Automation System) is the database of the students. Currently this
database is used by Centre Personnel for student tracking and by the R.O. for monitoring centre
performance in terms of product delivery. The plan is to have a web interface, so that students
can access their information on a limited basis. This will help the student o judge his/her
current status and accordingly plan if any corrective action is required. E-mail facility is already
available for APTECH members, so that the student can consult the respective Faculty/Centre
Personnel in case any assistance is required for planning.
It is also planned to use the available information and extend the concept to a call centre., so
those inquiries can be directed to the nearest point, as convenient to them. Company also plans
to use the database being built up for alumni, so that students placed by them can be given
value added inputs on a time to time basis, depending on their requirements and current job
profile.
Customer Response System (CRS)
CRS at Aptech is a customer service solution and not a data crunching operation. It covers three
locations: centre, regional office, and head office. In the centers and the regional offices CRS
consists of Client Service Module, while in the head office it consists of Client Server as well as
Knowledge Management modules. There are multiple objectives of CRS:
Provide sufficient information, through an easy to access interface, to the customer for
judging their current status and make a plan for the future based on the same
Provide an interface for the customer to communicate his/her views on the service received
by them.
Have a mechanism in place to capture warning signals at an early stage to enable proactive
preventive action.
Technology behind CRS
At Aptech , the Client Server module has a back end developed in Oracle, and a front end
developed in Powerbuilder. The Knowledge Management module is developed in Lotus Notes.
In each centre CRS is linked to the Centre Automation System. In the regional office it is linked
to the regional automation system. The Client-Server module has various screens like review
categories/notifications – Exception, Today’s Feedback, Awaiting Rectification, Ratified and
Pending Closure.
New FEEDBACK by student
Notification to SRO/CHException
Today’s Feedback
Awaiting Ratification
Ratified
Pending Closure
Actions/Investigation
CRS Interface
At the centre level, students, student relationship officer (SRO) and administrators interface
with the system. Features at the centre level – there is a complaint registering facility for
students. The system provides accessibility to all students. It enables ease of complaint retrieval
by centre management. Analysis report on the complaints can be generated. Also, exception
reports can be produced. There is a complaint closure facility. The student ratifies all
complaints. The student receives a complaint acknowledgement.
A facility to send reminders/repeat a complaint has been provided. The student receives
intimation for ratification of redressed. The SRO/Centre Head is notified of all complaints. There
is facility to request for immediate regional office/head office intervention by SRO/Centre Head.
Dynamic querying on complaint data can be done. A facility to query on complaint status and
for forced closure of feedback has been provided.
Features at the regional office level – Complaint entry by regional office personnel is possible.
The feature of automatic escalation of complaints has been provided. Analysis reports across
Exception
Today’s Feedback
Awaiting Ratification
Ratified
Pending Closure
centres and analysis reports can be generated. The regional office has access to complaint
information from all centres, updated weekly. There is a facility to find out details of complaints
logged earlier by a student while receiving a complaint. Dynamic querying on complaint data
and query on complaint status are possible. Personnel at the regional office level can
participate in discussions to resolve complaints and be informed about action taken at the head
office. They also have access to knowledge repositories at head office.
CRS reports – The different reports generated by the CRS system are:
Complaint Category wise Frequency Analysis, Cycle Time for Redressal Analysis, Status Report,
Status Statistics, Complaint Details, Exception report, Complaint recurrence analysis, and Root
Cause Analysis
Knowledge management module
The Knowledge management module can be viewed from two perspectives – User and
Knowledge administrator/integrator. The architecture of the Knowledge Management module
is shown in Exhibit 3. Mr. Jahangir Kazimi, Solution Architect of the Knowledge Management
Module says that from users, perspective it consists of six links:
Discussion Group
Knowledge Repository
Latest Updates
Best Practices
FAQs
Authors/
ContributorsExperts
Oracle Application
Customer Feedback System at Aptech Ltd
Discussion group: feedback is grouped by category, by centre, region, or author. It is possible
to trace the thread of a compliant. Where it originated, who responded first, next and so on?
The status of a feedback can be discerned. One of the options under discussion group is Priority
Issues - This contains complaints that are not resolved for a certain number of days. Once a
discussion is concluded more responses are not required.
Knowledge Repository: Once a feedback is closed it may or may not be knowledge enriching.
If it is generally applicable it undergoes a process of cleansing and filtering and is then stored in
the Knowledge Repository. The default view is my view. This consists of the tasks allotted to the
user by the knowledge integrator. There is a blank format tat the user can fill in. the user can
also initiate a request to the author. All documents go through a two-stage validation process.
Each document has to have an approver. The approved document is then forwarded to the
knowledge integrator for incorporation in the Knowledge Repository.
Knowledge
Repository
Users
Exception
Reports
Latest Updates: Contains complaints by category e.g. by author. There are various ways of
presenting information.
Best Practices: There are various document forms such as Best Practice, root cause, and
problem-solution.
Besides these five options there are search mechanisms. There are different search features.
One way is to search for a key word in the entire document. Another way is to search for
keywords assigned by the author.
How does CRM work for Aptech Ltd
The knowledge integrator validates the structure and the content of Best Practice, Root cause,
and Problem Solution documents. The knowledge integrator acts as a link between the
Knowledge management and the Client Server modules. The functions of the knowledge
integrator are two fold. First, he/she acts as a facilitator, ensuring that the right people interact
to find the correct solution. He/she acts as a moderator – closing, declaring and concluding
discussions.
