Customer relationship management (CRM) is a broad term that covers concepts used by companies to manage their relationships with customers, including the capture, storage and analysis of customer information.
There are three aspects of CRM which can each be implemented in isolation from each other:
Operational CRM
Operational CRM provides support to "front office" business processes, including sales, marketing and service. Each interaction with a customer is generally added to a customer's contact history, and staff can retrieve information on customers from the database as necessary.
One of the main benefits of this contact history is that customers can interact with different people or different contact “channels” in a company over time without having to repeat the history of their interaction each time.
Consequently, many call centers use some kind of CRM software to support their call centre agents.
Collaborative CRM
Collaborative CRM covers the direct interaction with customers, for a variety of different purposes, including feedback and issue-reporting. Interaction can be through a variety of channels, such as internet, email, automated phone (Automated Voice Response AVR), SMS or through mobile email.
Analytical CRM
Analytical CRM analyses customer data for a variety of purposes including
- design and execution of targeted marketing campaigns to optimise marketing effectiveness
- design and execution of specific customer campaigns, including customer acquisition, cross-selling, up-selling, retention
- analysis of customer behaviour to aid product and service decision making (e.g. pricing, new product development etc.)
- management decisions, e.g. financial forecasting and customer profitability analysis
- prediction of the probability of customer defection (churn).
The technology requirements of a CRM strategy can be complex and far reaching. The basic building blocks include
- A database to store customer information. This can be a CRM specific database or an Enterprise Data warehouse.
- Operational CRM requires customer agent support software.
- Collaborative CRM requires customer interaction systems, eg an interactive website, automated phone systems etc.
- Analytical CRM requires statistical analysis software as well as software that manages any specific marketing campaigns.
Each of these can be implemented in a basic manner or in a high end complex installation.
Information From : http://en.wikipedia.org