CRM Strategies and Outcomes: A Case Study of FedEx Implementation

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of FedEx's implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. It begins with an abstract defining CRM and its role in enhancing communication and streamlining processes to improve profitability. The introduction highlights the importance of CRM in managing customer interactions and improving business relationships, using FedEx as a case study. A literature review explores the components of CRM, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs and adapting services accordingly. The report examines how FedEx adopted CRM to cut costs, utilize customer data for cross-selling, and improve customer service. The report delves into the implementation process, including the selection of Amdocs' ClarifyCRM suite, and discusses the positive outcomes, such as increased customer satisfaction, reduced call volumes, and lower employee turnover. The conclusion emphasizes the benefits of CRM in enhancing customer relations and driving business growth, underscoring the need for strategic planning and IT collaboration during implementation.

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CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
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Abstract
Customer Relationship Management as its name suggests helps the firms to deal with
customers and help in enhancing the communication of the firm. This has a great role to play
in the communications of the organization helping it to stay connected with the clients,
streamlining different processes at the same time improving profitability. CRM is said to be
as a perfect combination of different practices, technologies as well as strategies that
companies make use of to manage as well as analyze customer interactions. In this paper, the
use of CRM by FedEx has been considered to understand what benefits this provides to any
business. Lastly, the possible outcomes of the implementation of CRM have been given.

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Table of Contents
Abstract......................................................................................................................................1
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................3
Possible Outcomes.....................................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Customer relationship management or CRM refers to the approach that is undertaken
for managing a firm’s interaction with its existing as well as potential customers. This makes
use of data analysis that includes consumers’ details or rather history. This information is of
great help to the company as it improves business relationships. Organizations are rapidly
embracing CRM for bringing in changes in the operations of the company and enhancing the
customer relations with the customers. In this paper, the CRM implementation by FedEx will
be analyzed to understand the system’s contribution to customer satisfaction. The
implementation of CRM has many benefits to the company and these will be analyzed in the
work.
Literature Review
As per the research done by Hassan, Nawaz, Lashari & Zafar, (2015), the most
important component of CRM is people that not only includes the internal stakeholders but
also the outside stakeholders. As per the name suggests CRM is more customer-centric but
according to many this has a lot to do with the organizations as well. This can be said to as an
integration of people, processes as well as technology which helps to understand the needs of
the customers. The most important part of any business is to understand its target audience so
that the products and services offered can be modified or customized as per the needs and
preferences of the same. At present times, customers come up with various demands and a
company that succeeds to understand the changing demands of customers gets the
opportunity to capture the market. Application of CRM to business helps in enhancing the
relation between the customers and the organizations (Kim, Lee, Wang & Mirusmonov,
2015). FedEx Corporation launched a multimillion-dollar CRM initiative so that they could
cut on the costs and make use of the existing customer data for the purpose of cross-selling as

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well as up selling the services to the potential as well as the existing accounts. The company
opted to adopt this system so that data of its customers can be tailored in various different
ways. The systems’ potential to enhance the customer services is another major advantage
that the company wants to get (Reicher & Szeghegyi, 2015). The company can conduct
promotions as well as qualify for the potential sales leads.
Figure 1: CRM implementation criteria (Alamgir & Shamsuddoha, 2015)
As per the research done by Bahari & Elayidom, (2015), companies need to undergo
various changes for implementing CRM as this involves modifications in the current business
processes. FedEx implemented this system so that its customers’ could use the company’s
Web-based customer support system. At the time of implementation of the system, the
company expected that there will be 25 to 40 percent growth in its customers (Küpper et al.,
2015). The implementation of CRM can cut on costs of various operations and this can be the
best way to show the customers that the company is trying to adopt new technology for
enhancing their customer services. Studies suggest that implementation of CRM system can

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help a company to effectively manage its customers thus contributing to the growth of the
business. It is a vital aspect that in order to implement CRM an organization should find out
what type of CRM activities it wants in its organization and the way these will influence on
the performance of various operations. FedEx can study the purchasing behaviour of its
customers by the help of CRM system and this will give them the provision to bring in
changes in their services so that they could attract more customers. CRM system provides
various advantages to the organizations it is implemented in (Alamgir & Shamsuddoha,
2015). FedEx can be benefitted from the system in many different ways such as it will help
the company in getting to know its customers in a better way, it can segment its customers,
plan on customer retention, anticipate their needs and at the same time enhance
communication. The company’s main aim to focus on its relationship with the customers is
the main reason for adopting the new technology. The company can be attributed for its
initiative to provide better services to the customers, which not many company give
importance to. Excellence in service can be achieved by a company only when it thinks about
the service delivery from the viewpoint of the customers. CRM is the perfect system chosen
by the company for this purpose as this will help it in knowing more about the customers.
This system can help FedEx to achieve customer delight that is the condition in which actual
service performance outruns the service that was desired for. Generating loyalty is the main
aim of any business thus CRM system can be of great help for FedEx. Another major
consideration for implementing CRM that the company considered was the requirements for
this new system (Meyliana, Hidayanto & Budiardjo, 2016). The software to be implemented
needed to have an open architecture, be scalable in nature and at the same time the vendor
should be reliable so that it can build a strong relationship with the same. The company is
clear in its motive that it wants to build a strong relationship with its customers.

