Customer Relationship Management Trend

Customer Relationship Management
The 4 Rs of CRM

Customer relationship management trend (CRM) focuses on how sellers can use in-depth marketing intelligence to build trust, loyalty and long-term engagement with customers.

"One of the common traits we observe in successful family businesses is an awarness of how technology can boost the growth and profitability of their business," says leading family business expert Don Schwerzler.

"Business management systems range in size and complexity from completely integrated ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software systems to independent stand-alone products like CRM systems."

Schwerzler has been studying and advising family business entrepreneurs for more than 40 years and he is the founder of the Family Business Institute, headquartered in Atlanta GA.

A recent customer management relationship trend - many customers are complaining about getting too many messages from vendors and suppliers.

A well designed CRM strategy can help focus the message and build strategic relationships.

Customer relationship management (CRM) focuses on how sellers can use in-depth marketing intelligence to build trust, loyalty and long-term engagement with customers.

So, what are the 4 Rs of customer relationship management?

1. Reveal
2. Reward
3. Respect
4. Retain

For family businesses, the customer relationship management trend we see most has to do with the biggest functional use of sales force automation or CRM - contact and task management. In fact this is sometimes the only functionality that is used by sales people. If you only need the ability to keep track of people, activities, and opportunities in a way that is best suited for sales and sales people then you can look at several low cost options.

• ACT! – This is the best selling and most used sales force automation tool. There are several versions to choose from including some that are industry specific. There are about 1.4 million users of Act!

• GOLDMINE – This is the second most popular contact management and sales force automation tool on the market place. There are about 1.3 million users of Goldmine.

• SALESFORCE.COM – This is an online version accessed through your web browser. This is a SaaS model of CRM / SFA, and has a monthly cost instead of a one time purchase. However, there is more capability, and no fears of hard drive crashes.

While both Act! and Goldmine have been around a long time, they have both been acquired in recent years and much of the development focus has been on moving to an online or SaaS (Software as a Service) model such as Salesforce.com.

By contrast, the 4 Ps are a type of "push" marketing. Advertising and promotion play a strong role in pushing sales to customers.