Customer relationship management and service delivery

Organisations are realising that customer-centric operations are no longer an optional differentiator, but are essential to sustainable, profitable growth. Customer relationship management, or CRM, is a framework for developing both the business processes and the supporting infrastructure to improve service delivery. CRM solutions focus on automating and improving business processes in front-office areas such as marketing, sales, customer service and support. CRM software and hardware is only part of the solution, as the people, processes, management and reward systems must be included to successfully implement a CRM solution. CRM aims to improve organisational effectiveness by establishing the following: a single, dynamic, clear understanding of the customer, from the company's perspective, across different departments of an organisation; a single, dynamic, clear understanding of the company, from the customer's perspective, regardless of communication channel utilised (personal meeting, telephone, internet); and improved communication, coordination and efficiency across marketing, sales, service and support departments, within an organisation. The intended results are improving customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. These results lead to improved profitability from both increased revenues and reduced costs. This paper focuses upon CRM improving service delivery, and not enterprise resource planning (ERP). ERP applications have helped companies to automate and optimise business processes in areas such as finance, manufacturing, inventory management and human resources. ERP is different, but supportive, of CRM.