Customer Relationship Management (CRM) refers to the systematic establishment and expansion of a company’s customer relationships. In this context it is irrelevant whether the company is active in the B2B or B2C sector.
In order to be able to act competitively, companies must focus on the user/customer and their needs and interests. Therefore, the goal of using Customer Relationship Management is to provide the best possible service for new and existing customers through appropriate measures. The goal of a successful CRM is therefore an improved customer retention, which can lead to e.g. higher shopping carts, more frequent purchases and/or other sales-promoting KPIs.
When generally speaking of Customer Relationship Management, a so-called CRM system is usually meant. This is a software with which CRM is operated in practice. It consists of a database in which the various information about the customer is stored and maintained. It is such a tool that makes successful customer relationship management possible. A good CRM system must enable the company to initiate customer-related measures based on existing data, as well as to evaluate completed campaigns.
Classical requirements for a CRM system are
- Maintenance of customer data (master data)
- Availability of the purchase and communication history of the customers
- Data aggregation in the form of evaluations and segmentation
- Project management of customer measures as well as customer-related appointment management
- storage space for customer-related documents and contracts
Especially departments with a lot of customer contact, such as sales or marketing, can benefit from the use of a CRM system.
The prerequisite for this is the continuous maintenance of the data (bases) in order to avoid using incorrect or outdated data as a starting point.