Customer Relationship Management
The world over, due to the recession, people are switching to direct marketing techniques to save costs. CRM is an upcoming concept in direct marketing strategies. CRM has special software packages that enable the customer to build a rapport with the company and the company to build a favourable image with the customer.
CRM employs call centres, data analysis and web-site management to effectively get across to the customer. CRM is a way by which companies can maintain the data of customers, their personal details and past purchase patterns. CRM integrates a lot of information from various sources in the company to enable the staff to access homogenous inputs about the customer on one common database.
Direct Marketing is often seen in contrast to Mass Marketing where advertising, PR, corporate communications etc play an important role. Direct Marketing using e-mails and print snail mails is a cost effective method to let target audiences on new products and innovations in old products. CRM the world over relies on the QCi customer management model involving analysis and planning, proposition, information and technology, people and organization, process management, customer management activity, measuring the effect, customer experience and a SWOT analysis of competitors.
CRM makes the company customer oriented and outward looking instead of only focusing on the products.
The various customer-company contact points are salesforces, telephones, distributors, fax machines, web-sites and e-mails. CRM integrates data from all these sources to arrive at one common database of each client or customer. CRM is also useful to study customer buying patterns and techniques and marketing research. CRM is relatively a new concept in India, but is catching up with more and more companies investing in Relationship managers and focusing on the needs and desires of customers.
Neha Singh
