DECP supports IT-based Customer relationship management

DECP’s counterpart employers’organisations are – almost without exception – perennially plagued by financial problems. There are several reasons for this unfortunate situation, such as e.g. a lack of sufficient visibility. As a consequence, getting their members to pay their subscription fee - on time - is a familiar problem for most of DECP’s partners. 

Another reason is that most of them do not have an efficient system for storing information on contacts with their members. Such systems are available on the market, but they are expensive, so EO’s can’t afford them. Hence a vicious circle from which it is hard to escape.

In a serious attempt to break this vicious circle,  the employers’ section of ITC/ILO - after having made some inquiries with regard to feasibility and costs- with immediate support from DECP, ordered the development of a CRM-database for employers’ organisations based on open source which would substantially reduce the operational costs of such a system.

Such a CRM database has been developed and has been thoroughly tested in a series of pilot countries around the world. It is now being officially implemented. First in pilot countries, along with a training of staff. The pilot countries will keep records and send them in at set intervals. There is also a helpdesk answering questions and providing guidance that will keep records as well. This will lead to repeated updates of the database software.

The database itself is a modular system. If all modules are applied, it provides data storage, data retrieval and query possibilities that deal with all aspects of membership management and provide valuable statistics to manage the organisation effectively and efficiently.

No organisation is obliged to apply all modules immediately or at any time. During the training each organisation will be familiarised with the modules Membership (who is who), Billing, Activities and Marketing, with the extensive reporting facilities and with the possibilities to tailor (or ‘customize’) the database to their organisations’ needs.

DECP and ILO/ITC believe the system has the potential to make a substantial contribution to an improved customer relationship management.