Customer Relationship Management
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) refers to the strategies and technologies used by companies to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. The goal of CRM is to improve customer retention, streamline communication, and drive sales growth by understanding and meeting the needs of individual customers.
8 Key excerpts on "Customer Relationship Management"
eBook - ePub- Adrian Payne(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 1 A strategic framework for CRM Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is increasingly found at the top of corporate agendas. Companies large and small across a variety of sectors are embracing CRM as a major element of corporate strategy for two important reasons: new technologies now enable companies to target chosen market segments, micro-segments or individual customers more precisely and new marketing thinking has recognized the limitations of traditional marketing and the potential of more customer-focused, process-based strategies. CRM, also more recently called ‘customer management’, is a business approach that seeks to create, develop and enhance relationships with carefully targeted customers in order to improve customer value and corporate profitability and thereby maximize shareholder value. CRM is often associated with utilizing information technology to implement relationship marketing strategies. As such, CRM unites the potential of new technologies and new marketing thinking to deliver profitable, long-term relationships. Although the term CRM is relatively new, the principles behind it are not unfamiliar. Organizations have for a long time practised some form of Customer Relationship Management. What sets present day CRM apart is that organizations can manage one-to-one relationships with their customers – all one thousand or one million of them. In effect, CRM represents a renewed perspective of managing customer relationships based on relationship marketing principles; the key difference being that today these principles are applied in context of unprecedented technological innovation and market transformation. The marketplace of the twenty-first century bears little resemblance to bygone eras characterized by relatively stable customer bases and solid market niches. Nowadays, customers represent a moving target and even the most established market leaders can be ousted quickly from their dominant positions...
eBook - ePubCustomer Relationship Management (CRM) for Medium and Small Enterprises
How to Find the Right Solution for Effectively Connecting with Your Customers
- Antonio Specchia(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Productivity Press(Publisher)
...CRM helps organisations streamline processes, build customer relationships, increase sales, improve customer service, and increase profitability. When people talk about CRM, they are usually referring to a CRM system, a tool that is used for contact management, sales management, productivity, and more. The goal of a CRM system is simple: Improve business relationships.” Salesforce “CRM means a combination of business strategies, software and processes that help build long-lasting relationships between companies and their customers” Creatio “CRM (is) an enterprisewide business strategy designed to optimize profitability, revenue and customer satisfaction by organising the enterprise around customer segments, fostering customer-satisfying behaviors and linking processes from customers through suppliers.” Gartner Group “CRM is all about understanding customers within the marketplace in order to meet and exceed their expectations, which will help achieve organisational objectives.” * * Bulton, R., Creating and Managing a CRM Platform for Your Organisation, Routledge, 2019. Richard Bulton Introducing the Concept of CRM We can see how the idea of CRM as a system, just a digital tool, is largely in the minority amid those definitions. The most salient word among them is “strategy.” It suggests that CRM is first and foremost a logic, an approach, a strategic view of the business and not just a software tool. And it makes sense as building relationships with customers is the essence of any business, the kernel of the recent developments in marketing. When the idea of marketing was conceptualised, the purpose was to crystallise a methodology around the interaction of businesses with markets. In its earliest version, Pete Borden’s Marketing Mix that included the famous 4Ps, * showed his mainstream idea to leverage on policies to impact on markets and ultimately on each customer...
- Vivek Kale(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Auerbach Publications(Publisher)
...Chapter 4 Customer-Centric Enterprise with CRM Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a holistic approach to identifying, attracting, and retaining customers. CRM deals with creating a customer-centric enterprise. This involves two major aspects: Customer centricity and customer responsiveness. All activities must eventually add value to the customer reflected in their willingness to pay for the products and/or services; nonvalue adding elements should be excised swiftly in Internet-time because customers have numerous other choices. This entails focusing all strategies, plans, and actions on the customer rather than the traditional focus on the products and/or services...
eBook - ePub- Sally Dibb, Lyndon Simkin(Authors)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Specific programmes of communication and bespoke marketing programmes can be developed for these customers in order to manage these on-going relationships. Recent advances in technology have enabled better database management and the capture of information about customer characteristics and purchasing behaviour. Coupled with increasing use by customers of technology in buying – such as e-commerce – there has been a recent move to one-to-one marketing. CRM involves: analysis of customers’ experiences and of their value to the business; planning of the interactions with and handling of customers; proposition development in line with customers’ needs; the use of IT to manage customer data and facilitate engagement with customers; the deployment of bespoke customer management personnel; management of these personnel and the customer-facing activities of the business; customer management activity; and measurement of the CRM activity. CRM activities include: targeting; enquiry management; welcoming of new or upgrading existing customers; understanding customer characteristics and issues; customer development so that customers requiring higher or different levels of service are so serve the managing of problems customers may have with the business; win-back activity to redress problems with lost customers. CRM activity should be benchmarked against customer expectations, competitors’ standards and industry best practice. Conceptual overview The processes inherent in managing on-going customer relationships – particularly database, technology and communications tools – have led to a growth in marketing of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Database advances and direct marketing, in particular, have led to a focus on customer retention, share of the customer's purchasing, the database as a device for managing direct communications and integrated use of channels...
