Customer Relationship Management, or CRM for short. The idea is simple: learn about your customers, and use your knowledge to strengthen your relationship with them. Use your stronger relationship to sell them more products or services. Repeat.
Not surprisingly, helping businesses to do this is… big business. A myriad of software solutions are available, with a plethora of consultancies and training businesses available to help you implement them. CRM has a lot in common with ERP. Indeed, some of the big players in the ERP space, also seek to sell CRM services alongside.
As a result, businesses focus on the software tools. This is a mistake. A fool with a tool… is still a fool. The secret to good CRM – as with good customer service – is to focus on the culture you build.