Customer Relationship Management
CRM is both a business strategy and a set of discrete software tools and technologies, with the goal of reducing costs, increasing revenue, identifying new opportunities and channels for expansion, and improving customer value, satisfaction, profitability, and retention. CRM software applications embody best practices and employ advanced technologies to help organizations achieve these goals.( Mc Dougall,2004)
CRM focuses on automating and improving the institutional processes associated with managing customer relationships in the areas of recruitment, marketing, communication management, service, and support. CRM takes a very customer-centric view of the entire customer life cycle, which means that a CRM business strategy places the customer at the centre of the organization’s universe.
The management of relation with customer (CRM) as a key competitive strategy needs paying attention to the customers ' needs and practicing customer- facing method in all industries (Buttle, 2009, P.89). Using communicative technology of information, industries try to create long term relation with customers, so improving management relation customer has been more common(Lambert,2010,P.12).
For example, in Zimbabwe, Econet has its customer services and these help maintain their relationships with its customers. Customer care services (www.econet.ac.zw) at Econet Wireless include:
General Enquiries (111)
This helpline is the main Econet Help line which caters for both prepaid and post-paid related queries. The helpline supports the three main languages used in Zimbabwe, these being Shona, Ndebele and English. Other languages like Tonga, Nambia, Nyanja & Venda are supported but to a limited extent. Our call centre is national in nature and takes cognizance of that fact, hence diversity in the languages to support our various clients.
Interactive Voice Response – IVR
We are on a path to international standards level and to begin with we have invested in the best technology
CRM focuses on automating and improving the institutional processes associated with managing customer relationships in the areas of recruitment, marketing, communication management, service, and support. CRM takes a very customer-centric view of the entire customer life cycle, which means that a CRM business strategy places the customer at the centre of the organization’s universe.
The management of relation with customer (CRM) as a key competitive strategy needs paying attention to the customers ' needs and practicing customer- facing method in all industries (Buttle, 2009, P.89). Using communicative technology of information, industries try to create long term relation with customers, so improving management relation customer has been more common(Lambert,2010,P.12).
For example, in Zimbabwe, Econet has its customer services and these help maintain their relationships with its customers. Customer care services (www.econet.ac.zw) at Econet Wireless include:
General Enquiries (111)
This helpline is the main Econet Help line which caters for both prepaid and post-paid related queries. The helpline supports the three main languages used in Zimbabwe, these being Shona, Ndebele and English. Other languages like Tonga, Nambia, Nyanja & Venda are supported but to a limited extent. Our call centre is national in nature and takes cognizance of that fact, hence diversity in the languages to support our various clients.
Interactive Voice Response – IVR
We are on a path to international standards level and to begin with we have invested in the best technology
References: 1) Buttle. Francis, 2009, Customer Relationship Management, concept & Technology, Elsiveir, London 2) Douglas. M. Lambert, 2010, CRM as a business process, Journal of business & industrial marketing 3) Greenberg, Paol, 2010, The impact of CRM on customer insight, Emerald. 4) Kotler, P., and Fox, K. Strategic Marketing for Educational Institutions. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995.