Customer Relationship Management is basically a term that refers to practices, strategies and tools that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions. It can be said to be a method of gathering insights from customer interactions and data, in order to improve customer service relationships and assisting in customer retention. It also improves the sales process as the data collected can give some idea of the customer’s likes and dislikes.
In many companies, the data is collected manually and spreadsheets are created in order to facilitate the process. This is a very tiresome process and is highly prone to human error. This is where Customer Relationship Management system comes into the picture. The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system helps in keeping accurate records of phone calls, emails, meetings, conversations and quotations. These records can be used to plan ahead effectively, and offer clients the right level of contact and support.
The CRM allows end to end management of new leads from the initial contact till closure. It gives the functionality of setting up reminders and follow-up tasks and report on all of one’s activities.
Let us take the example of Credit Card companies. They have CRM installed so that they can monitor customer data and gather insights about the customer’s spending profile. They will call the customer asking whether they want to increase their credit limit whenever they realize a particular customer’s shopping pattern. CRM helps in creating rather accurate customer profiles which is used to offer value added services such as instant loans, EMI, fuel cards, etc.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) data can be used to gather useful insights regarding the customer’s mindset, which is sometimes used by malicious parties to negatively influence the individual. But that cannot be avoided I guess. As every good thing will have its fair share of cons.