CRM

What is CRM? 

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) has been growing steadily for the last few years and is now seen as the way forward for any business wishing to thrive in the ‘e-future’. CRM concentrates on the retention of customers by collecting all data from every interaction, every customer makes with a company from ‘all’ access points whether they are phone, mail, web or field. The company can then use this data for specific business purposes, Marketing, Service, Support or Sales whilst concentrating on a customer centric approach rather than a product centric. 

Every business is different and therefore needs a different approach to CRM. Every company also has different legacy systems and has various levels of data integration within the company. This is why CRM is so hard to define as it is all things to all companies.

Why CRM? 

A study published in Harvard Business Review concluded: “Some companies can boost profits by almost 100% by retaining 5% more of their customers”. A similar study by PIMS revealed “that a dissatisfied customer would tell between 7-10 people whilst a satisfied customer would recommend a company to 3-4 of their friends” and a study commissioned by Ventura found that “eliminating all customer service problems could double profit growth over a five-year period”. So CRM is purely good business sense? Well it is, but it is also a means of survival. Shorter product lifecycles have robbed companies from enjoying the sustained financial benefits of being product innovators. Not only can competitors bring copycat products to market quicker, new generations of products are introduced more quickly making service and support key to the retention of existing and future customers.