CRM
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service. Customer relationship management describes a company-wide business strategy including customer-interface departments as well as other departments. Measuring and valuing customer relationships is critical to implementing this strategy.
Benefits of CRM
A CRM system may be chosen because it is thought to provide the following advantages:
- Quality and efficiency;
- Decrease in overall costs;
- Decision support;
- Enterprise agility;
- Customer Attention.
Complexity
Tools and workflows can be complex, especially for large businesses. Previously these tools were generally limited to simple CRM solutions which focused on monitoring and recording interactions and communications. Software solutions then expanded to embrace deal tracking, territories, opportunities, and the sales pipeline itself. Next came the advent of tools for other client-interface business functions, as described below. These tools have been, and still are, offered as on-premises software that companies purchase and run on their own IT infrastructure.
