building profitable customer relationship with CRM
Building profitable customer relationship with CRM
Introduction
CRM is the essential part of modern business management. CRM has received a lot of attention and come to occupy a central place as a vital strategy in organization. The ultimate purpose of CRM in any organization is to increase profit. In case of CRM this achieved mainly by providing better services to the customer than the competitors.
Traditionally, customer service centers have always been regarded as cost centers. In the 80s, customer care was not as important as it is today. Many vendors even refused to obtain 800 numbers by which to welcome customer input and provide customer service. Slowly and gradually, the customer got the respect that he or she deserved. Outstanding customer service became the source of customer satisfaction without which no company could exist. Without an outstanding customer care strategy, no company can exist profitably. In the 90s companies began to improve on customer relationship management by making it more of two –way communication. Instead of simply gathering data for their own use, they began giving back to their customers not only in terms of the obvious goal of improved customer service, but in incentives, gifts and other perks for customer loyalty. CRM was now being used as a way to increase sales passively as well as through active improvement of customer service.
Real customer relationship management began in earnest years of this century. As the software companies began realizing newer, more advanced solutions that were customizable across industries, it became feasible to really use the information in a dynamic way. Instead of feeding information into a static database for future reference, CRM became a way to continuously update understanding of customer needs and behavior. The internet played a vital role to the development of these huge databases by enabling offsite information storage. Earlier, companies had difficulty supporting the huge amount of
Introduction
CRM is the essential part of modern business management. CRM has received a lot of attention and come to occupy a central place as a vital strategy in organization. The ultimate purpose of CRM in any organization is to increase profit. In case of CRM this achieved mainly by providing better services to the customer than the competitors.
Traditionally, customer service centers have always been regarded as cost centers. In the 80s, customer care was not as important as it is today. Many vendors even refused to obtain 800 numbers by which to welcome customer input and provide customer service. Slowly and gradually, the customer got the respect that he or she deserved. Outstanding customer service became the source of customer satisfaction without which no company could exist. Without an outstanding customer care strategy, no company can exist profitably. In the 90s companies began to improve on customer relationship management by making it more of two –way communication. Instead of simply gathering data for their own use, they began giving back to their customers not only in terms of the obvious goal of improved customer service, but in incentives, gifts and other perks for customer loyalty. CRM was now being used as a way to increase sales passively as well as through active improvement of customer service.
Real customer relationship management began in earnest years of this century. As the software companies began realizing newer, more advanced solutions that were customizable across industries, it became feasible to really use the information in a dynamic way. Instead of feeding information into a static database for future reference, CRM became a way to continuously update understanding of customer needs and behavior. The internet played a vital role to the development of these huge databases by enabling offsite information storage. Earlier, companies had difficulty supporting the huge amount of
Bibliography: Customer profitability analysis: measuring, concentration and research direction (1999), Volume 12, Issue 1, Journal of Interactive Marketing Davenport, Harris, and Kohli (2001), magazine winter 2001,how do they know their customer so well. What is customer profitability and why should we measure it? (2005), Canadian marketing association database Technology Intelligence Council Ian Gorden (2002), Best practice- customer relationship management, Ivey Business Journal Ian Gordan (2003), Measuring customer relationship; what gets measured really does get managed Ellen Gifford, CRM-principle, strategy, solution, application, system software, ideas for effective customer relationship management Russell S Luiner (2001), Customer relation management: A framework, research direction and the future Steward Anderson (2011), Determining customer profitability John Parker (2012), Customer profitability requirements Understanding customer relationship management from manger and customers perspective: exploring the orientation and market knowledge competence by Jounghae Bang.