I do not understand the definition of CRM well. At our company, we set up something called a "Customer Comment Card" to collect customer's voices such as dissatisfactions and claims to use the comments to raise customer satisfaction. Can this method be considered as practicing CRM?
A: It can be regarded as part of CRM when it is considered as a continuous mechanism to check customer satisfaction (CS). However, that alone cannot be distinguished as CRM.
CRM is not a system aimed at "partial optimization" of sales and marketing. In this case, it would be considered as "SFA" or as "e-marketing".
In the case of CRM, questions such as how to place emphasis on customer-oriented strategy across the company, how to build individual businesses and marketing, and how to build the mechanism with IT, must be considered with at least mid or long term plans. The execution process may start small. Past results have shown that CRM without such strategic plans will fail.
Although setting up a "Customer Comment Card" is important, the key aspect would be to understand the whole system of how to utilize the collected customer data for sales promotion, and how often departements cooperate with other departments with in order to brush up using the "Customer's Life Cycle" according to collected customer data.
Many companies have been acting actively in collecting customer`s voices in Japan since the 1980s utilizing as a conventional customer satisfaction center "CS movement". Such CS movements and CRM seem similar, but are completely separate. For example, companies which achieved success practicing CRM by striving for employee satisfaction may not seem to be, but is considered as CRM in Japan. Even if customer satisfaction increases, there are many companies that go bankrupt. The problem of CRM is that it starts from understanding the danger of interpreting the "Customer First" doctrine.
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