My Customer Relationship Management definition. CRM defined.

To help you understand CRM, a Customer Relationship Management definition is a necessity.

As promised, I'll supply you with my personal interpretation of the term.

CRM is THE business buzzword on the Internet these days. Customer Relationship Management promises faster customer serviceat lower costs, higher customer satisfaction and from this, better customer retention and ultimately customer loyalty. Naturally, all this is done in hope for more sales and profits! I will go into the benefits of a CRM approach more in-depth later on.

What CRM is NOT!

I've had people come up to me and ask, "You seem to know a thing or two on CRM, what application do you recommend?" This is totally beside the point of CRM! Customer Relationship Management is so much more than just data-mining and creating offers accordingly, or making customer info available company-wide. It's about a vision on continually improving the relationship with your customer, and the culture to follow up on it. CRM applications, elaborate as they may be, are just a means to an end.

CRM is not (just) technology.

Aspects of a Customer Relationship Management Definition

In my opinion, the Customer Relationship Management definition entails the following:

Know your CUSTOMER, his needs, wants and motives
Appreciate the length, width and depth of the RELATIONSHIP between the customer and your organization
Proper MANAGEMENT of all interactions with the customer

Ad 1. Know your Customer

Any definition of CRM would be fundamentally wrong if it didn't start with the customer in mind. As with customer service, to truly engage the customer with your organization and products, you'll have to exceed the expectations of the customer. How can you do that if you don't know the customer?

Well, do you? Do you really know your customer? And I don't mean: do you think you know your customer? It's best to build a profile of your customer by doing the slicing and dicing of all available data om the customer, a function mostly associated with when people talk about CRM applications.

But don't rely on the operation of a computer system alone, however magical the results seem to be. Without actual human interaction with your customers, your organization will miss out on the nuances of knowing your customer. So talk with your customer every chance you can... and then make sure you create more chances to interact.

Ad 2. Appreciate the relationship

When talking about the length, width and depth of your customer's relationships, it comes to mind that they are not one-dimensional. The relationship with your client can exist on many levels, not just through the customer service reps, or the web site.

You must understand that the customer or prospect can interact with all levels of your organization, and through all kinds of channels. In fact, nowadays the modern customer is often referred to as the Multi-channel customer. If you gain better insight in the relationships of the customer that are outside your organization, you are one step further in knowing the customers mind. And act accordingly.

Ad 3. Manage the interactions

The final part of my customer relationship management definition is on the management of the interactions. As you now know the relationship with the customer doesn't only exist on the level of customer support or through order entry (be it online or off).

To manage all interactions with the customer, CRM can only be succesful if the complete organization is mobilized. In fact, you could say that everyone is part of the customer service department. Often, this means a great paradigm shift for the business, towards true customer centric thinking and acting.

More on CRM...

SAP CRM - SAP's solution for CRM

Microsoft CRM - Microsoft's solution

Parts of CRM - What elements can you find in a CRM system

Benefits of Customer Relationship Management

Other Resources

Content, community, and service for CRM professionals. Providing technical discussion, job postings, an integrated directory, news, and much more.

Free Software Project Management Guide
Great online Project Management tutorial for Software Implementations, this extensive guide provides training to people involved in projects.

CRM Lowdown
A great blog on CRM, CRM solutions and Customer Service.

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