Peter Drucker wrote; The true business of every

company is to make and keep customers.

Traditionally people used to work hard in
entertaining customers by presenting new
products with astonishing services; they were
ready to work overtime for grasping more and
more customers for increasing business.
This resulted in customer satisfaction and loyalty
up to some extent, but at the end of the day
there was no such bonding or relation between
the two to carry on with future business
smoothly
 But with time, due to incoming complexities in
communication, it found itself in troubled
waters.
Emerging of new strategies and technologies in
global marketplace and a mammoth degree of
competition in business, the approach needed
to be changed to proactive rather than reactive.
Customer relationship management came as a
process that dealt with relationships with
customers surpassing the whole business.
1. The belief that customers are the real assets and not
just the people in the audience.
2. The maturation of one-to-one transaction advent.
3. Extensive use of software and technologies to maintain
useful information and no manual labor.
4. The approach of concentrating more on customer values
rather than concentrating on how the product is
delivered to the customer.
5. The approach of focusing on customer satisfaction and
loyalty rather than focusing self satisfaction and profit.
6. The acceptance of the fact that using high end
technologies and software the cost can radically be
decreased without compromising on quality and service
of products.
7. The increasing tendency to retain existing customers
and trying to get more and more business out of them.
 Customer Relationship Management (or CRM) is a
phrase that describes how your business interacts
with your customers.
Most people think of CRM as a system to capture
information about your customers. However, that is
only part of the picture.
CRM involves using technology to gather the
intelligence you need to provide improved support
and services to your customers.
In other words, CRM is also about what you do with
that information to better meet the needs of your
existing customers and identify new customers,
resulting in higher profits for business.
 CRM is a comprehensive set of process and
technologies for managing the relationship with
potential current customer across the business
functions.
CRM is a comprehensive strategy and process of
acquiring, retaining, and partnering with selective
customers to create superior value for company
and the customer.
CRM is a combination of process, procedure
technologies and competencies fit to analyze and
satisfy customer knowing their needs and
preferences.
 Thus from the above definitions we can say that
CRM is a comprehensive approach for creating
maintaining and expanding customer
relationships.
The goal of CRM is to optimize customer
satisfaction and revenue thru relationship built
with potential current customer across the
business function.
The relationship is built thru managing customer
initiative & behavior in such a way that customer
experience is full of comfort, happiness and
satisfaction.
 CRM originated years before the start of the first
millennium in Mesopotamia. Farmers who were eager
to sell their surplus produce became the first
initiators of the customer oriented processes we are
now familiar with.
Traditionally people used to work hard in
entertaining customers by presenting new products
with astonishing services; they were ready to work
overtime for grasping more and more customers for
increasing business.
This resulted in customer satisfaction and loyalty up
to some extent, but at the end of the day there was
no such bonding or relation between the two to carry
on with future business smoothly.
 Previously business was quite easy as it was mere
a one-to-one dealing without any specific process.
But with time, due to incoming complexities in
communication, it found itself in troubled waters.
Emerging of new strategies and technologies in
global marketplace and a mammoth degree of
competition in business, the approach needed to
be changed to proactive rather than reactive.
Customer relationship management came as a
process that dealt with relationships with
customers surpassing the whole business.
 Originally CRM was based on 3 major
principles, shielding the current customers,
fostering new customers and enhancing asset
value of all customers.
With the advent of CRM which was integrated
with high end software and technology,
business perspective were totally changed.
 TESCO was instrumental in bringing about the
change in CRM. Dunnhumms collaboration with
Tesco, due to the influence of Edwina Dunn and
Clive proved to be the foundation for CRM.
Since these 2 individuals had realized the
importance of knowing and understanding their
customers, they understood the supreme need for
adopting the right customer approach.
Tesco , the second largest grocer in the UK
collaborated with Dunnhumm and implemented
the customer loyalty program known as Tesco
Club Card Program, in 12 stores. It focused
entirely on the customer and implemented the
necessary business activity changes with the
customer in view.
 While doing this it assisted in the collection of
the information about customer preferences
and the net result was amazing.
The profits soared, competitors complained
and Tesco reigned supreme.
Competitors realized that this was the right
approach to adopt and that it generated huge
funds and customer retention and customer
loyalty were a natural by product of this
approach.
Evolution of CRM
 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of
those magnificent concepts that swept the business
world in the 1990's with the promise of forever
changing the way businesses small and large
interacted with their customer bases.
It is in1990's companies began to improve on
Customer Relationship Management by making it
more of a two-way street.
Instead of simply gathering data for their own use,
they began giving back to their customers not only
in terms of the obvious goal of improved customer
service, but in incentives, gifts and other perks for
customer loyalty.
 This was the beginning of the now familiar frequent
flier programs, bonus points on credit cards and a
host of other resources that are based on CRM
tracking of customer activity and spending patterns.
CRM was being used as a way to increase sales
passively as well as through active improvement of
customer service.
The Internet provided a huge boon to the
development of these huge databases by enabling
offsite information storage.
Where before companies had difficulty supporting
the enormous amounts of information, the Internet
provided new possibilities and CRM took off as
providers began moving toward Internet solutions.
 Today, CRM is still utilized most frequently by
companies that rely heavily on two distinct
features: customer service and technology.
The financial services industry in particular use
it to great advantage to tracks the level of client
satisfaction and what customers are looking for
in terms of changes and personalized features.
They also track changes in investment habits
and spending patterns as the economy shifts.
Software specific to the industry can give
financial service providers truly impressive
feedback in these areas.
CRM Strategy
 A complete and detailed plan is required to
obtain the funding, resources and company
wide support that can make the initiative of
choosing and implementing a system
successfully.
There are 3 areas that can be looked into
People
Process
Technology
 For an initiative to be effective, an organization
must convince its staff that the new technology
and workflows will benefit employees as well
as clients.
Senior executives need to be strong and visible
advocates who can clearly state and support
the case of change.
Collaboration, teamwork and 2 way
communication should be encouraged across
hierarchical boundaries, especially with respect
to process improvement.
 The system has many technological components,
business processes lie at its core.
It can be seen as a more client centric way of doing
business, enabled by technology that consolidates and
intelligently distributes pertinent information about
clients, sales, marketing effectiveness, responsiveness
and market trends.
Therefore a company must analyze its business
workflows and processes before choosing a technology
platform, some will likely need re engineering to better
serve the overall goal of winning and satisfying clients.
Planners need to determine types of client information
that are most relevant and how best to employ them.
 The key factors include alignment with the
company's business process strategy and goals,
including the ability to deliver the right data to
the right employees and sufficient ease of
adoption and use.
Platform selection is best undertaken by a
carefully chosen group of executives who
understand the business processes to be
automated as well as software issues.
Depending upon size of the company and the
breadth of data choosing an application can take
anywhere from a few weeks to a year or more.
 Sales Force automation
Marketing Automation
Customer Service Management
Integrated / Collaborative Organisation System
Social Media
 Poor Planning
Lack of Company Wide Integration
Lack of Coordination
Wrong Assessment for the return on
Investment in CRM
Responsibility for CRM implementation
 Choose a system that is easy to use
Choose appropriate capabilities
Provide training
Lead by example