Resources on Customer Relationship Management

Costumer Relationship Management

Customer relationship management (CRM) covers methods and technologies used by companies to manage their relationships with clients. Information stored on existing customers (and potential customers) is analyzed and used to this end. Automated CRM processes are often used to generate automatic personalized marketing based on the customer information stored in the system.
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CRM Architecture
There are three fundamental components in CRM:

• Operational - automation of basic business processes (marketing, sales, service)
• Analytical - analysis of customer data and behavior using business intelligence
• Collaborative - communicating with clients

Operational CRM
Operational CRM provides automated support to "front office" business processes (sales, marketing and service). Each interaction with a customer is generally added to a customer's history, and staff can retrieve information on customers from the database as necessary.

According to Gartner Group[citation needed], operational CRM typically involves three general areas:

• Sales force automation (SFA)
  SFA automates some of a company's critical sales and sales force management tasks, such as forecasting, sales administration, tracking customer preferences and demographics, performance management, lead management, account management, contact management and quote management.
• Customer service and support (CSS)
  CSS automates certain service requests, complaints, product returns and enquiries.
• Enterprise marketing automation (EMA)
  EMA provides information about the business environment, including information on competitors, industry trends, and macroenvironmental variables. EMA applications are used to improve marketing efficiency.

Integrated CRM software is often known as a "front office solution", as it deals directly with customers.

Many call centers use CRM software to store customer information. When a call is received, the system displays the associated customer information (determined from the number of the caller). During and following the call, the call center agent dealing with the customer can add further information.

Some customer services can be fully automated, such as allowing customers to access their bank account details online or via a WAP phone.

Excerpt of "Customer relationship management." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 24 Oct 2006, 18:26 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 24 Oct 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Customer_relationship_management&oldid=83470387