Customer Relationship Management or CRM refers to an information industry term pertaining to methodologies, software and other internet capabilities that usually aid an enterprise manage their relationship with their customers in a systematic manner. It also identified as a management philosophy relating to the company achievement of goal through the identification and satisfaction of customers whether it be linked to their unstated or stated wants and needs. Piskar & Faganel (2009) shared that a number of organizations are now turning to CRM softwares to aid them in managing their relationship with customers. In a similar statement Forbes Magazine (2013) also added that CRM may be the most valuable system any small business (or any business in general) can implement within their operations. It was mentioned that companies who have fully utilized and depended on Customer Relationship Management systems have the tendencies to jack up their sales by 29% (Forbes Magazine, 2013).
Labus & Stone (2010) shared that in relation with the Customer Relationship Theory, the relevance of the CRM systems is assessed. One of the importance of the CRS systems is that it helps enterprises enable their respective marketing departments to identify and target their most potent customers or clients. It also helps in managing marketing campaigns so that quality leads are received by the sales department. Second, CSR systems are also known for assisting organizations improve their telesales, account, and sales through the optimization of information shared my different employees and streamlining the already existing processes. It also aims to maximize profit through the premium put on customer satisfaction.
Data Mining
Another important concept in management is Data Mining. The technology is used by companies with strong customer focus such as retail, communication, financial and marketing organizations (Witten, Frank & Hall 2011). The system enables to come up with a relationship among internal factors namely price, staff skills or product positioning and external factors such as economic indicators. Amongst the included external factors are market competition and consumer demographics. Data Mining allows the organization to determine the different factors impact on their sale, company profit and customer satisfaction (Liu, 2007).
In general, the most glaring significance of data mining to companies is that it aids organizations make better corporate judgement. It affects their decisions in marketing, sales and customer strategies that will affect the productivity of the industry. It is important for companies to analyse and identify accurate models and methods in order to come up with the winning competitive winning strategies (Vegilio, 2013). In this line, Data mining has become an astonishing (Vegilio, 2013) in analysing data due to its ability to decode importance knowledge hiding behind enormous data bases (Ye, 2003).
The Gap Model
In line with customer and organization relationship, the Gap Model (also known as The Service Quality Model) defines the main requirements in order for organizations and businesses to arrive and deliver the highest level of quality. The model uses the determinants of the five gaps that may lead to the unsuccessful delivery of quality service. The five gaps used in the model includes, the gap pertaining to the expectation of the consumer and the perception of the management. Buttle (1996) mentioned that the said gap surfaces when the service provider does not accurately perceive what their customers wants or needs. The second gap refers to the perception gaps between management and service quality specification. It happens when the service provider managed to determine accurately what the customers wants but in the end fail to set a performance standard.
The third gap is determined by the gap between service quality specification and the delivery of the service. The gap may root or arise from situations involving service personnel. It is believed that this gap maybe due to the lack of training and unwillingness of staffs to abide to the set of service standard. The fourth gap mentions the gap between the delivery of the service and external communication. The expectations of consumers are influenced by the things the service representatives rely to them. Too much hype about a service or product may eventually lead to false promises on the part of the company. The last gap pertains to the gap involving the expected and experienced service. The importance of the Gap Model encompasses the need of the organizations to look closely on the methods and services they offer in order to arrive at the best kind of service. It encourages organizations to manage their marketing and customer strategies in order to assure that in the end the satisfaction of the customers is still their main priority (Buttle 1996).
References:
Buttle F. 1996, SERVQUAL: review, critique, research agenda, European Journal of Marketing, Vol.30, Issue 1, pp. 8–31
Forbes Magazine. 2013. Why Your Small Business Needs CRM. Forbes Magazine Online Website Retrieved at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/aileron/2013/05/01/why-your-small-business-needs-crm/
Labus M & Stone M. 2010. The CRM behaviour theory – Managing corporate customer relationships in service industries. Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management
Liu, B 2007. Web Data Mining: Exploring Hyperlinks, Contents and Usage Data,
Piskar F., Faganel A. 2009. A successful CRM Implementation Project in a Service Company: Case Study. Organizacija, Vol: 42,
Vegilio V. 2013. The Strategic Importance of Data Mining Analysis for Customer-Centric Marketing Strategies. University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
Witten,I, Frank E & Hall M. 2011. Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques 3rd Edition,
Ye, Nong 2003 The Handbook of Data Mining, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
