Answer
The perception of business house in viewing of customer is changing these days. Customers are treated as the long term assets instead of one time exploitable source of income. To nurture customers as the long term assets the customer relationship management (CRM) system through the use of information technology has been adapted. CRM is both a business and technology discipline that uses information systems to integrate all of the business processes surrounding the forms interactions with its customers in sales, marketing and service. The ideal CRM system provides end to end customer care from receipt of an order through product delivery. A good CRM system consolidate customer data from multiple sources and provides the analytical tools for answering question such as: What is the value of particular customer to the firm over his or her life time? Who is the most loyal customer? How can organization reach to those customers?
Customer relationship management system is a software suit which provides a complete window of customer to all the member of the organization dealing with the customer in clicks to provide them support and information to enhance the long term relationship between potential and existing customer and organization. At the same time CRM also provides the complete window view of the organization to the customer on clicks. Thus CRM is a cross functional information system that integrates and automates many of customer oriented business activities such as sales, marketing and customer services with the help of web based IT frame work.
The major application area of CRM can be listed as:
• Contact and Account Management
• Sales
• Marketing
• Customer Support
• Retention
Contract and account management:
This area mainly helps marketing and service professional to capture and track the customer relevant data. The customer data can be captured from the websites, telephones, fax and email etc.
Sales:
A CRM software suite provides the sales representatives the tools to enhance their activities. It can help them for the cross-selling and up-selling of the products.
Marketing:
CRM system help marketing professional accomplish direct marketing campaigns by automating such tasks as qualifying leads for targeted marketing and scheduling and tracking direct marketing mailings. It also helps marketing professional to analyze the data of prospecting customers.
Customer Support:
CRM software provides the service representative with the software tools and real time access to the common customer database shared by sales and marketing professionals. CRM helps customers service managers create, assign and manage requests for service by customers.
Retention:
It helps to retain the most valuable and potential customer by enhancing the relationship. It helps to identify such customer and reward them in kind.