Manage the Relationship with Your Customer

A Hart-Hanks survey of nearly 300 North American companies implementing customer relationship managent (CRM) programs shows that four out of five companies are outsourcing the construction or maintenance of at least some part of there CRM solution. According to the survey, business are increasingly turning to outside sources to provide programming, support and/or commercial CRM packages to accomplish their CRM objectives. Seventeen percent use an in-house solution, 44 percent use outsourced solutions exclusively and 39 percent use a combination of in-house and outsourced solutions.

A tactical function, CRM focuses solely on establishing a better understanding of customers with valuable information about their buying patterns. But what do you do with this customer information? That's where Relationship Marketing (RM) comes in. RM is about people - not technology - and the creation of an emotional and value-based connection between people.

CRM resulted from the one-to-one marketing revolution. Now that CRM tools and technologies have caught up with the one-to-one philosophy, it has become clear that one-to-one isn't enough to attain ambitious business objectives. In the future, one-to-one marketing will evolve into two-to-one marketing, in which companies and their channel partners will collaborate to create unique selling propositions and engage the customer.

A good RM strategy can maximize the CRM investment, making the best use of the information gathered and the customer connections created. The result is an integrated approach that creates measurable benefits such as increased revenue, more referrals, improved retention, greater share of client and market, reduced churn and a deeper understanding of behavior and how to influence it.

Some Examples of Customer Relationship/Loyalty Programs:

GIFT AFTER PURCHASE

FREQUENT BUYER PROGRAMS

PRIVATE STORES; EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PROGRAMS