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Customer Relationship Management: why should you care?


Agriculture is looking more intensely at Customer Relationship Management (CRM CRM - Customer Relationship Management
CRM - Camera Ready Material
CRM - Camera Ready Mechanical
CRM - Canalith Repositioning Maneuver
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CRM - Cause Related Marketing
CRM - Cell Rate Margin (ATM)
CRM - Center for Regenerative Medicine
CRM - Center for Relationship Marketing
CRM - Centre de Recherches Mathématiques (Canada)
CRM - Certificate Request Message
). The pressure to compete in a despairing market means businesses are taking a more active role to learn about their markets. CRM is the buzzword and helpmate many are investing in. Here is a brief look at CRM: what it is and isn't, where it's headed and examples of what it looks like in action.

What is it?

* CRM uses technology to enable a company to retrieve and interpret information to help the company make more informed and better decisions.

* CRM is a business management tool to keep companies competitive and increase profits.

* CRM is business strategy customized to a particular company for the best business practices.

* CRM is not technology or software, but it can and usually does implement those tools.

* CRM is not a cure-all for a company's financial struggles, or a promise that sales will skyrocket.

Are there trends?

* CRM is being used by agri-marketers to track their products to the end users and to collect information.

* CRM is starting to integrate multiple data sources to combine more holistic strategies.

* CRM is advancing in the agriculture industry because of a regulatory environment and a need for the most efficient operation.

As the world moves to the Internet, so is CRM. The more mobile, the more accessible a company is to moving customers.

* The CRM market in the States is full and is now starting to flood over into Western Europe. The UK and Spain are anticipated to increase CRM markets the most (according to Cahners survey).

* A guerrilla approach that breaks down a company into different CRM sectors to be improved one by one has been increasingly popular to promote company change while not exerting all resources on CRM.

What are some examples?

* Apply an 80-20 mindset: usually, 80 percent of business comes from 20 percent of customers.

* Create a customer test panel that gives your best customers the chance to provide opinions about new products.

* Help a new customer feel important to your company by presenting a special offer, which will also bring them back for a second purchase.

* Celebrate and acknowledge a customer's "anniversary" through the same contact method (phone, email, post) he or she used to make their first purchase.

* Give your best customers a title (e.g. Golden Customer).

* Reactivate idle customers (12 to 24 months without purchases) by offering special deals.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Scissortail Productions LLC
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2003, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Article Details
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Author:Brown, Evelyn
Publication:Implement & Tractor
Geographic Code:1USA
Date:Jul 1, 2003
Words:399
Previous Article:John Deere dealer adds overhead cranes in shop to meet new needs; thinking ahead paid off in the design of the Pringle Tractor's facility.
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