A Practical Guide to CRM

In today's global economy the customer has more and better choices than ever before, bringing on one of the biggest challenges the business community faces today - customer loyalty and retention.

To thrive in today's customer-driven economy a company needs to give customers what they really want. They don't just want the best prices, selection, and service; they want a relationship. CRM (customer relationship management) technology is designed to collect, store, and analyze data about customers, optimizing marketing, sales, customer service, back-office operations, and new product development. Yet, technology can't do it alone. In practice, CRM is a business strategy that evokes a corporate culture in which the customer is the center of the corporate universe and CRM technology is what enables that business strategy.

While CRM may start out as a means of linking different customer-facing functions, it must end up changing the way the entire company thinks about customers: who they are, what they want, and how they can be better served.

This book explores how to:

• Develop and use a CRM strategy to integrate all channels and media of customer contact from the Internet through field sales into one system.
• Know the customers and focus on their needs to better deploy resources and achieve lower costs, higher revenue, and increased customer loyalty.
• Use CRM tools to increase profitability.
• Link CRM tools with sales partners both up and down the value chain.
• Choose the right customer-focused strategies and the right CRM systems.
• Implement and deploy CRM for the best results.

Janice Reynolds is a writer, editor, speaker, and consultant specializing in information technology and Internet/intranet. She started her own consulting firm in 1995 and has edited numerous technical books and led several e-commerce development teams. Ms. Reynolds has served as the E-commerce and Internet Ventures Expert on allbusiness.com and as the DSL expert on speedcorp.net. She was one of the prime developers of the e-commerce portal Town24.com. She is the author of the bestseller The Complete E-Commerce Book, as well as Logistics and Fulfillment for E-Business and The Practical Guide to DSL