In a world where the customer is always the king, more and more companies are going an extra mile to get to know the customers and make them feel happy. Customers want more than just courtesy of the person serving them, they want the sales representatives and the company to know them, recognize them and understand them. Here, the word "relationship" comes into place. Customers want a business relationship with the company where they can be appreciated and respected. Hence, customer relationship management, or CRM, is fast becoming one of the major elements of corporate strategies in many organizations. .
Already, companies such as Hong Leong Finance and UOB are pouring in millions of money into IT initiatives that will see the deployment of new servers and a CRM system. These IT initiatives are aimed at enhancing the workflow processes thereby saving time and money in the long run.
2. Definition of CRM.
2.1 CRM is a strategy.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM), is strategic approach that combines the business processes, technology, employees, and information across an enterprise to attract and retain profitable customers. In simpler terms, CRM means putting customers at the heart of the business. .
2.2 CRM is an information system.
CRM focuses on the retention of customers by collecting all data from every interaction, every customer makes with a company from "all" touch or access points whether they are phone, mail, web or field. CRM applications help businesses collate the customer and customer-related information more effectively and neatly such that the data can be analysed and reports such as customer buying cycles, profitable customers and customer preferences can generated for the management to make key decisions. .
Fig. 1 below shows the way a CRM works. Follow the numbers to see the flow of the information in the CRM system.
1. The visitor to the webpage first fills in a query or a sales order form.
