Customer Relationship Management

Customer relationship management (CRM) is an approach to managing a company’s interaction with its customers without losing sight of future prospects. The approach employed by the CRM seeks to scan data about customer's likely preferences by gathering data through a range of varied channels such as website browsing history, live chat, email, phone calls, social media etc. This allows businesses to learn more about their target audience and how to best cater to their needs. There are 3 types of CRM:


1- Operational CRM
Integrating and automating sales as well as customer support is the primary goal of CRM. These systems likely have some sort fo dashboard with an overall view of the client information, past sales, previous marketing attempts, prividing a brief summary of all the relations forged between the customer and the company. Operational CRM is made up of 3 elements:

1-a)  Sales force automation. Involves with all stages in the sales cycle, from opening to clinching the deal. Info is gleaned from a number of sources, ranging from account history, call centers, marketing and retail outlets.

1-b) Marketing Automation focuses on easing the overall marketing process to make it more effective and efficient. CRM tools with marketing automation capabilities automate endless tasks such as sending out automated bulk emails at certain times to customers.

1-c) Service automation focuses on direct customer service technology. Through service automation, customers are supported through multiple channels such as phone, email, knowledge bases and FAQs.

2- Analytical CRM- it means the presentation of gathered data to managers for decision-making purposes. Analytical CRM systems uses methjods such as data mining, correlationa nd pattern recognition to parse through customer data. It's possible to solve problems through proper scanning of the collected data, for instance, detecting how someone hasn't bought something for a long and figuring out ways to find out what this has happened.

3- Collaborative CRM
The third primary aim of CRM systems is to incorporate external stakeholders such as suppliers, vendors and distributors and share customer information across organizations.