For many people, the term Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is used to refer to (expensive) software that many organisations have been implementing over the past few years. This is a wrong perception.

CRM is much more than software.

It is an entire business philosophy that aims to coordinate and focus business processes on acquiring, retaining, and servicing customers.

All CRM practitioners emphasize that CRM is not merely a technology - but it certainly does require technology to help coordinate the customer-related activities of the various departments of an organisation. It is largely due to the advances in technology, and the increasing sophistication of the Internet browser that has enabled the modern CRM systems to be so widely deployed.

An area that is overlooked is that of the cultural adoption of CRM. Merely installing a system, and not paying enough attention to the ’soft’ side of the implementation will lead to poor results. Implementers need to make sure that:

• Staff get sufficient training regarding the philosophy behind CRM, as well as
• How to use the new software effectively.

While the early CRM systems were exclusively implemented in large organisations, a number of low-cost hosted CRM applications, as well as (free) open source systems has lowered the costs to such an extent that it is now feasible for small businesses to consider implementing CRM.

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This category has articles in the following sub categories:

• CRM Implementation (2)
• CRM Software (3)
• CRM Strategy (8)
• CRM vs Organisational Culture (1)
• Small Business CRM (2)