A Practical Guide to Customer Relationship Management

by Lisa Loftis

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a very popular topic in today's business environment. Hit any Web search engine with the initials "CRM" and you are likely to generate hundreds (or even thousands) of responses. What's more, the responses to your search will span a broad, and possibly bewildering, panorama of vendors, Web sites, publications, and consulting firms, many of which may claim to provide "all the CRM you need to succeed." As is often the case, the very popularity that is causing CRM to become the fuel for board-level discussions in many organizations is also leading to confusion and misconceptions over what CRM really involves. A very common and natural mistake is to consider CRM from the perspective of only one business function or technology. Organizations that are implementing call center or sales force automation software packages will probably tell you that they are implementing CRM. The same goes for organizations that are building marketing databases or implementing campaign management facilities. Are either of these groups achieving CRM? Not necessarily. Although each may be moving in the right direction, chances are good that they all have a long way to go.