CRM History: The Evolution of Better Customer Service
There was a time when frequent flyer miles, loyalty reward systems, and credit card points were virtually unknown to both businesses and consumers. CRM history shows that customer relationship management is the system that popularized consumer benefits like this.
The history of CRM is really short when it comes to the technological aspect of customer service. Although marketing campaigns and strategies go back a long way, most entrepreneurs used to rely on generic media to attract potential customers and retain them. Before the rise of CRM, most companies weren’t resourceful when it came to having personalized customer relationships.
The dawn of CRM
CRM emerged in the 1980s and this first version was called database marketing. Database marketing was not as complicated as today’s well-developed CRM. It consists primarily of an organization’s customer service personnel who interact with a company’s customers. While useful, it wasn’t exactly a continuous process, and the information in the existing database tended to be disorganized, difficult to track, update, and retrieve.
The rise of CRM
CRM history shows that the 1990s saw a huge improvement in terms of customer relationship management. Companies began to see the benefits of offering benefits to customers and prospects in exchange for relevant customer information or repeat purchases. Businesses have also begun to view customer service as an ever-evolving skill rather than a stagnant service that can be called upon as needed.
A fully developed CRM
Today, CRM has reached its full potential, allowing companies to also maximize their own potentials for superior customer service. More advanced tools become available, and innovation allows for customization of software to suit a particular business or industry. The benefits that customers enjoy, such as bonus points and loyalty rewards, are also advantageous for companies that provide these benefits: they can now easily track their customers’ behavior, spending history, and patterns.
With CRM online capabilities, large database storage problems can now be solved, especially for large corporations. CRM software developers now offer offsite data storage and open secure Internet media for CRM staging.
CRM is most useful for organizations whose success is highly dependent on technology or customer service. That is why many CRM-based tools and software are used by credit card companies, the telecommunications industry, and even the computer hardware and software sectors. From customer acquisition to problem solving to building customer loyalty, CRM will be a useful system for achieving these goals.
The history of CRM has shown that something truly useful and effective can go a long way in such a short time. As long as businesses continue to prosper from effective customer relationship management and as long as there are customers to satisfy, CRM will also continue to develop and evolve to greater heights.
As the history of CRM demonstrates, customer relationship management has empowered consumers to choose businesses worth patronizing. CRM has made customer service a global interaction so that consumers can now easily switch to better services if they are not satisfied with the current one.