e-Customer Relationship Management with Special Reference to Commonwealth Bank of Australia

This report analyzes the impact of e-CRM on Commonwealth Bank of Australia. It discusses the e-technology opportunities faced by the bank, e-CRM initiative implemented by the bank, ethical issues and e-CRM implementation, and the success of implemented e-CRM initiative.

E-CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Commonwealth Bank of Australia..............................................................................................4
e-Technology Opportunities faced by the Bank..............................................................................5
Technology of Blockchain...........................................................................................................5
Digital and Mobile Banking........................................................................................................5
Banking through Wearable..........................................................................................................6
Partnership through e- Technologies...........................................................................................6
E-CRM Initiative Implemented by the Bank...................................................................................6
Commbank app............................................................................................................................7
NetBank.......................................................................................................................................7
Wearables and Digital Wallets....................................................................................................7
Commbank Youth app.................................................................................................................8
Ethical Issues and e-CRM Implementation.....................................................................................8
Use of Customer Data for Banking Purpose................................................................................9
Privacy Issue................................................................................................................................9
Disposing Customer’s Data without their Knowledge..............................................................10
The success of Implemented e-CRM Initiative.............................................................................10
Increased in Customers..............................................................................................................11
Increased Sales Revenue............................................................................................................11
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Increased Rate of Accuracy.......................................................................................................11
Recommendations..........................................................................................................................12
Bibliography..................................................................................................................................13
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Introduction
Electronic customer relationship management is commonly known as e-CRM. It is the process,
which helps in maintaining a customer relationship with the help of e technologies like emails,
chats, websites, social media, online transactions and many more. The process is well-structured
and included a series of steps that connect the organization to its customers through electronic
ways. Electronic ways mainly include CRM through internet, intranet, and extranet. Its main aim
is to maintain a healthy relationship between a company and its customers (Grandori, 2010). In
this project, report impact of e-CRM on commonwealth bank of Australia is analyzed. In order to
identify the extent to which the bank is involved in e-CRM practices and is successful.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Commonwealth Bank of Australia is an international bank that is headquartered in Australia. It
was founded in the year 1911 by the Australian government and is privatized in the year 1996.
Its main functions are to provide various integrated financial services to its customers that
include retail, business, and premium banking, Management of funds, superannuation, services
related to insurance, share broking of products and services and investment options (Commbank,
2019).
The services provided by the bank to its customers are from both the ways that are manually and
electronically. On the other hand, the relationship maintained by the bank with its customers is
also by these two ways. In this report, electronic way adopted by commonwealth bank is going to
analyse effectively.
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e-Technology Opportunities faced by the Bank
In the world and the Australian economy, there are many technological changes taking place.
Various advanced technologies are being discovered frequently nowadays and being adopted by
various companies in order to be maintained competitive in the market. Commonwealth Bank of
Australia is also not behind in this phenomenon. The bank is adopting such technologies by
grabbing the various opportunities available in the market (Commbank, 2019). Available e-
opportunities in the market that the bank can work open are as follows:
Technology of Blockchain
This technology is now days gaining its pace rapidly. It is a chain that decentralizes the series of
tasks of a company from top management to different levels of management, through a
Blockchain on different networks of that management level. This makes the work less
burdensome and more efficient. In this technology, the transactions related to finance divided
into small-encrypted blocks or packets and in turn added together in order to form a chain of
blocks by using computer codes. These are encrypted especially for maintaining higher
cybersecurity for the user. With the help of this technology, the Commonwealth Bank of
Australia can connect the network of its different levels electronically and maintain a link among
them (Tan & Trang, 2017).
Digital and Mobile Banking
Now a day there is an increase in the use of digital banking as well as mobile banking by the
people in the world. This is possible due to the increase in the use of internet services and the
convenience of doing the transaction anytime (Commbank, 2019). With this view, the
Commonwealth Bank of Australia has the opportunity to adopt this type of banking. Infect the
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bank have already started the use of these types of banking and made their working smooth and
easy.
Banking through Wearable
It means the innovation of wearable with the capacity of doing the task of banks electronically
like watches, electronic bands, etc. This is now days gaining the interest of many customers. As
wearable is not hard to carry and can be used anytime with the help of internet services. These
wearables can be smartwatches, which are launched by Samsung insights and some other
companies also. In this can get personal greetings and promotional messages from the bank when
they are near to radar of that bank (Commbank, 2019). The commonwealth bank of Australia can
adopt this good opportunity and make its relationship with customers more easily and
effectively.
