Getting the most from your CRM; just because you acquired a system does not mean you are using it to maximum advantage. We asked three banks with CRM to explain what extra steps they had to initiate in order to achieve full utilization.

• Author: Sablosky, Tanja Lian
• Position: Technology - Customer relationship management

Let's say you had a customer who phoned your call center every two weeks on a Tuesday and requested a transfer from one account to another. If you knew those calls were coming in like clockwork, you might be able to help the customer find a better way to conduct these transactions. But, would you even know that these calls were coming in?

Or, say you had a customer who came into your branch and was turned down for a loan. Would you know that he had applied for another loan and had been approved at your branch across town?

Relationship managers are said to know their customers best of all, but do they know everything about their customers, their interactions with the bank, and how to capitalize on opportunities to improve those relationships?

A fully functional customer relationship management (CRM) system tracks customer needs and wants, and equips your entire staff with clear knowledge of each customer. Getting your CRM to that point, however, calls for planning, vision and commitment. We recently spoke to three banks that operate successful CRM systems, or combined CRM/marketing customers information file (MCIF) systems, and asked them to relate what it took--and continues to take--to achieve full benefits. Their stories follow.

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First Reliance Bank, Florence S.C. Assets: $284 million

At First Reliance Bank, a customer did call every two weeks to request a funds transfer. But at the bank, the call center logs in every customer call and the pattern was noticed.

It seems the customer was using the call center to transfer payroll funds. The relationship manager diplomatically raised the question with the customer and came up with a better solution--for everyone. He provided the customer with software and showed him how to operate it so the customer could conduct his own transfers from his office. The call center was relieved of a call they really shouldn't have been handling on a regular basis, the expense of those calls was eliminated, the customer was elated to be independent and to have been noticed by the relationship manager, and the relationship manager was a hero.

Solutions like this can happen when CRM is working at a very high level. But there are ways you can fail to get the most from your CRM system, too, even with the best intentions--for example, by leaving decision-makers out of the loop.

From the beginning, First Reliance's strategy was to set up a system and immediately incorporate all of the institution's departments. The only way that works is having in place dedicated staff members with CRM experience to handle the early stages of the system, both from a culture standpoint (including training, staffing and launching implementation) and a technological standpoint. That, and the full commitment of leadership to back and support the new system.

Aggressively incorporating all the departments meant selecting and putting a system in place in the fall of 2004 and having it up and running with everyone on board by March 2005. First Vice President D. Lee Daugherty says, "Our goal...