Customer Relationship

Management

CRM - some definitions and explanations

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is defined as a business management tool which facilitates the automation of so-called "front-office" functions of an organization ("back-office" being defined as finance, inventory and order fulfillment). CRM software is usually implemented to address the needs of the Sales, Customer Service and Project functions within an organization and allow the three disciplines to share data on prospects, customers, partners, competitors and employees.

The purpose of CRM software is to manage the customer through the entire lifecycle, i.e. from initial contact through to prospect to qualified sales opportunity to active customer and even to inactive customer where there is potential opportunity to re-sell or upsell to old customers.

CRM software automates many of the needs of Sales and Support users, such as the ability to conduct sales meetings and manage data collected on such meetings or calls, plus tools to capture, share and manage sales lead data as it passes through the sales pipeline. CRM software provides a standard framework for pushing leads through a sales process and managing it amongst many stakeholders in real time in order to provide better customer relations and grow revenues by identifying, acquiring and retaining the right customers for the business.

CRM software helps organizations achieve the goal of excellent customer relations by measuring key performance indicators collected by the CRM software about the organization's reaction to customers from service cycle times to isolating marketing campaigns that drive the most and best quality leads. By allowing people to manage more business with less effort, never losing data on customers to eliminate deals slipping through the cracks and by providing good customer support to maintain the relationship with the customer for years to come CRM software is changing the way successful organizations behave.