Customer Service Skills Knowledge Base and Frequently Asked Questions
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
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The world of customer service has become much more complex over the last decade, as have the technologies and thinking around how to retain customers. Part of the changes have involved the understanding that companies must more effectively manage their relationships with their customers, think more strategically about how the interact with customers. In addition, new technologies and software (CRM software) have been developed to allow the gathering, analysis and use of customer data to improve decision making.
In this section you'll learn more about customer relationship management as a concept, and also as a technology (customer service relationship management software).
- What is Customer Relationship Management Conceptually?
- What is Customer Relationship Management Software?
- What Purposes Are Associated With Customer Relationship Management (CRM). What Is It For?
- Who Are the Major Players in CRM Software For 2006?
- What is open source CRM?
- Is Customer Relationship Management Right For Your Small Or Midsize Business?
Basic Concepts, CRM Glossary and Meaning
For some reason Customer Relationship Management seems to have grown and grown in scope so that almost anything an organization does can be placed under the rubric, CRM. It's confusing. Out of that expansion, dozens, perhaps hundreds of words and phrases have been developed that have supposed specialized meaning related to CRM (or actually don't but they sound cool). Anyway, we'll try to provide some basic definitions here.
Robert Bacal is the author of two books on customer service: Perfect Phrases for Customer Service: Hundreds of Tools, Techniques, and Scripts for Handling Any Situation, and Defusing Hostile Customers Workbook. Most of the questions and answers in the Customer Service Knowledgebase (which you are reading now) is based on the material in these books.