Importance of Customer Relationship management (Essay Sample)

Customer Relationship management
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Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u 1.Introduction of the company PAGEREF _Toc430737107 \h 32.Importance of Customer Relationship management PAGEREF _Toc430737108 \h 33.Importance CRM for small business PAGEREF _Toc430737109 \h 44.CRM solution and its need PAGEREF _Toc430737110 \h 45.Stages of customer life cycle and need of CRM solutions PAGEREF _Toc430737111 \h 56.Important CRM touch points in Small business PAGEREF _Toc430737112 \h 6i.Touch points Before purchasing and CRM solution PAGEREF _Toc430737113 \h 6ï‚·Managing customers and contacts PAGEREF _Toc430737114 \h 6ï‚·Work flow management PAGEREF _Toc430737115 \h 7ï‚·Advertising PAGEREF _Toc430737116 \h 7ï‚·Word of mouth PAGEREF _Toc430737117 \h 7ii.Touch point During purchasing and CRM solution PAGEREF _Toc430737118 \h 8ï‚·Manage online stores PAGEREF _Toc430737119 \h 8ï‚·Promotion and price management PAGEREF _Toc430737120 \h 8ï‚·Order management PAGEREF _Toc430737121 \h 8iii.Touch points after purchasing and CRM solution PAGEREF _Toc430737122 \h 9ï‚·Review of marketing mails and follow up PAGEREF _Toc430737123 \h 9ï‚·Online help centers and customer care PAGEREF _Toc430737124 \h 97.Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc430737125 \h 108.References PAGEREF _Toc430737126 \h 10
1 Introduction of the company
Zest is a small company that has almost 15 employees. All the employees employed remotely to the office. There is a need of collaboration and integration in all the staff members. The collaboration can only be achieved with the help of an effective CRM solution. The effective CRM is one who covers the complete customer life cycle. As, there are many points in the company where customer relationship management is required. CRM creates integration in the company's management team. Moreover, effective CRM solution also addresses many problems of the customer lifecycle. In this assignment, the importance of Customer relationship management and CRM solution have discussed in detail. Moreover, it also explains how a CRM solution plays its part in the management of small business. In addition, the stages of customer life cycles and the need of CRM solutions in each stage of the small company copay have also been discussed.
2 Importance of Customer Relationship management
Customer relationship management is an important concept for all the companies of this globalized world. Customer relationship management is the customer-centric approach. More and more companies adopt this management strategy to achieve competitive advantage. The strategy, tools and techniques of customer relationship management make the operations of the company more effective CITATION Wer03 \l 1033 (Reinartz & Kumar, 2003). The CRM only understands the need of integration and in-depth customer knowledge. It is also used to make and maintain partnering and cooperative relationship with the customers. CRM develops a great degree of integration not only with the customer, but also creates a good relationship among the different members of the organization. Customer relationship management provides knowledge about the customer and its preferences CITATION Pet951 \l 1033 (Peterson, 1995). Moreover, it also suggests the ways of how to achieve and retain targeted audience. From the marketing perspective, CRM is a marketing tool which is used to build a relationship between buyer and seller. Many marketing strategies are based on CRM. CRM is relevant with marketing channels, advertisement strategies, business to business marketing, and services of marketing. It provides a conceptual foundation of managing relationship with customers CITATION Atu01 \l 1033 (Parvatiyar & Sheth, 2001). Thus, in the marketing literature, customer relationship management is a marketing strategy that is used to develop and maintain good and positive relationship with customer for increasing brand value and sales of the company. The term Customer relationship management is interchangeably used for relationship managementCITATION JNees \l 1033 (J.Nevin, 1995). From the broad perspective, customer relationship management is a wide term that covers various important and significant other concepts of marketing. On the other hand, from narrow perspective customer relationship management is only used to stay in touch and maintain bonds with the customers.
In addition, Customer relationship management makes each and every customer feel that the company understand and know them. CRM covers three most important aspects of the customers CITATION MJB98 \l 1033 (M.J.Baker, 1998). The first one is customer profile information in which the company gathers all the information about its potential and actual customers. The second other aspect is the customer buying profile in which the company studies and makes detail on the buying decision. The third and the last aspect is customer buying preferences, in which the customer preferences have been studied and analyzed. By compiling information of the customer the company can create value of the product that is being offered by the company in this the company creates customer loyalty through customer relationship management. Thus, customer relationship management has many benefits for the company and for the customers as well CITATION MJB95 \l 1033 (M.J.Bitner, 1995). It is used to increase the sales of the company and also reduce the cost of marketing activities. CRM provides accurate assessment of the customer and its preferences. Such an accurate assessment helps the company in formulating right marketing strategies for its target audience. Moreover, now CRM is not only a management or a marketing technique but it's a solution that is being installed by the hundreds of companies for creating integration and collaboration among the different divisions and the members of the company.
3 Importance CRM for small business
CRM is the important and valuable asset for the small companies. Many small scale businesses adopt customer relationship management strategies and solution to exploit many of its benefits. There are many benefits of customer relationship management for the smaller companies. CRM is very useful for the smaller companies to develop good and a positive relationship with the customers. It allows the company to collect the information about the customer and apply that information for the betterment of the company CITATION Chr11 \l 1033 (Bucholtz, 2011). Moreover, CRM also provides the ability for the company to rate the performance of its workforce. Even if the company wants to stay relatively small but with the help of CRM it can grow and extend its operations to the other markets as well. It provides the cost effective method to grow and earn more profits to the small companies. It enables the small business to handle and manage large data. The new and modern data management techniques for customer relationship management save the operating cost of the small organization CITATION Lon13 \l 1033 (Longenecker & Hoy, 2013). It solves many problems of the small companies like without hiring more staff, the small companies can extend its operations. Moreover, it gives the same marketing effectiveness that can enjoy by the large companies. It helps in managing many operations of the small companies like generating leads, coordinate various marketing activities and tracking the customer response effectively and quickly. It also helps the small business in keeping big and old records in the company's information system that can retrieve by the company's employees any time anywhere. It also reduces the face time of the employees CITATION Ins14 \l 1033 (Insightly Inc, 2014). Therefore, CRM gives unique power to the smaller companies to driving values and maintaining its operations effectively.
4 CRM solution and its need
In many organizations, CRM is only considered as the management tool, but in many organizations it is also a technology. CRM is a combination of people, processes and technology, which is used to understand the customers of the company. CRM solution is an integrated approach that manages relationship of the company with its customers and also with its employees. CRM solution has advantages for both customer and for a company that increases the need and demand of installing the effective CRM system in the organization. CRM system has changed the landscape of the modern marketing management CITATION STi99 \l 1033 (S.Tiazkun, 1999). Now, the companies are more tilled towards the customer than the past. All the companies try to exploit the potential advantage of the competitive edge by installing an effective CRM system. It al...