The need of customer relationship management (CRM) to succeed in the world of business

A woman once purchased a car, and several days before the scheduled delivery date, she got a call all from the sales manager at the dealership. Fearing the expected bad news about the potential delay in the delivery date, she answered the call with trepidation. To her surprise manager asked her few questions about where she usually drove, what kind of music she listen to, and so forth. She answered them not really knowing what this was all about until the day she picked up her car. To her delight the dealership had supplied her with maps of the regions she had referred to her in her conversation, and her radio was preset to stations, which corresponded to the music she had indicated as her preference. needless to say, this woman was this manager’s customer for life.

The above is an example of Relationship Marketing by the dealer. Since the customer base of this dealer was not very huge, he was able to establish such a personal rapport with the lady.

[...] The best consumer satisfaction program in the world is worth very little unless it feed into the strategic and operational planning of the company. This information is then provided to all employees so that adjustments can be made to improve performance in their respective areas. One of the most important parts of the marketing executive’s job is to get the entire organization to focus its decisions on actions that affect how many customers are satisfied. Much of a marketer’s time is spent creating strategies that influence satisfaction. [...]

[...] Though the concept of buyer-seller relationship is not new, and has been practiced in on form or the other since time immemorial, it is only in recent times that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has turned into a buzzword. Customer loyalty has always been valuable, but today it has become more vital for success. The Core Concept of CRM is deceptively simple- no doubt born on the web companies with virtually no physical presence have been leveraging the internet and internet-based CRM solutions to reach out to global markets despite their physical limitations, but CRM can also help large brick and mortar companies bridge obstacles created by their complex physical presence to get closer to their customers. [...]

[...] With this data warehouse, it is imperative the organization adopt standards for customer data in order to achieve a cross business of the customer. But over-dependence on IT as CRM solution is not justified; role of people and processes should not be underestimated. MEASURE AND MONITOR THE GOAL Companies want customers who are loyal to the company, and not just to its current offerings or products. The measurement and monitoring of progress toward this goal of customer loyalty is a critical feedback component of the customer relationship learning cycle. [...]