Customer Relationship Management is a widely-implemented strategy for managing and maintaining a

company's interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win

new clients; develop and retain those the company already has; lure former clients back into the fold; and

reduce the costs of marketing and client service. To effectively reach these goals involves the use of CRM technology and systems to organise, automate, and

synchronise business processes.

The 360o view of the customer can only be attained by capturing all the interactions between yourself and client through the use of such technology. Within CRM we can break down our 360o view into four principle processes:

- Contact/Account Management

- Marketing

- Sales

- Customer Service

Contact/Account Management

The Contact Management process will focus on the 'Company' and 'People' entities as well as the

communications which you have with them. Through careful data capture - within Contact/Account

Management - you will be able to answer questions such as:

• When did we last speak to 'Customer X'?

• What is the email address for 'Person Y'?

• Who do we speak to about purchasing at 'Supplier Z'?

Marketing

Within the Marketing procedures in CRM you should be able to easily perform segmentation and create groups as well as mapping out marketing campaigns with respective

budgets, waves, activities and so forth. Tracking these campaigns allows you to analyse their effectiveness and

show where you managed to interact with your customers or prospects. Many CRM systems now utilise fantastic email marketing functionality; allowing for mass email

merges, distribution and tracking to your clients, suppliers and leads. Marketing functionality allows you to answer

questions such as:

• Who is actually reading the emails we are sending out?

• How do I segment my data into target lists?

• How many leads/opportunities did we make from our latest marketing campaign?

Sales

The aforementioned leads and opportunities which you create will be handled by the third principle process of

CRM; the Sales Pipeline. The Sales utility will allow you to effectively track the progress of potential new business,

including the forecasting and reporting on all phases of the sales cycle. Many systems allow you to perform this

through an intuitive workflow function; developing and advancing your leads/opportunities through the stages

and cycles. Through the sales functionality you will also be able to produce quick reports on your pipeline and

ultimately answer questions such as:

• How many leads are being turned into real opportunities?

• How many leads am I currently working on and what stage are they on?

• How are individual sales people performing?

Customer Service

Finally, Customer Service within your CRM system should focus on your Case, Task and Solution Management. This

in turn should effectively increase your knowledge base on customers as well as known issues/problems of your

products or services. It is designed to help you manage and resolve your customer queries and issues efficiently

and effectively. It will help you to answer question such as:

• How many complaints do we get and how do we resolve them?

• What products or services cause the most issues?

• How quickly do we deal with issues?

Conclusion

Whilst the CRM system and technology is essential to successfully capturing and maintaining a 360o view of your

customers, there is a strong reliance on staff and administrators to efficiently input current and correct

data. Failure to do so runs the risk of customer dissatisfaction whilst potentially crippling your CRM

strategy.

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