Customer Relationship Managment: CRM in the Information Age

In today’s market it’s important for businesses to remain as competitive as humanly possible. With so many competing businesses, offering a wide array of similar public offerings, it becomes a full time job to stand out to one’s customer base. Once a customer base is acquired, however, how does one go about retaining and keeping clients happy? This is where customer relationship management comes to the rescue, as there are several ways to go about positively interacting with your customers and building a lasting relationship.

Relationship marketing is not a new concept. The way in which businesses may go about it, however, has elevated in recent years. Just think back roughly 20 years ago. Most of the interaction between business and client was performed either via phone call or post office box. With new advances in technology CRM has taken on a whole new look and feel, with social media having a big presence in the overall mix of things.

For some new to the concept of CRM, you may be wondering what all CRM entails. In short, CRM revolves around best business practices, as well as innovation, in how a given company interacts with their customer base. Happy customers equals high return on investment (ROI). Email lists, community boards, social media outlets and other means have crept into an area, encompassing CRM, that was primarily non-existent roughly 50 years ago.

CRM solutions basically provides a solution to three primary functions.

1. Reporting and Customer Identification – customer relationship management tools and software all for a company to strategically identify and label its customer base. This was something that was near non-existent in the industrial revolution era, whose primary business models revolved squarely on supply and fulfilling demand.
2. Analyzing and Customer Segmentation –  CRM segmentation technologies allows for a given business to have the functionality to sort, label and categorize their customers in such a fashion, so as to make meaning out of great volumes of statistical data.
3. Customer Prediction – Theoretically one of the more important aspects of CRM is customer prediction. With this tool in hand a company is able to make informed decisions on how to retain customer trust in their brand. The ability to predict a customer’s movements, within a business frameset, can be considered to have a great monetary value for a company, when utilized correctly.

The following CRM software solution list is one I’ve compiled to get you acquainted with exactly options are available for you online company. This is not an exhaustive list, but comes with high recommendation:

1. Salesforce – Customer relationship management at an affordable prices (several different packages). Includes a 30 day free trial and customer support. They include the functionality for viewing a live demo before purchase. The Salesforce.com solution focuses on cloud computing with no requirement to download cumbersome software.

2. Insightly – Popular FREE Google App Marketplace solution. This CRM software offers functionality to track leads, proposals, opportunities and projects. This application also comes with great reviews on the Google Apps marketplace.

3. Zoho CRM – This customer relationship management software is free up to 3 users. The have various paid options as well. This solution comes with plug-in functionality for Microsoft Outlook and Office. Email marketing, inventory management and product customization are just some of its many features.

4. MailChimp –  Perhaps one of my more recommended CRM email solutions, MailChimp is a leader in the field of autoresponder services. MailChimp offers a wide range of social media plugins and support to its already impressive list of options. The service is free for up to 1000 subscribers with 6000 email sends a month.

5. AWeber –  AWeber is another highly-favored autoresponder service that you may want to give a try. This service offers a wide array of services to include “smart emails”, customizable newsletters and analytical tracking capabilities.

To your continued success,

Eric Nathaniel Jones

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Tagged with: crm • customer relationship management • customer satisfaction • data warehouse • database • evolution • evolution of crm

Filed under: Customer Relationship Management

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