Partnership through e- Technologies
It is also considered to be a great opportunity for commonwealth bank of Australia as nowadays
the banks are getting involved with other financial and investment institutions in order to serve
and engage more customers by providing the services of both the partner companies through
different electronic modes. This can help the bank to engage more customers and build healthy
relationships with them (Tan & Trang, 2017).
E-CRM Initiative Implemented by the Bank
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has launched an initiative of “Engaging More Customers
Online”. With this initiative, the bank can have an increase in their loyal customers and can
maintain healthy and effective relations with them. It can be possible by satisfying the needs and
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wants of customers with the help of various electronic options (Chong et al., 2016). Hence the
process of reaching the establishes initiative of Commonwealth Bank of Australia is, the
significant increase and innovation in the delivery of electronic services by the bank to their
customers. The electronic services that the bank planned to offer its customers are:
Commbank app
Commonwealth Bank of Australia provides a mobile application to its consumers that is named
as “Commbank app”. This is the official application for the customers of the bank. With this
application, the bank provides many services to its clients. With this, the customers can simply
and quickly made payments of various types like paying bills, paying for shopping, paying for
entertainment, etc. This also provides the customer with the opportunity of transfer of money
from one account to another bank account through various RTGS methods. Due to the customers
can invest in various options and can check their balance anytime.
NetBank
Commonwealth Bank of Australia in order to engage and maintain healthy relations with their
customers provides them the facility of net banking. In this facility, they allow the customers to
make use of banking functions through online models. The online modes can be partner transfer
companies of the network for payment (Jara et al., 2012). With this net banking, option the
customer of the bank can manage their finances through mobiles and computers. Make digital
payments and its best for making them quick and without going anywhere.
Wearables and Digital Wallets
In order to establish the mentioned initiative of engaging more customers online, the
Commonwealth Bank of Australia has adopted this method also. As already described in the
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above sections that the market opportunity of wearables is very influential nowadays for the
company, however, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has already adopted this opportunity
and acted upon it. These modes of banking include the use of mobile phones and laptops for
making cashless payments by customers. They are secure and involve less time as compared to
going to the bank and doing these things manually. This also allows customers to check the
balance of their accounts and manage their budget accordingly. Customers can do this with the
help of smartwatches, smartphones, and laptops.
Commbank Youth app
This bank also provides an application, especially for its young customers to make the process of
transaction easy and smooth for them. This also helps the bank in engaging more customers and
maintains relationships with them. With this application, the bank provides the opportunity for
young children in order to explain them and build the habit of saving and spending appropriately.
It can also help them in learning the right way of spending money and other finance-related
important but basic things.
Ethical Issues and e-CRM Implementation
Commonwealth Bank of Australia is a very large and continually growing bank in Australia and
all over the work. For the success of every business apart from its functions, the other important
character is to maintain healthy relations with their customers (Government, 2019). Customer
relationship management is considered influential for both the customers and the management of
the bank. It is the way of building healthy relationships between the organization and its
customers, when it is done through the means of electronic media then this relationship is known
as e-CRM (Hobday, 2018). As discussed above in the Commonwealth of Australia e-CRM is
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done by the bank by providing many electronic-based services to their customers and letting
them conduct transaction anytime and from anywhere (Chonko & Hunt, 2018).
It is considered that when the company focuses on providing e-CRM services to its customers,
that time they unintentionally influence the principles of ethics. Due to this, they might
sometimes behave unethically, which in turn can hamper their own image in the market. It goes
same for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. In order to accomplish its e-CRM functions, the
bank might sometimes unintentionally behave unethically. The basic ethical issues that can be
faced by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia are of the following kind:
Use of Customer Data for Banking Purpose
When the Commonwealth Bank of Australia let, the customers to use its services through online
mode, then at that time customers need to provide some crucial information regarding them and
their account in order to login the online portal of the bank that they are going to use (Batenburg
et al., 2013). It is the same for every other bank, however the bank in turn unintentionally,
recorded information of the customer in their database and in any case, that information might be
getting used by the bank in future. This is considered as unethical as the bank can use the
customer’s information without their permission, which is unethical in nature (Cunningham &
Others, 2012).
