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Customer Relationship Management
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a marketing term that is often referred to in the current business environment. However, complete agreement upon a single definition is lacking, because CRM can be considered from different perspectives. Three common used perspectives are:
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Customer Relationship Management
from the IT Perspective.From IT perspective, companies buy (CRM) software hoping it will contribute to achieve their business objectives. For many, CRM is far more than a software tool, or an IT-based customer management system to support the sales team. Nevertheless, IT forms the basis for modern Customer Relationship Management, and has the payoffs, like ease of use, speed, power and memory, associated with information technology. CRM applications are essentially the software and databases that support the process. Incidentally, this is what some would call CRM. But, the applications serve Marketing, Sales, and Service in order to enhance the perceived quality of all Customer Touch Points
Customer Relationship Management
from the Customer Life Cycle Perspective.Basically, the Customer Life Cycle (CLC) consists of all key stages in a relationship of a customer with an organisation. In contrast to the Product Life Cycle, the Customer Life Cycle focuses at the products or services that customers need throughout their lives i.e. the creation of and delivery of lifetime value to the customer instead of live of a product or service as such. From this point of view Customer Relationship Management comprises the management of all customer touch points with the sole purpose of keeping a profitable relationship with the customer for the remainder of its life.
Customer Relationship Management
from the Business Strategy Perspective.The Business Strategy perspective has most in common with the field of marketing. It’s all about customer acquisition, customer retention and customer extention. Companies should focus upon the needs of customers, generate shareholder value based upon customer needs and the delivery of a sustainable competitive advantage. Innovative IT is vital to the success of this strategy. From this point of view Customer Relationship Management is a business strategy.
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