CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the theory and practice that is being used for most of the companies to administrate and manage their customers, partners, vendors and other stakeholders in the companies with tremendous efficiency.

Features of CRM

CRM is made up of three key features, which are Operational; CRM, Collaborative CRM and Analytical CRM.

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With the competition involving companies that engaged in the marketing and providing services, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) practices with software became mandatory

for all business organizations. CRM Software systems are particularly modified programs for good customer relationship management; they have the actions for all companies’ procedures like customer tacking, contacting and serving customers. At their introduction, CRM programs are typical packages, with all wanted and unwanted CRM possible uses.

In this modern day, CRM Software is customized according to the needs of the companies. Yes, with CRM solutions, you have many options. Two popular options preferred by most companies are an open-source CRM and On-Demand or Hosted CRM. An Open Source Software is a standard program which can be customized to a company friendly CRM software program. On-demand or Hosted CRM is a web-linked customized CRM solution provided by a centralized CRM provider. Many CRM vendors today offer open source hosted CRM, which combines merits of both approaches.

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What is an expert? As per a dictionary definition it is as stated: “1. A person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject.

So often there seems to be some grandiose mystique around a proclaimed expert. The reality is that we all in some way or another have expertise that is valuable to at least ourselves. I would “proclaim” that when this expertise is of value to others that you can actually consider yourself an “expert”. I have been going to a lot of networking events lately with panels of “Experts” and this is what got me thinking about the whole notion of; “What is an expert?” I have been working with a Customer Relationship Business Management (CRBM) software product for the past three years called info@hand. In this time we have gone through several upgrades and configurations and helped many other customers/users with the good bad and ugly found typically in any innovative open source software solution. It has given us a range of emotions from pride to rage or enthusiasm to frustration and even quite a bit of wow factor. Sure I have read a fair amount of CRM books and been through Paul Greenberg’s CRM Web 2.0 Certification program but the real deal for me was the work in the trenches of getting this software to solve real world business problems. What I found is that my past experience as an entrepreneur connecting the dots and defining business processes and “screwing up a lot” or fixing things others “Screwed up” was worth more than all of the books I could ever read, though I really dig Paul’s “CRM at the Speed of Light” for perspective.

It is important if you are deploying any particular CRM product that you find a good hands on “Expert” to help you through the process since these systems are very complex under the hood and unless you are spending a fortune on the software the documentation can only go so far. The whole change management and process management is a whole other story so make sure you have not just one expert but the right experts for the right portions of your deployment program.

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One of the CRM groups I belong to on Linked in offered these as  good suggestions for CRM blogs.

CRM2.0:  http://blogs.zdnet.com/crm/
Customer Experience: http://www.rightnow.com/blog/
Paul Greenberg http://the56group.typepad.com/
Destination CRM: http://www.destinationcrmblog.com/
Brent Leary: http://crm2.typepad.com/brents_blog/
Inside CRM: http://www.insidecrm.com/
CRM daily: http://www.crm-daily.com/
CRM Buyer: http://crmbuyer.com/
1 to1 media: http://blogs.zdnet.com/crm/
CRM Outsiders -  http://www.crmoutsiders.com

Over time as we develop more content which we fully intend on doing, I hope our blog will be in this list when folks think about CRM blogs.

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Customer relationship management- the managing of a relationship with the customer. A very simple concept as you look at it. Why arethere are many questions surrounding it? It is because this seemingly simple concept has changed the way the world does business with its customers. It has taken the most important aspect of business-the customer- and brought it to the forefront.

One of the misconceptions about CRM is that is a software solution but it is really much more of a business process and methodology supported by technology.

CRM Guru Paul Greenberg coins it this way "CRM is a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a system and a technology, designed to improve human interactions in a business environment" in his award winning book "CRM at the Speed of light".

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