Privacy Issue
This issue can also be considered as the unethical factor in the process of e-CRM practices
adopted by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. In order to provide customers with the
suitability of accomplishing their financial task with the help of electronic sources the bank have
provided, the bank might expose its customers to various hackers present in the economy
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(Dannemiller et al., 2017). This makes the privacy an ethical issue, as the customers can lose
their data or there can be breached by internet experts anytime (Anon., 2019).
Disposing Customer’s Data without their Knowledge
When commonwealth bank of Australia is focusing on providing electronic services to its
customers, it takes their data in its storage. However, it made already clear in the above lines that
the collected data by the bank of customers can be breached or used by the bank for their own
use. Sometimes the bank also disposes of the data of customers without informing them. This is
done when the customer does not do any transaction form a long time. In this case, the bank
removes the data of customers from their mainframe. Moreover, keep it in the warehouse pit of
the bank. From there after a long time, the data me gets disposed of in the future. This is also
considered unethical (McKinley, 2012).
The success of Implemented e-CRM Initiative
From a long time, the banks are providing their customers with various e-CRM services. As it is
going on for a long time, it is becoming the common practice among various banks as well as
their customers also. Now day’s customers also fell convenient to use various e technologies the
banks are offering them, as this makes life easy and less hectic. Earlier it is discussed that the
commonwealth bank of Australia is also using various e-CRM practices in order to engage as
many customers as they can and to gain a competitive advantage over other banks. With the
implementation of the e-CRM program the bank has achieved success in many ways.
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Increased in Customers
Due to practices of e-CRM, which are implemented by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia,
the bank is able to build healthy relationships with its customers. This facilitates the bank to
engage more customers from before. Now they can connect to bank with actually going to the
branch (Lumen, 2019). They can conduct transactions smoothly and without the involvement of
long lines and waiting. As customers can experience all banking activities of the commonwealth
bank of Australia at one place only in their digital instrument, this is increasing the customers for
bank day by day. In this way, the success of the implemented e-CRM program by the bank can
be assessed and analyzed.
Increased Sales Revenue
With the help of implemented e-CRM initiative, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia is getting
success in many ways. From a while, the bank has started engaging customers digitally. It helped
them in increasing customers to serve and earn profits (Briere et al., 2015). With the increase in
the number of customers, the sale of different products of the bank also increases, this, in turn,
the revenue of the bank also increases. With this increased revenue, the bank is now able to
attain a competitive advantage over other banks and gradually becoming one of the market
leaders.
Increased Rate of Accuracy
The bank planned to implement its e-CRM initiative of engaging more customers online, before
that, the bank was facing the issue of data manipulation and inaccuracy. However, with the
implementation of this program, the bank is now able to maintain and analyze the records of its
customers and their transaction through its software (Brands, 2015). The computer is now
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keeping the calculations and records and software, which cannot forge or manipulate the records
and the accuracy of making use of them, has increased (Institute, 2015).
Recommendations
In every type of company, marketing is considered one of the core functions of the company.
Similarly, in banks, also marketing is the core of their business. In order to do marketing
activities effectively, it is important to maintain relationships with customers that are known as
CRM (Juneja, 2018). As the name suggests CRM is the responsibility of the bank to maintain
relations with its customers (Hastie & Dawes, 2010). In order to do so, the bank has
implemented an electronic customer relationship management initiative that helped the bank in
increasing its customers and revenues. It also helped the bank to increase the accuracy of various
transactions, on the other hand, the forgery and manipulation also are decreased.
In order to improve its e-CRM practices in future the bank should adopt the following measures:
Advanced Cybersecurity: In order to improve its e-CRM practices, it is advised to
commonwealth bank of Australia to increase the security of its cyber tools, which are used in
engaging the customers online.
Effective Leadership: In order to have an effective and efficient e-CRM program, the
employees of Commonwealth Bank of Australia need to be motivated and monitored regularly
and this can be done by the bank with the help of effective leadership (Banfield & Kay, 2012).
Customer Review based Services: With an increase in getting time-to-time reviews from
customers and improving the functions accordingly, the bank can maintain a good relationship
with its employees.
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