Customer Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) concerns the relationship between the company and its customers. CRM is a process or methodology used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviours 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.In brief CRM helps businesses use technology and human resources to gain insight into the behaviour of customers and the value of those customers.

What do customers want?

Apart from customers wanting cost-effective products or services, they also expect to receive quality pre-sale and after sale customer service. If a company cannot at least meet its customers' expectations it will struggle. Ideally a company should exceed its customers' expectations, thereby maximising the satisfaction of its customers, and also the credibility of its goods and services in the eyes of its customers.Customers normally become delighted when a supplier under-promises and over-delivers. To over-promise and under-deliver is a recipe for customers to become very dissatisfied.

CRM focuses on the relationship

Relationships with customers should be ongoing, cooperative, and built for the long term. Companies that have short-lived relationships with customers, consequently have to spend a lot of money on finding new customers. Research has shown that the cost of keeping existing customers is a tiny fraction of the cost of acquiring new customers. For this reason it is important that customer interaction is managed in the best possible way. In terms of Customer Relationship Management, communication needs to be consistent and of high quality, it is crucial to any successful relationship. For effective communications it's the message and meaning that's received that counts, irrespective of what the communicator thinks they've said, or written. Communications are judged most vitally by the reaction of the receiver. If the reaction is not good then the communication is poor.Practising CRM helps you stay close to existing customers and win new ones. The customers are the lifeblood of any company be it a global corporation with thousands of employees and a multi-billion turnover, or a sole trader with a handful of customers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a business philosophy, not just technology - understanding your customers' needs enables you to build better relationships and ultimately develop opportunities to increase sales.

What are the benefits of CRM?

Excellent customer service is about being aware of customer needs and reacting to them effectively. CRM helps you to understand, anticipate and respond to your customers' needs in a consistent way, right across your organisation.
Although a sound customer relations strategy has to come first, it can be effectively supported by technology, such as CRM software. Practising first-class CRM requires an efficient and integrated internal business system. Many businesses benefit from the organisational discipline CRM imposes, as well as from the technology itself and by employing CRM a business can:

• Provide better customer service
• Increase customer revenues 
• Discover new customers 
• Identify new selling opportunities.
• Cross sell/Up Sell products more effectively
• Help sales staff close deals faster
• Make call centres more efficient
• Simplify marketing and sales processes
• Develop better communication channels
• Collect vital data, like customer details and order histories
• Create detailed profiles such as customer preferences

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