The knowledge integrator can notify employees, with a date by which to contribute, if they are
not participating on a certain issue. Second, the knowledge integrator drives what is happening
in the forums. Whether a feedback is knowledge enriching or not is not a black and white issue.
Therefore, there is the concept of a brewing tank. Knowledge is created, captured and stored.
No immediate decision is taken on putting it in the Knowledge Repository. It is possible that
after the review of the expired discussions, some knowledge item is placed in the Knowledge
Repository.
Implementation of CRM at Aptech Ltd
There are Faculty, Counselor, Administrative Staff and other category of members in a centre. It
was imperative that all members of the Centre were convinced about this system. To achieve
this an exhaustive session was conducted to all members of the Centre covering the various
aspects of the system and the advantages of the system. The main challenge was to remove the
phobia of COMPLAINT and replace this as a suggestion for improvement. This cannot be
achieved in one round of training. atleast 2 to 3 rounds of training are conducted, which was
reinforced by the top management, whenever a communication took place. Once the centre
staff was convinced, and then the second step of introducing the system to the students was
undertaken. This was 2-step procedure:
(a) Publicise the existence of the system for the usage of the students. This was done
(i) By putting up posters in the centre
(ii) Announcing in the classes by the faculty
(iii) Informing them during informal meeting by counselors, Centre Head, etc
(b) Encourage the students to use the system, by promptly attending to the feedbacks
received.
Since the CRS was coupled with CAS no additional infrastructural requirement was there to
implement CRS in the Centre. The whole process of implementation in the Centre took roughly
one calendar month time.
The Customer’s viewpoint:
Few students of APTECH franchised centre where CRS had not yet been installed and few
students from a centre run directly by APTECH where CRS where CRS went online were
interviewed to understand its immediate impact. Students from the first type of centers were
highly dissatisfied because their basic expectations in terms of service and facilities were not
met, they didn’t know anything about CRS or any system by which they can give the feedback
on which some meaningful action can be taken. They were also not at all sure if the franchised
centre would act on the feedback. While students from APTECH run centers were highly
satisfied with the facilities and services as they exceeded their expectations. They started using
the system in the 4th week of April 2000 and have found it very useful. They have seen the
actions been taken very fast on the issues raised by them in the CRS.
Analyzing Profitability for CRM at APtech Ltd
There are organizational constraints encountered in execution of CRM programs. Mainly they
are as follows:
A mismatch between resource allocated and service levels desired for building customer
relationship
Absence of financial business case and ROI for investments in Customer Relationship
Horizontal non alignment of organisations to customers line of sight
Balance to be achieved between maximisation of revenue and customer satisfaction.
Direct selling machinery would have costs that are significantly higher than referral sale – hence
the need to invest in customer relationship with an eye on acceleration of referrals so as to
bring down costs or increase productivity of sales. Figure1 illustrates the phenomenon that
Aptech ltd can drive referral sale line in a manner that can reduce time T1 and with that in
figure 1(a) the overall unit selling cost (average of direct sales cost + referral sale cost) can be
reduced with higher sales productivity.
Figure 2 illustrates that with a given investment in direct sale channel the productivity can at
best be only slightly increasing line, while a referral line will be an exponentially increasing
trend line with growing subscriber numbers. Aptech’s dependency on direct sale can gradually
be reduced since they stand to account for reduced numbers in the overall sums.
Sale
Unit
Direct sale
Referral Sale
TimeT1
Figure 2
Benefit Parameters:
Reduction in staff cost
Enhanced productivity (subscriber to agent ratio)
Quicker turnaround times
Saving due to call handling by alternate channels
Better Customer Relations
Churn Prevention
Segmented Promotions
Conclusions
The primary requirement for any system to get implemented successfully is the buy – in process
of the end user. The complete success depends upon how much the user is convinced about
the benefits of the system to be implemented. For CRS at Aptech, there are 3 users namely:
Student, Centre Head and Student Relation Officer.
Through word of mouth among the students the usage of CRS as a platform for communicating
the feedback to the centre is increasing on day-to-day basis. Since APTECH is in the early stages
of implementing CRS, the only two parameters currently that they are looking at is the response
time and the resolution time on a feedback. As the system matures, two of the major metrics
that will be looked at is product delivery and time for delivery.
References
Books
Sheth, J. N. and Parvatiyar, A. ‘Relationship Marketing in Consumer Markets: Antecedents
and Consequences', Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
Jagdish And Sheth, Atul Parvatiyar, G Shainesh, ‘CRM Emerging Concepts, Tools and
Applications’
Websites
Official website: Aptech Global Learning Solutions: Retail & Corporate education: www.aptech-
worldwide.com/: Accessed on 17 January, 2011 at 6.09 p.m.
Other Websites:
www.crmassist.com
www.crmguru.com
www.crmfoundation.com
www.crmindia.org
www.crmsearch.com
www.crmcommunity.com
www.CRM-forum.com
Annexure
Sample Questionnaire asked to 10 employees across Aptech Ltd in order to analyze their CRM system they are working on.
1. What are the various CRM initiatives undertaken by the firm?
2. How do they develop these programs?
3. How do they measure the effectiveness of these programs?
4. How successful are these programs in retaining customers?
5. What are the quality and customer centric processes that they follow?
6. How do they decide the technology that is to be implemented?
7. What steps have they undertaken for employee empowerment?
8. What strategy do they follow to acquire more knowledge about the customer?
