Customer relationship management (CRM) has
the potential for achieving success and growth for organizations
in the nowadays environment of extensive competition and
rapid technological development. CRM enables organizations
to know their customers better and to build sustainable
relationships with them. However, CRM is considered as
buzzword and it is not understood well. The main components
of CRM are people, technology, and processes. This paper
provides an extensive review of the literature regarding the
CRM processes. This review aims to increase the understanding
of the different perspectives and the various types and levels of
CRM processes. This paper reveals that there are four major
perspectives of CRM processes which are customer facing level
processes, customer oriented processes, cross functional CRM
processes, and CRM macro-level processes. This paper
recommends that for ensuring the successful adoption and
implementation of any CRM initiative, organization should
understand the different levels of CRM process and the
integrated activities among the CRM processes at each level. In
addition, for organizations to be successful adopters and
implementers of CRM programs/systems, they should
understand the need for business process reengineering and
effective anticipation and management of the change that may
accompany any CRM initiative. This paper suggests a
pre-implementation plan for CRM programs/systems. Such a
plan aims to initiate and communicate a customer-oriented
culture within the organization. This step emphasizes on
increasing the understanding of CRM concept and
communicating and spreading the knowledge of the promising
benefits of CRM programs/systems to all parties in the
organization. All that will contribute in increasing the success
rate of CRM programs/systems implementation.