Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a concept as old as trade itself. Keeping customers apprised of new products, remembering their likes and dislikes, promptly resolving issues, and giving them chances to vent and offer feedback are customer-centric concepts that were probably used by the best iterant peddlers of the dark ages. The major difference between doing business years ago and today is the speed at which we not only can service our customers, but the speed with which our customers expect to be serviced.

This white paper examines the details of how to gain improved customer retention and acquisition for a lower overall investment by defining basic CRM functionality needed by most organizations to achieve their customer goals and objectives.