CRM – Customer relationship management  is a business strategy that aims to understand , anticipate and manage the needs of organisation’s current and potential customers. It is a comprehensive approach which provides effortless integration of every area of business which is in contact to customers such as sales, marketing , customer services and field support through the integration of people, process and technology.
What is the Purpose of CRM?
The purpose of  using CRM  is that, it provide advantages for a company or an organisation, it helps to create value to the customers over long period of time, anybody who wants to be associated with you needs to look at the value factor why  do they want to stay with a particular company, offering them any particular service you need to make them happy  and need to make sure that you are getting some value out of  that particular company or an organisation and happy customer are less likely to become disloyal if you have got your customer who are happy , they will not leave you and go to somebody else. CRM have a competitive advantage over your competitions when it is very important to understand it in this particular age of technology in this particular age of competitiveness it is very important to retain your customers and that will happen only  when your customers are happy with you else they will leave you and go to another company.
Implementing CRM – Core questions
- What is the core business and how will it evolve?
- What form of CRM is appropriate for our business now and in future ?
- IT infrastructure at present and in future?
- What vendors and partners  we need to choose?
What are the phases of CRM
- Acquiring new customer relationships
- Enhancing existing customer relationship
- Retaining customer relationship
Benefits of CRM
- Reduced costs, because the right things are being done ( ie.,effective and efficient operation )
- Increased customers satisfaction, because they are getting exactly what they want ( ie.,meeting and exceeding expectations)
- Ensuring that the focus of the organisation is external
- Growth in numbers of customers
- Maximisation of opportunities (e.g.. increased services, referrals, etc.)
- Increased access to a source of market and competitor information
- Highlighting poor operational processes
- Long term profitability and sustainability
