CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is a process or methodology used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. There are many technological components to CRM, but thinking about CRM in primarily technological terms is a mistake. The more useful way to think about CRM is as a process that will help bring together lots of pieces of information about customers, sales, marketing effectiveness, responsiveness and market trends.

CRM helps businesses use technology and human resources to gain insight into the behavior of customers and the value of those customers.

CRM Software

• Sales Force Automation
• Contact management
• Contact management software stores, tracks and manages contacts, leads of an enterprise.
• Lead management
• Enables an organization to manage, track and forecast sales leads.
• Customer Service
• Call Center
• Help Desk
• Partner Relationship Management

eCRM or Web based CRM

• Self Service CRM
• Self service CRM (eCRM) software Enables web based customer interaction, automation of email, call logs, web site analytics, and campaign management.

Advantages of CRM

Using CRM, a business can:

• Provide better customer service
• Increase customer revenues
• Discover new customers
• Cross sell/Up Sell products more effectively
• Help sales staff close deals faster
• Make call centers more efficient
• Simplify marketing and sales processes

The types of data CRM projects collect

• Responses to campaigns
• Shipping and fulfillment dates
• Sales and purchase data
• Account information
• Web registration data
• Service and support records
• Demographic data
• Web sales data