Alessio Cattaneo was born in Lecco in 1976. After earning a degree in Political Science from the University of Milan, in 2001 he joined the operational marketing team at Yoda, a consulting company specialized in Relationship Marketing and CRM. The following year, he moved to the Milan office of Netscalibur, where he supported the Product Manager in marketing activities. He joined Mastercom at the end of 2002 as Product Manager for the GDO sector, and in 2005 took on his current role as Business Development Manager.
How does the Italian CRM market present itself and what are the prospects?In Italy, big companies are now structured with complex management systems that include solutions for Customer Service, Campaign Management, and Sales Force management. However, information related to customer, partner, or supplier contact moments often remains fragmented in different databases, has different formats, and is not interconnected. Hence, sometimes the idea or myth arises of a centralized, unique, and easy-to-manage database capable of integrating multiple sources, interacting with data mining and campaign management systems, and solving all the customer management needs. Unfortunately and fortunately, a miraculous solution does not exist. The perspectives of the Italian CRM market therefore necessarily move towards the development of integrated platforms in which the technologies needed to channel and manage customer information and oversee processes and many contact channels are built on the mechanisms of those who have to use them later.What relationship do companies have with this market?A love-hate relationship. The advantages are perceived, but both the organizational impacts and the investments required to adopt a customer-centric approach—which is the starting point for every CRM strategy—continue to be intimidating. Communication processes and management of requests need to be revised, working with a broader perspective that includes both the customer’s lifetime value (LTV) and the value of the relationship and experience that the customer builds and carries with them. In fact, today, when we talk about CRM, we must increasingly think of relationship projects that have managerial, relational, and emotional impacts. This is why a multidisciplinary and multi-vendor approach becomes fundamental, involving key company roles (marketing, IT, Operations, Help desk) on one hand and different technologies and tools supporting new processes on the other, which must have tangible and quantifiable returns in the short term. Implementing quality management processes, monitoring service levels, internal audits, LTV analysis—all these aspects concern CRM in its broadest sense, the one Mastercom embraced in developing its Customer Listening platform.What is Mastercom’s vision?Companies place their competitiveness on the market on the quality of service. The perception of the service provided is the company’s calling card, and we still have a lot of work to do in this direction: on one side, there is the service, meaning processes, contact methods, company openness, mindset; on the other side, there is the customer’s perception, emotion, experience, and the ongoing story of every interaction moment. The attention so often discussed today towards the customer should go in this direction, whether we talk about large companies or small and medium businesses: providing responses to customers, not making them wait interminable minutes on the phone, rewarding their experience, valuing relational moments.Who is your typical customer?Our CRM platform (Customer Listening System) is a modular solution independent of hardware and operating systems, so it adapts to companies of all sizes that see customer management as an opportunity for business growth. From small companies that need to structure themselves with a solution for managing customer calls (inbound) or potentially increase their sales abilities through telemarketing (outbound), to medium companies that want to support their customer service or improve its performance and therefore need call/contact center systems, trouble ticketing solutions, or frequently asked questions (FAQ) management. And finally, large companies needing more complex solutions to manage data and content in an advanced way.Who are your competitors?There are many competitors: consulting companies, VARs of large management software, software houses, hardware resellers, service companies (direct marketing). In short, anyone offering a product or expertise to manage the customer relationship within the company or an aspect/process/channel with more or less significant impacts on the entire organization. These companies often show the limits of certain approaches tied to the “product to sell” rather than customizations to be made, or consulting days at the expense of revising processes, or an approach that tries to grasp the actual situation with all the impacts and consequences on problem management, workflow, timing for handling activities, and to develop the best project focusing on process optimization, continuous activity monitoring, interaction and communication analysis. In other words, the best quality of service delivered and perceived.What does Mastercom offer compared to competitors present in Italy, and why choose you?Compared to companies that provide technological solutions, we have expertise in processes and direct experience derived from being born as CRM service providers—services we still deliver for clients like Wind and Enel using our CRM platform, the Customer Listening System. Compared to consulting companies, the differential is precisely the fact that we developed the support tool ourselves for CRM projects and therefore are not forced to adapt to a product developed by others, and we have the possibility to achieve very high levels of customization thanks to the internal skills we have also acquired in the technical area.What are the sector’s innovations?More than involving the CRM sector itself in the sense of original proposals for solutions or services, the innovations have rather concerned the tools for managing customer relationships. Just think about the introduction of VOiP technology, whose spread will increasingly impact the costs of managing relationships through telephone channels. Not coincidentally, we have natively integrated it in the new release of our Contact Center solution, using it ourselves in our Call Center since last July when we moved to the new location in Assago.How did last year go and what are your future goals?2006 confirmed the growth trend that has characterized Mastercom since its foundation in 1999. Revenues reached 3.77 million Euros, and we consolidated our structure by purchasing a new site in Assago that allowed us to expand the Call Center. Additionally, we invested heavily in R&D to introduce new technologies into our platform and in training to improve the quality of the services we provide to third parties. Future goals foresee expansion into foreign markets. The first test will challenge us shortly, thanks to an Italian company that asked us to implement our solution abroad.
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