Implementing CRM

Customer Relationship Management is a business strategy which focuses on creating and maintaining lasting relationships with customers. Although there are several CRM software packages on the market which support CRM strategy, both technology as an enabler and a change in an organisations philosophy are important when implementing a successful CRM Solution.

A successful CRM strategy cannot be created by simply installing a software package and will not happen over night. For ultimate success, changes must occur at all levels including policies and processes, front of house customer service, employee training, marketing, systems and information management; all aspects of the business must be customer driven and the correct tool customised to meet a businesses specific needs.

To be effective, the CRM process needs to be integrated end-to-end across marketing, sales, and customer service. A good CRM Solution needs to:

• Encompass all Marketing activities to create new customers
• Identify customer success factors
• Create a customer-based culture
• Adopt customer-based measures
• Track & make visible all points of contact with the customer
• Develop an end-to-end process to serve customers
• Recommend what questions to ask to help a customer solve a problem
• Recommend what to tell a customer with a complaint about a purchase
• Track all aspects of selling to customers and prospects as well as customer support.

When setting up a CRM segment for a company it might first want to identify what profile aspects it feels are relevant to its business, such as what information it needs to serve its customers, the customer's past financial history, the effects of the CRM segment and any surplus information that can be discarded

When designing a CRM's structure, a company may want to consider keeping more extensive information on their primary customers and keeping less extensive details on the low-margin clients.