Newsroom

Customer relationship management guru Chris Dobson has claimed that having constraints on resources can be a good thing for some businesses.

Speaking at Data Summit 2010, Dobson, who is currently head of CRM at National Express, explained that sometimes restricted resources help firms to focus attention on the value that they have.

"There is only a finite resource and all monies need to be spent in the best way for continued success. Although I have my own area's budget to manage, I need to ensure that it is being spent in the most effective way business wide - and if that means giving some to another area to get a better return, then that is something I would recommend," said Dobson.

He also explained that during his first job at Britannia Building Society he learnt that a customer-first approach was the only business strategy for aspirational companies.

"It really opened my eyes as to how different each customer is and that treating everyone as individuals is the only way forward. Their 'plus one' approach to customers will always stay with me," he added.

Dobson also outlined his business strategy for National Express saying that value-adding programmes and well planned sustained improvements would strengthen the company and help it to grow in the future.

"I want National Express CRM to be one of the most intuitive and value- adding programmes there is, from both a business and customer perspective," he explained.

"I am aiming to see continual improvement in all aspects. We need to ensure that the data we hold is accurate and value adding, we need to understand gaps and ways to fill them, we need to understand behavioural drivers more and use the learning for future activity, and we need to increase the relevance of our CRM activity.

"Everything we do should stem from this. Is the data as accurate as possible? Is the proposition correct? Are we speaking in the right tone? Is it the right time to speak to a customer? My main issue is seeing how much potential there is to improve, yet finding time to progress at the pace I want."