eBook - ePubThe Marketing Century
How Marketing Drives Business and Shapes Society
- Jeremy Kourdi, Jeremy Kourdi(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
...This matters, because a narrow or confused definition can often contribute to the failure of CRM projects, with organisations either viewing CRM from a limited technology perspective or else undertaking CRM in a fragmented way. In truth, CRM systems are simply a technology-based tool for developing and using knowledge about customers. It is by developing and then improving their knowledge of customers that a firm’s customer relationships (and the loyalty of its customers) are more likely to improve. The growth of CRM CRM emerged in the 1980s as a way of dealing with business-to-business and business-to-consumer relationships. It developed for two reasons: as a way of managing existing customers more efficiently and to gain new customers successfully. The rapid growth of technology since the 1980s has led to much more customer information being available than ever before, derived through more contact with customers through call centres, direct mail, emails and the internet. This increased contact can be used to ensure greater understanding of customers’ shifting preferences as well as providing an opportunity to sell. CRM means creating and using knowledge about customers. This knowledge is valuable because it enables the organisation to enhance its relationships with its customers. CRM’s popularity rose sharply in the 1990s, as organisations realised the need to become more customer oriented. The benefits are obvious: maintaining long-term customer loyalty ensures current cash flow and long-term stability...
eBook - ePubCRM Systems in Industrial Companies
Intra- and Inter-Organizational Effects
- A. Perna, E. Baraldi(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...These authors define CRM as “A comprehensive strategy and process of acquiring, retaining and partnering with selective customers to create superior value for the company and customer”. The authors also stress that only by integrating the traditional functions close to the customers such as marketing, sales, customer service and supply chain would it be possible for organizations to achieve success in delivering value to customers. Also in Buttle’s definition (2004) of CRM strategy represents a central element, next to IT enablers: “the core business strategy that integrates internal processes and functions, and external networks, to create and deliver value to targeted customers at a profit. It is grounded on high-quality customer data and enabled by IT” (Buttle, 2004). In a similar vein, Mendoza et al. (2007) define CRM as “a strategic process, human factor and technology that produces the best relationship with customers to intensify value, satisfaction and customer loyalty”. One of the academic articles which investigates CRM from the process viewpoint is Srivastava, Shervani and Fahey (1999: 169). The authors consider CRM a business process that “addresses all aspects of identifying customers, creating customer knowledge, building customer relationships and shaping their perceptions of the organization and its products”. Lambert (2010) also approaches CRM as a process and defines it as one of the sub-processes across the supply chain, which is further divided into two distinct levels: the strategic level, conducted under the responsibility of the management, and the operational level, in which the CRM process itself is implemented on a routine basis. 4.3.3 Summing up The first part of our literature review helps identify some emergent patterns in the extant research about CRM...
eBook - ePubEnvironment and Innovation
Strategies to Promote Growth and Sustainability
- Clara Inés Pardo Martínez, Alexander Cotte Poveda, Clara Inés Pardo Martínez, Alexander Cotte Poveda(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...Finally, it cannot be ignored that, from the point of view of their level of development or evolution as a person, the public is not homogenous, but plural and changing; so that for any professional of the marketing these words appear like a challenge: “are the marks those that have to aspire to the values of the consumers, in place of being the consumers who aspire to the values of the marks”. Table 7.1 shows digital transformation of digital marketing from incomplete to complete transformation taking into account focus, objective, digital strategy, CEO involvement, involved areas, type of innovation, change management, talent management, and culture. What is a CRM (Customer Relationship Marketing)? Bindi Bhullar, senior analyst at Gartner Group, says about the CRM that: “It’s a business strategy that places the customer as the heart of your company. Imagine what your company would be like if your client could redesign it to adapt it to their needs. This is the company you need to be. “The business consultant Accenture defines it as: “The continuous process of identifying, directing, developing, tracking, selling, serving and improving high-value relationships with Clients, so as to generate sustained growth and profits”. Relationship Marketing is a term that encompasses a wide range of concepts, conceives the business environment in a broad sense in which the existing relationships between the company and the players that surround it (suppliers, stakeholders, administration, etc.) are integrated. These relationships are formed by the phases within the process in which they are recognized under the terms of identifying, establishing, developing, maintaining, and finalising relationships between brands and people...
- Callie Daum, Vibrant Publishers(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Vibrant Publishers(Publisher)
...This is a strategy to solidify our relationships with our clients. This system reduces cost, time, enhances productivity and profitability in an organization. The system collects all the data from all over the organization regarding our clients and places them in a central location that employees can access when needed. This system not only collects data on our existing clients, but it also captures our relationships with prospective clients. An effective Customer Relationship Management system has the following features: • Identifies client needs including likes and dislikes. • Documents client response activities to any inquiries or requests. This includes both positive and negative interactions with the client. • Measures the client’s level of satisfaction by feedback from the client. • Measures the client’s level of loyalty by looking at whether the client would recommend our organization, how often they come for return business, are they going to competitors for any needs, etc. • Promotes customer retention. • Tracks customer complaints and how they were handled. • Delivers information and services through customer service. Customer Relationship Management systems are important because they provide a wealth of knowledge on clients in one spot that can easily be analyzed and acted upon. It reduces redundancies between departments since each department is not managing their own customer files. The system provides a mechanism to review the progress you have made with a customer. You can look at their full history with the company. Customer relationship systems are also very cost effective and helpful in tracking new relationships with potential customers. Defining Customer Relationship Dictionary.com defines relationship as the way in which two or more people are connected. Relationships evolve over time. Think about the relationships in your life. Your best friend was not your best friend the first day you met. The relationship evolved over time...
