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Customer Relationship Management
Customer relationship management (CRM) encompasses a large range
of applications that link a business to its customers. The term
customer relationship management can mean a lot of things for
different people and is holistically referred to as any activity
that directly connects with the customer for communication and
transactions.
Customer relationship management is a critical business function
as it impacts revenues, market shares, new customer acquisition,
customer loyalty and repeat business. CRM addresses the complete
life-cycle of a relationship that a business has with its customers
from the time a new customer is identified and connected with
through all the transactions and servicing of the customer.
This life-cycle could extend over years and lifetimes and companies
are honing their CRM systems to ensure that they are able to
deliver delight to their customers beyond providing quality
products and services.
CRM covers a number of smaller functional areas but each of
these addresses a specific process or element of the larger
relationship with the customer.
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Sales Force Automation |
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Customer Service |
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Helpdesks |
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Web Self-Service |
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Data Mining |
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Order Management |
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Billing |
CRM also helps in enabling businesses to understand their customers
better and tailoring products and services to suit their needs
and preferences.
Global leaders in CRM include
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Siebel Systems |
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Rightnow Technologies |
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Salesforce.com |
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