CRM - Customer Relationship Management

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a term applied to processes implemented by a company to handle its contact with its customers. CRM software is used to support these processes, storing information on current and prospective customers. Information in the system can be accessed and entered by employees in different departments, such as sales, marketing, customer service, training, professional development, performance management, human resource development, and compensation. Details on any customer contacts can also be stored in the system. The rationale behind this approach is to improve services provided directly to customers and to use the information in the system for targeted marketing and sales purposes. This according to to Wikipedia.

While the term is generally used to refer to a software-based approach to handling customer relationships, most CRM software vendors stress that a successful CRM strategy requires a holistic approach. CRM initiatives often fail because implementation was limited to software installation without providing the appropriate motivations for employees to learn, provide input, and take full advantage of the information systems.

Here at TechOSS, we have extensive experience managing teams and working one on one with customers implementing major system changes across major telecommunications providers all across North America, Canada and Europe. And in every single installation, the above statements hold true especially, "most CRM software vendors stress that a successful CRM strategy requires a holistic approach." This is due to the fact that people are the recipients of CRM solutions, yet everyone seems to start with the software, then hardware and unfortunately worry about the most important person, the people.

This is evident when you start to apply the basic questions that should be applied to almost any CRM installation. Most business processes can be mapped to process and forms used by people for example questions like the following should be asked.

• How many forms are genuinely electronic?
  
• What do you do when a form gets lost or stuck?
  
• How do you find your forms quickly?
  
• How do you deal with time-sensitive issues?
  
• How could you improve the efficiency of your processes?
  
• Who changed which field on which form and when did they change it?
  
• How many of your processes require approvals and routing?
  
• How are your processes integrated with your other systems?

While the above set of questions is a simplified version for smaller business, the concept and approach is clearly about how the people involved in the systems and processes. So whle  CRM or Ccustomer Relationship Management) is an information industry term for methodologies, software, and usually Internet capabilities that help an a business manage customer relationships in an organized way. The focus on the most important part must be the people first, then the processes and the software and systems last. This is the only way to make a CRM installation successful.

I hope you agree and more to come on this subject so grab an RSS feed or click a link to made sure you stay up todate as we examine CRM in more depth for small business.

Greg

Tagged as: compensation details, crm strategy, customer relationship management, customer relationship management crm, human resource development, telecommunications providers