Not very long ago, each customer interaction, whether it was inbound or outbound, via telephone, e-mail or the Web, was considered a disparate customer interaction.
The customer sends an e-mail? Reply to the e-mail, transaction finished. You call the customer for a follow-up? Task completed, close the file. The customer calls in with an inquiry? [...]

Here’s a good post I came across on crmsuccess.blogs.com written by Wendy Close.

Enterprises with a successful CRM strategy truly reap the benefits: “Through 2010, enterprises that deploy CRM strategies will return at least 25 percent better financial metrics than those that don’t.”  —Source: Gartner, Inc., “Ten Secrets for Creating a Customer-Centric Enterprise,” by Scott Nelson, [...]

In the wake of announcements last week that Microsoft is delaying the consumer version of the next-generation Vista operating system, the company issued a statement on Sunday to highlight a few of its software initiatives on the business front. Most notably, Microsoft announced it has created a hosted version of its customer-relationship management (CRM) application [...]

Here’s what keeps CEOs awake at night: Their companies are spending billions on customer service , loyalty programs, new CRM initiatives, and technology tools. Yet customer satisfaction levels are decreasing, defection rates are increasing, and most CRM programs are forecast to fail. After decades of relentless effort in putting the customer first, it seems that [...]

Sales not where you want them no matter what you do? So how do we fix the problem? Just about everyone out there with a sales force has had this problem at one time or another, and there are tools to increase sales through customer satisfaction.
This customer satisfaction will depend a whole lot on [...]

Smart salespeople leverage their strengths and get help with their weaknesses. For many of us, organization isn’t one of our strong points. Keeping track of which customers to follow up with when, how, and, most importantly, why usually requires some support. Hence, a few decades ago a new industry was born — CRM, customer relationship [...]

Customer relationship management (CRM) is grabbing the attention of business leaders who wish to instill customer-centric business models. Their concern, however, is how to determine what the value of CRM is both for their organizational effectiveness as well as for their customers. Value chain management (VCM), which focuses on value creation and process optimization, offers [...]

In a now legendary 1995 memo, bill Gates raised the alarm that Microsoft was woefully unprepared for what he termed the “Internet Tidal Wave.” Fast forward 10 years to last October, and Gates blasts out another high-priority e-mail, this time warning of a coming “services wave” of applications available instantly over the Internet. “The next [...]

During a recent online poll, we asked the following question:
"What upsets you the most when receiving poor customer service?"
Eighty percent of the poll participants said the “I don’t care attitude” of the person serving them upsets them the most.

CRM was supposed to bring companies closer to their clients. The basic idea was to; find out what a client wants and needs, give it to them, and get them to be your client for life.