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Customer Relationship Management




                    Notes          maintaining, and expanding customer relationships, with special attention paid  to the  new
                                   possibilities offered by the Internet, mobile devices, and multi-channel interaction. CRM enables
                                   a company to capture a consolidated customer view through multi-channel  interactions in a
                                   data warehouse solution.
                                   Sophisticated analytical techniques are then  applied to  this customer information to  better
                                   understand and predict customer behaviour. CRM can then be used to strategically implement
                                   acquired customer knowledge in every area of the company, from the highest management
                                   level to all employees  who come  into direct contact with  customers. CRM thus enables an
                                   organisation to address its customers’ preferences and priorities much more effectively and
                                   efficiently. CRM is a tool that can help organisations to profitably meet the lifetime needs of
                                   customers better than their competitors.

                                   1.1 Definition and Scope of Customer Relationship Management


                                   Customer Relationship Management is a comprehensive approach for creating, maintaining
                                   and expanding customer relationships.

                                   Significance of the words used in the definitions:
                                   (a)  Comprehensive:  CRM  does not  belong  to  just  sales  or  marketing.  It is  not  the  sole
                                       responsibility of customer service group or an IT team; i.e. CRM must be a way of doing
                                       business that touches all the areas.
                                   (b)  Approach: An approach is broadly a way of treating or dealing with something. CRM is a
                                       way of thinking about and dealing with the customer relationship. We can also use the
                                       word strategy because CRM involves a clear plan. In fact, CRM strategy can usually serve
                                       as a  benchmark  for  other strategies  in your  organization, because  any strategy  sets
                                       directions for your  organization. We  can also consider this from a department or area
                                       level just as a larger organization has strategies for shareholder management, marketing,
                                       etc. Each strategy must support managing customer relationships. Thus CRM is strategic.
                                       To realize this, one can make a list of key strategies, to brief your area of responsibility.
                                       Then write down organizational approach towards customers. Compare the CRM strategies
                                       with other strategies. They should support each other. External customers are those outside
                                       the organization who buy goods and the services the organization sales. Internal customers
                                       is a way of defining another group in some organization whose work depends upon work
                                       of your group. Therefore, they are your customers. It is your responsibility to provide
                                       what they need so that they can do their job properly.

                                   (c)  Customer relationship:  Finally  let us  see what we mean by customer relationship.  In
                                       today’s world where we do  business with  individuals or  groups with whom we may
                                       never meet and hence much less know in person-to-person sense. CRM is about creating
                                       the feel of comfort in this high tech environment.

                                   CRM is a discipline as well as a set of discrete software and technologies which focuses  on
                                   automating and improving the business process associated with managing customer relationships
                                   in the areas of sales, marketing, customer services and support.  CRM software applications
                                   facilitate the coordination  of multiple business functions (such as sales, marketing, customer
                                   services, and support) and also coordinate multiple channels of communication with the customer
                                   face to face, call centres and the Web – so that organizations can accommodate their customers’
                                   preferred channels of interaction.

                                   CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a comprehensive strategy and process of acquiring,
                                   retaining and partnering with selective customers to create superior value for the company and






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