Customer Relationship Management

by admin

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Posted on 09/8/17 1:22 PM

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In short, CRM, is an attempt made towards creating, developing and maintaining healthy and long-lasting relationship with customers.

The term has been into use since early 1990s. Only after this, concept of business has changed from being transactional to relational.

So, in this post, we’ll be discussing the very basic concepts of CRM.

Definition

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‘CRM is an organized approach. It helps in developing a profitable relationship with customers.’

‘CRM is a software which assists marketing, merchandising and smooth service business

operations.’

‘We can also define CRM as a core business strategy which integrates internal and external processes to deliver value to target customers at profit.’

So, the primary purpose of CRM is – increasing customer loyalty and improving business profitability.

Ingredients

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There are various ingredients which work together to form successful CRM system.

Analytics

Business reporting

Customer care service

Human resource management

Lead management

Sales flow automation

Work flow automation

Objectives

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Prominent menthods of using Customer relationship management includes –

Customer satisfaction

Expansion of customer base

Work flow productivity

Business sale enhancement

History

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1990s

An emergence of material resource planning i.e. MRP.

1980s

The formation of database marketing.

1990s

Industrial Growth

2000s

Modern CRM

Types of CRM

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There are four basic types of CRM.

1. Strategic – customer centered

2. Operational – selling, marketing, customer service

3. Analytical – intelligent mining of customer data

4. Collaborative – application of technology across organization boundaries

Buying Considerations

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A company or business has to keep various points in mind when selecting CRM software –

– Size of business

– Budget and context

– Customer base

– Business strategy

– Business requirements

Evolution of Relationship

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What is Relationship?

It is a way in which two or more are things are connected. For survival of any relationship – trust, transparency, communication are of vital importance.

Marketing professor at Lindner College, F. Robert Dwyer has given five phases on customer and supplier relation evolves –

Awareness

Exploration

Expansion

Commitment

Dissolution

CRM Technology Market

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There are 4 main vendors of CRM system –

Salesforce.com

Microsoft

SAP

Oracle

Well, there are many others too. But, above four are choices for large corporations.

Now, let’s wrap up our discussion on CRM. The big business benefit of using CRM is to have all your data stored and accessed from single location. Other benefits could include 360 degree view of customer information, knowledge of customer wants and needs and integration with existing applications.

That’s all folks. See you with my another blog post.