What is Customer Relationship ?

• In CRM the alphabet ‘R’ means relationship.

But there is always an ambiguity to
understand the actual meaning of this
relationship. This relationship between
supplier and customer is not a personal
relationship or a one-time transaction
relationship; for example buying a refrigerator
from a consumer’s outlet would not be called
as a relationship.
• Exploration- Exploration is the process when customer investigates or tests the
supplier’s capabilities and performance or cross verifies the product’s or brand’s
usefulness. If the test results fail to satisfy customer’s demands, the relationship
can drastically come to an end.

• Awareness- Awareness is the process when the customer understands the

motivational values of supplier or the products he sells.

• Expansion- Expansion is the process when the supplier wins customer’s faith and
customer falls under huge interdependence of the supplier. This is time when
there are more chances of business with that particular customer and expand
business.

• Commitment- Commitment is a powerful stage when suppliers learn to adapting

business rules and goal to excel.

• Dissolution- Dissolution is a stage when customer requirement suddenly changes

and he looks for better perspectives. This sudden change is the end of relationship.
Broadly there can be two distinguished attributes of a developed relationship between supplier
and customer

• Trust: Trust means confidence and security in any relationship and can be
treated as the biggest investment in building long term relationships. Trust
is developed between the two parties when they experience flawless and
satisfied motives between each other. As a result of knowing more about
each other, all the doubts and risks are minimized and leads to inevitably
smooth business. Lack of trust on the other hand weakens the relationship
foundation and chances of uncertainty and conflicts increases.

• Commitment: Commitment is yet another milestone that should be

achieved to set a long term mutual relationship. Commitment can only be
attained when there is mutual trust and the two parties share each other’s
values. In a committed relationship both suppliers and customers strive to
uphold the relationship and never want to exit which in turn results in
building the relationship stronger and sharper. There is, in fact, huge cost
which is incurred in switching from committed relationships of one
supplier and build new relationships with other suppliers from scratch.
 CRM
• Customer Relationship Management is an
upright concept or strategy to solidify
relations with customers and at the same time
reducing cost and enhancing productivity and
profitability in business.
• An ideal CRM system is a centralized collection
all data sources under an organization and
provides an atomistic real time vision of
customer information.
• A CRM system is vast and significant, but it be
can implemented for small business, as well as
large enterprises also as the main goal is to
assist the customers efficiently.
• Usually an organization consists of various
departments which predominantly have
access to customer’s information either
directly or indirectly. A CRM system piles up
this information centrally, examines it and
then makes it addressable within all the
departments.
• Lets take an example of an international call
center which uses a CRM tool called ‘xyz’ and
is integrated with a phone and a computer
system or laptop. Now this system
automatically perceives which customer is
calling.
• Before the executive attends the phone the
CRM system brings forth the customer details
on the computer or laptop screen and also
indicates what the opportunity of deals is with
that particular customer, what the customer
had already purchased or ordered in past and
what is the probability of buying in future
• Not only this, it can also highlight what all
products best suit this customer. For finance
department it may show the information
regarding the current balance and for
accounting department it may pop out the
information regarding the recent purchases by
the customer. All these pieces of data are
stored in the CRM database and are available
as and when it is needed.
• According to this example, CRM system
provides a well defined platform for all
business units to interact with their clients
and fulfil all their needs and demands very
effectively and to build long-term relationship
• A CRM system is not only used to deal with the
existing customers but is also useful in acquiring
new customers. The process first starts with
identifying a customer and maintaining all the
corresponding details into the CRM system which
is also called an ‘Opportunity of Business’.
• The Sales and Field representatives then try
getting business out of these customers by
sophistically following up with them and
converting them into a winning deal.
 Importance of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM)

• A CRM system consists of a historical view and analysis

of all the acquired or to be acquired customers. This
helps in reduced searching and correlating customers
and to foresee customer needs effectively and increase
business.

• CRM contains each and every bit of details of a

customer, hence it is very easy for track a customer
accordingly and can be used to determine which
customer can be profitable and which not
 Importance of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM)

• In CRM system, customers are grouped

according to different aspects according to the
type of business they do or according to
physical location and are allocated to different
customer managers often called as account
managers. This helps in focusing and
concentrating on each and every customer
separately.
 Importance of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM)
• A CRM system is not only used to deal with the existing
customers but is also useful in acquiring new customers. The
process first starts with identifying a customer and
maintaining all the corresponding details into the CRM system
which is also called an ‘Opportunity of Business’.

• The Sales and Field representatives then try getting business

out of these customers by sophistically following up with
them and converting them into a winning deal. All this is very
easily and efficiently done by an integrated CRM system.
 Importance of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM)
• The strongest aspect of Customer Relationship
Management is that it is very cost-effective. The
advantage of decently implemented CRM system
is that there is very less need of paper and
manual work which requires lesser staff to
manage and lesser resources to deal with.

• The technologies used in implementing a CRM

system are also very cheap and smooth as
compared to the traditional way of business.
 Importance of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM)
• All the details in CRM system is kept
centralized which is available anytime on
fingertips. This reduces the process time and
increases productivity
 Importance of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM)
• Efficiently dealing with all the customers and
providing them what they actually need
increases the customer satisfaction. This
increases the chance of getting more business
which ultimately enhances turnover and
profit.
 Importance of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM)
• If the customer is satisfied they will always be
loyal to you and will remain in business
forever resulting in increasing customer base
and ultimately enhancing net growth of
business.