Are You Using CRM?

It’s a valid question, because the large majority of small business owners I talk with don’t even know what CRM is, and yet it is a critical piece of corporate success. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and it is typically a software or service that allows this relationship to become more seamless.  You see, from the outside, customers interacting with a company perceive the business as a single entity, despite often interacting with a variety of employees in different roles and departments. CRM is a combination of policies, processes, and strategies implemented by a company that unify its customer interaction and provides a mechanism for tracking customer information.[1]

CRM includes many aspects which relate directly to one another:

• Front office operations — Direct interaction with customers, e.g. face to face meetings, phone calls, e-mail, online services etc.
• Back office operations — Operations that ultimately affect the activities of the front office (e.g., billing, maintenance, planning, marketing, advertising, finance, manufacturing, etc.)
• Business relationships — Interaction with other companies and partners, such as suppliers/vendors and retail outlets/distributors, industry networks (lobbying groups, trade associations). This external network supports front and back office activities.
• Analysis — Key CRM data can be analyzed in order to plan target-marketing campaigns, conceive business strategies, and judge the success of CRM activities (e.g., market share, number and types of customers, revenue, profitability, etc.).

So where are some good places to go to find this service?  I’ve listed some of the industry leaders below:

Salesforce.com
Entellium.com
InsideCRM.com
Accenture.com
Clpsuite.com
Oncontact.com
NetSuite.com

Perhaps you not only are fully aware of what CRM is, if you have a CRM firm I have some good news for you.  One year ago at Gartner’s 2007 CRM Summit, Bruce Culbert and Paul Greenberg launched myCRMcareer.com, with the promise that the social networking site would become the destination community for CRM professionals. Building on that promise, the pair will unveil the latest edition of myCRMcareer.com during Gartner’s 2008 CRM Summit, with an integrated online community built by myCRM’s partner, Neighborhood America, a leading provider of social networking solutions for world-wide enterprises.

“CRM practitioners worldwide will be able to get up-to-date, real-time insights from our perspective on the Gartner CRM Summit when they register for the community and tune-in September 8-10,” says Bruce Culbert, co-founder of myCRMcareer.com.

Social technologies such as blogs, forums and rich video, the enhanced community will provide a highly interactive network for CRM professionals to share experiences, thoughts and ideas on an ongoing basis. From videos capturing the most significant events and insights within the CRM industry, to job opportunities, myCRMcareer.com was created with the intent to empower a global network of practitioners in the CRM community with the tools they need to collaborate effectively.

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