"Customer Relationship Management (CRM)"
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) encompasses the capabilities, methodologies, and technologies that support an enterprise in managing customer relationships. The general purpose of CRM is to enable organizations to better manage their customers through the introduction of reliable systems, processes, and procedures.
Customer Relationship Management is a corporate level strategy which focuses on creating and maintaining lasting relationships with customers. Although there are several commercial CRM software packages on the market which support the CRM strategy, it is not a technology itself. CRM is more of an overall change in an organization’s philosophy which places emphasis on the customer.
A successful CRM strategy cannot be implemented by simply installing and integrating a software package. Changes and implementation take time and must occur at all levels including policies, processes, customer service, employee training, marketing, systems, and information management — all aspects of the business must be reshaped to be customer driven.
To be effective, the CRM process must be integrated end-to-end across all divisions of a company, and must:
- Identify customer success factors
- Create a customer-based culture
- Adopt customer-based measures
- Develop an end-to-end process to serve customers
- Recommend customer solutions
- Track all aspects of selling and customer support
More Information
For more information, visit the WikiPedia article about Customer Relationship Management