Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has cemented its position in business since inception; Customer Relationship Management presents a groundbreaking strategic framework for successful CRM policy (Knox et al., 2007). CRM helps getting the point of view from the market and implemented in its full potential can acquire the business value. CRM should not be misunderstood as an IT initiative; it is a Business Process or a Business Strategy intended to derive Business Value enabled by Information Technology, creating value for its customers. In the current era of customer driven businesses, CRM is must have in the Top Management agenda. It cannot be an isolated department somewhere in the organization anymore. For a customer driven business, the evolution of relationship marketing, Information Technology (IT) and changing customer behavior form the three basic pillars. This results in creating customized solutions for customers and not just focusing on their internal efficiencies. CRM gives the flexibility to look at an individual customer, address the need and collect, collate all the data. This data converted into information is used for customer service and analysis providing some rich customer insights. CRM is not only “customer relationship management software”, but also a process of managing all aspects of interaction a company has with its customers, including prospecting, sales, and service. Customer service is one of the most vital elements of customer relationship management to acquire, develop, and retain customers. Customer experience has taken a paramount position and become the new battleground for Service Organizations. Customer centric organizations strive hard to embark the customer loyalty journey starting with service level execution, next step being customer satisfaction. Constant achievement of higher level of customer satisfaction moves the organization one notch up i.e. customer delight. The pinnacle of customer service is achieving the level of customer ecstasy, which results in highest business performance. Industries get a competitive advantage today by offering a consistent customer experience at all touch points, regardless of channel (Connected Customer Service, 2016).
It is quite evident that for CRM implementation, crux is data creation, collation, collaboration and transfer. Information Technology enables the entire business process where data transfer happens over Internet. Since as of today Internet is the fastest medium of data transfer between different entities, which are miles apart from each other (Tolia et al., 2006). Since the digital business focuses on customer first principle, it becomes extremely significant to possess the real time information of the customer. The real time information would include the customer choices, demands, changing trends and grievances. The data is gathered from automatic sensors fixed at appropriate data gathering spots and stored in a data warehouse to perform business analytics (Yerpude & Singhal, 2017).