Customer Relationship Management
Companies can wield CRM to:
• Gather market research on customers, in real time if necessary
• Generate more reliable sales forecasts
• Coordinate information quickly between sales staff and customer support reps, increasing their effectiveness
• Enable sales reps to see the fi nancial impact of different product confi gurations before they set prices • Accurately gauge the return on individual promotional programs and the effect of integrated marketing activities, and redirect spending accordingly
• Feed data on customer preferences and problems to product designers
• Increase sales by systematically identifying and managing sales leads
• Improve customer retention
• Design effective customer service programs