TRUTH: CRM is a more customer centric way of looking at your business.
A comprehensive definition of CRM is “the strategy, process, culture and technology to enable organizations to optimize revenue and increase shareholder value by understanding and meeting customers’ needs.”
Traditionally felt to be an industry that was product centric in nature, manufacturers now are moving towards becoming customer centric. The reason? Manufacturers are fast accepting the fact that in order to boost sales and increase profits they need to pay more attention to their customers’ needs. Simply relying on their products to increase profitability is no longer the answer.
It has become imminently clear that making the customer the heart of the business process is essential. By examining all of your business processes from the standpoint of optimizing the relationship with the customer, you as a manufacturer can re-orientate your company’s culture into recognizing the fact that every employee, from the inventory specialist to the billing clerk to the customer service representative, directly contributes to customer satisfaction. CRM allows manufacturers the opportunity to enable this shift to customer centricity by providing the business with a comprehensive 360-degree view of the customer and customer relationship with them. Given the many customer touch points within an organization, all departments must buy into the CRM value proposition to help the cultural shift in becoming a customer centric organization.
In summary, CRM can increase profitability and customer loyalty, gain competitive edge, decrease costs, and open new channels. If we think about CRM in this broader view, it becomes clear that it cuts across all business processes.