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Figure 2: Key success factor in CRM implementations (Pohludka & Štverková, 2019)
Possible Outcomes
In the year 2000, FedEx bought version 10 of Amdocs’ ClarifyCRM suite consisting
of different modules. From the different modules, the company made use of ClearCall Center,
ClearSales as well as ClearSupport. These modules were customized as per the needs of the
company and the purposes it required CRM for. After the implementation of the CRM
system, FedEx has given the provision to its customer service representative instant or
immediate access to the profile of customers (Cambra-Fierro, Centeno, Olavarria & Vazquez-
Carrasco, 2017). The profile of the customers provides much information to the customer
service representative such as number of the packages that are generally shipped by the
customer and the annual revenue of the customers as well. This helps the representative to
stay prepared when dealing with a client thus providing the required confidence to handle the
issues. The customers can now call on a single number for inquiring irrespective of the
problem, as it can be anything such as billing, packaging and many more. The
implementation of the CRM system helps the representatives to handle inquiries related to the
subsidiary of FedEx. The customizable nature of the software is beneficial for the company
as it can add its customizations as per the needs. Studies suggest that after implementing the
CRM system, customer satisfaction has grown up. The customers are satisfied with the

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company which can be concluded from the internal survey. As per the results of the internals
survey it can be said that the number of incoming calls have reduced by a value of 13%
(Pohludka & Štverková, 2019). The customers are well handled by the customer service
representative and the call does not need to be transferred. The turnover rate of the customer
service representative has gone down by almost 20%. The customer representatives are happy
with the implementation of the CRM system. The implementation of CRM thus can said to
have served two purposes that are enhancing the customer services and at the same time
making the service representative jobs better than before.
Conclusion
Thus it can be said, that implementation of CRM system has many benefits and
mainly enhances the relation of the customers with the company that in turn leads to the
growth of the firm. The implementation of CRM being a new technology does require some
changes in the organization along with knowledge management. The option to whether
outsource the CRM system or in-house is wholly on the business but it is better that the
leadership for this case is taken by the company itself. While planning as well as managing
the CRM system, businesses require partnering with their IT executives so that this new
technology can be implemented properly. FedEx successfully implemented the CRM system
as it never lost customer’s perspective during the whole project. Focusing on the project goal
can be said as the reason behind the success of FedEx to implement this new system. The
outcomes speak well about the achievement of the company to reach its goal.

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References
Alamgir, M., & Shamsuddoha, M. (2015). Customer relationship management (crm) success
factors: an exploratory study. Ecoforum Journal, 4(1), 7.
Bahari, T. F., & Elayidom, M. S. (2015). An efficient CRM-data mining framework for the
prediction of customer behaviour. Procedia computer science, 46, 725-731.
Cambra-Fierro, J. J., Centeno, E., Olavarria, A., & Vazquez-Carrasco, R. (2017). Success
factors in a CRM strategy: technology is not all. Journal of Strategic
Marketing, 25(4), 316-333.
Hassan, R. S., Nawaz, A., Lashari, M. N., & Zafar, F. (2015). Effect of customer relationship
management on customer satisfaction. Procedia economics and finance, 23(1), 563-
567.
Kim, C., Lee, I. S., Wang, T., & Mirusmonov, M. (2015). Evaluating effects of mobile CRM
on employees’ performance. Industrial Management & Data Systems.
Küpper, T., Eymann, T., Jung, R., Lehmkuhl, T., Walther, S., & Wieneke, A. (2015, March).
Measuring Social CRM Performance: A Preliminary Measurement Model.
In Wirtschaftsinformatik (pp. 887-901).
Meyliana, Ź., Hidayanto, A. N., & Budiardjo, E. K. (2016). The critical success factors for
customer relationship management implementation: a systematic literature
review. International Journal of Business Information Systems, 23(2), 131-174.
Pohludka, M., & Štverková, H. (2019). The best practice of CRM implementation for small-
and medium-sized enterprises. Administrative Sciences, 9(1), 22.

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Reicher, R., & Szeghegyi, Á. (2015). Factors affecting the selection and implementation of a
customer relationship management (CRM) process. Acta Polytechnica
Hungarica, 12(4), 183-200.