Marketing Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Marketing - Term Paper Example It is considered a revolutionary advancement that has been made in the field of customer services. The root of CRM process can be traced back in sales where CR managers study customer buying patterns and trends in order to match service levels to revenue expectations alongside satisfying the needs of the customers. The underlying rationale behind this management process is to bring down the rate of customer complaints thereby addressing their issues at the earliest and henceforth rewarding customer loyalty and maintain a high customer retention rate. In order to carry the process effectively special computer programs have also been designed. Driven by customer economics, companies have been implanting the CRM process for a long time. The CRM initiatives are directed towards formulating effective CRM strategies in order to support the overall business strategy as well as the sales and marketing department. A better coordination and synergy between these elements process proves that th e CRM process has delivered its promise of increasing the customer loyalty and maximizing the shareholder value (Raihan, Hamid & Akhir, 2013). The primary objective of CRM as explained by the author is to obtain a better understanding of customer requirements and preferences which are directed towards offering the customers with high quality buying experience as well as services thereby leading to customer loyalty. CRM system involves processes such as data warehousing and mining, online order tracking, multi-channel ordering system, call centre and so son and so forth are used as the means to deliver the expected result. During the age of mass production, business world involved competitions that catered to widen customer bases for companies by carrying out efficient production (Oztaysi, Sezgin & Ozok, 2011). New competitions and structural modifications in the process of exchange have led to the establishment of the relationship archetype for the creation of long term relationship s between suppliers and customers. The reasons that can be attributed to this fact are globalization of business, deregulation and internalization, shorter product life cycle, information technology advancements and the evolving association between customer retention and company profitability (Osarenkhoe & Bennani, 2007). CRM involves the planned usage of process, information, technology and people in order to manage customer’s relationship with the company thereby supervising the marketing, sales, services and support division of a company. This process is carried out across the whole customer life cycle (Tu & Yang, 2013). Customer knowledge is a crucial aspect that plays a major role in ensuring a successful CRM process. It is a critical asset and thus, proper collection, sharing and managing and sharing of customer knowledge can help a company to gain competitive advantage over its peers. However, over the past few years it has been witnessed that customer knowledge receiv ed very little attention while CRM strategies were formulated. Customer knowledge/data i.e. the knowledge from customers can be obtained by interacting with them in order to understand their needs and requirements in order to provide them with superior quality services (Khodakarami & Chan, 2013). CRM system comprises of a group of information sources that enables a company to gather, store and analyze customer data in order to provide an exhaustive view of their customers. As can be seen from the theories provided above,