In the 1990s companies began to improve on Customer Relationship Management by making it
more of a two-way street Instea! of simply gathering !ata for their own use" they began giving back to their customers not only in terms of the obvious goal of improve! customer service" but in incentives" gifts an! other perks for customer loyalty #his was the beginning of the now familiar fre$uent flyer programs" bonus points on cre!it car!s an! a host of other resources that are base! on CRM tracking of customer activity an! spen!ing patterns CRM was now being use! as a way to increase sales passively as well as through active improvement of customer service 1.4 Introduction Customer Relationship Management - CRM #he generally accepte! purpose of Customer Relationship Management %CRM& is to enable organi'ations to better serve its customers through the intro!uction of reliable processes an! proce!ures for interacting with those customers In to!ay(s competitive business environment" a successful CRM strategy cannot be implemente! by only installing an! integrating a software package !esigne! to support CRM processes ) holistic approach to CRM is vital for an effective an! efficient CRM policy #his approach inclu!es training of employees" a mo!ification of business processes base! on customers( nee!s an! an a!option of relevant I#-systems %inclu!ing soft- an! maybe har!ware& an!*or usage of I#- +ervices that enable the organi'ation or company to follow its CRM strategy CRM-+ervices can even re!un!anti'e the ac$uisition of a!!itional har!ware or CRM software-licences #he term CRM is use! to !escribe either the software or the whole business strategy oriente! on customer nee!s #he secon! one is the !escription which is correct #he main misconception of CRM is that it is only software" instea! of whole business strategy Ma,or areas of CRM focus on service automate! processes" personal information gathering an! processing" an! self-service It attempts to integrate an! automate the various customer serving processes within a company #here are three parts of application architecture of CRM- operational - automation to the basic business processes %marketing" sales" service& analytical - support to analyse customer behaviour" implements business intelligence alike technology cooperational - ensures the contact with customers %phone" email" fa." web& /perational part of CRM typically involves three general areas of business #hey are %accor!ing to 0artner 0roup& a 1nterprise marketing automation %1M)&" +ales force automation %+2)& an! a Customer service an! support %C++& #he marketing information part provi!es information about the business environment" inclu!ing competitors" in!ustry tren!s" an! macroenviromental variables #he sales force management part automates some of the company(s sales an! sales force management functions It keeps track of customer preferences" buying habits" an! !emographics" an! also sales staff performance #he customer service part automates some service re$uests" complaints" pro!uct returns" an! information re$uests