Customer Relationship Management
17.1 Introduction
If anything, the Internet and the World Wide Web have highlighted the importance of a customer- focused approach to business and marketing. It may seem obvious now, but the heydays of mass media marketing seemed to assume that people could be persuaded to purchase anything, provided there was sufficient advertising to promote a product. While signs declaring “The Customer Is Always Right” may have been stuck to the walls of shops and restaurants, the customer did not have much of a voice outside of that shop or restaurant.
Move forward a few decades to an increasingly connected society and marketplace, and the customer’s voice is being heard in blogs, forums, reviews, and other forms of social media. It is easier for consumers to connect with one another, albeit virtually, to share experiences with services and products.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is, as the name suggests, about managing relationships with customers. It should imply a customer-focused approach to business for fostering real relationships with these important stakeholders: customers.
Often, online marketing is referred to as e-CRM (electronic customer relationship management). This appears to underline the importance of technology in CRM. It also highlights the most important consideration of any eMarketing tactic: customers.
17.2 Why Electronic Customer Relationship Management?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Learn why e-CRM (electronic customer relationship management) is an important part of business.
Become familiar with the different types of e-CRM.
Customers can be seen as the most important stakeholders in a business’s success. Without customers purchasing goods or services, most businesses would not have a revenue stream. But it can be difficult to shift from realizing this important fact to implementing it into day-to-day business decisions and strategy.
A successful relationship with a customer is based on meeting (and perhaps even exceeding) his or her needs. It is in determining what problems the customer has and in providing solutions to those problems.
Maintaining good customer relationships is critical to the success of a business. The costs associated with acquiring a new customer are generally far higher than the cost of maintaining an existing customer relationship. This is why investing in customer relationship management (CRM) should result in increasing revenue for the business.
The cycle of CRM starts with determining what problems potential customers might have and then presenting solutions to those problems. Solutions are implemented, and then ongoing service maintains the relationship with the customer.
Take, for example, two people booking an overseas holiday. One is a twenty-three-year-old recent graduate who is visiting Argentina for three months with a friend; one is a thirty-eight-year-old mother of two young children planning a family holiday to Thailand. If they both walked into a travel agency, the