Customer Relationship Management (CRM) refers to the methodologies and tools that help businesses manage customer relationships in an organized way. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is a process or methodology used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. There are many technological components to CRM, but thinking about CRM in primarily technological terms is a mistake. The more useful way to think about CRM is as a process that will help bring together lots of pieces of information about customers, sales, marketing effectiveness, responsiveness and market trends. CRM helps businesses use technology and human resources to gain insight into the behavior of customers and the value of those customers. Customer Relationship Management is becoming a common and important concept in many industries. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the art and science of building profitable and mutually beneficial relationships with your customers.
CRM applications, also known as front-office applications, help organizations manage critical customer relationships by supporting all customer-centric processes within an enterprise, including marketing, sales, and customer support. A CRM solution enables a company which has problems retaining existing customers or has an unsophisticated marketing strategy, to identify the customer demographics they can target and help pinpoint the direct causes of customer attrition. These systems are created for and utilized by customers, partners, and prospects to gather product and service information, obtain pricing quotes, place and track orders, solve product- and service-related problems and questions, and much more.
[...] The CRM project team must consist of successful salespeople, customer reps, knowledgeable users, data analysts and the CRM package expert. The team must be aware of what can and cannot be done with CRM, and what its problems are. Management must be appropriately educated on what to expect and not to expect. They must be made aware of their commitment. Time spent in education is never wasted. Problem - The Scope of the CRM Project is Inappropriate-- While the proper choice of scope is critical to all projects, doubtless dating from the very earliest systems, the correct CRM focus should be based on customer expectations, which could vary with the customer segments in your industry. [...]
[...] According to Payne (1994), customer prospecting plays a key role at the beginning of the CRM process. Thomas (2001) has examined a methodology for linking customer acquisition to customer retention. He found that customer acquisition and retention are not independent processes. Using the model described in his study, Thomas (2001) shows the financial impacts of not accounting for the effect of acquisitions on customer retention. Relations with Customers The relations with customers component of CRM concerns the extent to which firms initiate, develop, maintain, and improve relationships with other firms .Most definitions that can be found in the literature regard relations with customers as representing the keystone of CRM. [...]
[...] Several functionalities are mentioned below: Service Order Management Service Contract Management Planned Services management Warranty Management Installed Base (Equipment) Management Resource Planning and Scheduling Knowledge Management Call Center Support Resource Planning and Workforce Management Channels of communication It is also important to mention here that a CRM system is capable of executing all the three sub modules via multiple communication Channels. These channels can be: o Direct o Online (Internet) o Call Center (via Phone/FAX/Email etc) All the three CRM Sub Modules (Marketing, Sales and Service) can be executed across these Communication channels. [...]
[...] Key Functionalities A typical CRM system is subdivided into three basic sub modules: Marketing Sales Service Marketing Marketing sub module primarily deals with providing functionalities of Long- term planning and Short-term execution of Marketing related Activities within an organization. Marketing Planning Long-term Market Plans can be made, and Quantitative as well as Qualitative measures (targets) can be set for a defined period and for different product groups, geographies, etc. These are then monitored based on the actual performance throughout the defined period. [...]
[...] In summary, the three perspectives are: Information Technology perspective The Customer Life Cycle (CLC) perspective Business Strategy perspective Basic Concepts of CRM Data Mining-- There is no question that the more you know about your customers, the better positioned you are to meet their needs and offer better customer service. In the old days, companies would conduct focus groups, or solicit customer feedback, since the limits on learning about customers were related to limits on the amounts and types of data a company could reasonably use. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
