DEFINING CRM
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and specifies a procedure implemented by a company to study about customer needs and behavior so they are able to develop and maintain good associations with them.
Overview
Every company has a group of departments and employers working together to cater to customer requirements. But when customers interact with a company, they regard it as a solitary unit. That is why companies devise a strategy that employs certain practices and policies to ensure unity in customer interaction. These methods are called CRM and form a means for tracking information about customer, sales, marketing efficiency and market trends.
There are many technological details to CRM, but CRM isn’t all about technological stipulations.
CRM initiatives often fail because implementation was limited to software installation without providing the appropriate motivation and guidelines for employees to learn, provide input, and take full advantage of the information systems. 1
Types of CRM Software
Different CRM software focus on various aspects of CRM.
OPERATIONAL CRM
Operational CRM is for the staff that is directly in contact with the customer – sales, service and marketing staff. The application of this software is to note down customer interaction and use that history to avoid individually asking the customer for this information.
SALES FORCE AUTOMATION (SFA)
This software maintains sales-force related activities like scheduling sales calls, scheduling sales mail, tracking replies from customer and generating reports.
ANALYTICAL CRM
This software analyzes customer data for different uses like designing and executing targeted marketing campaigns, analyzing customer behavior, financial forecasting and customer profitability analysis.
SALES INTELLIGENCE CRM
This software takes analytical CRM to another level and is more of a direct sales instrument. It alerts sales staff regarding customer issues like cross selling (switch-selling and up-selling), sales performance and customer trends and margins.
COLLABORATIVE CRM
Collaborative CRM’s ultimate goal is to use information collected by all departments to improve the quality of services provided by the company2. It works by bringing together various departments within a company by enabling them to share the collected customer information for their various uses.
CRM STRATEGIES
CRM strategies vary in their complexity and scope, and have different uses and applications for various businesses.
An effective tool for identifying technical and human factors before beginning a CRM project is a pre-implementation checklist.3
SUMMARY
CRM stands for Customer Resource Management and is the terms used for the processes used to record, analyze and maintain customer data and then employ its various uses by means of effective software and training. Different types of CRM software deal with various aspects of Customer Resource Management. One of the main reasons for failure of CRM is the misuse of software, lack of training and poor planning.
1Rigby, Darrell K.; Frederick F. Reichheld, Phil Schefter (2002). “Avoid the four perils of CRM”. Harvard Business Review
2Edwards, John (2007). “Get It Together with Collaborative CRM”. Inside CRM.Tippit.
3Bligh, Philip; Douglas Turk (2004). CRM unplugged – releasing CRM’s strategic value. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
