In a nutshell core competencies of CRM are:

1. Up-selling

2. Direct Marketing

3. Customer Service

4. Field Operations   

To involve the entire organization in CRM, you must be able to identify the benefits of such a system. What are these benefits? An effective CRM system will help you remain ahead in competition, tap into the world-wide market, instill loyalty in your customers, decrease cost, and increase profits

Integrating a CRM system will help you decrease costs and increase profits, tap into the worldwide market, and remain ahead of the competition.

Effective sharing of client information throughout a company is the key ingredient for successful CRM.

Some examples of CRM information sources are:

1. The Internet: Tracking visits to your website can give you a good idea of what customers are looking for some pages might get more hits than others indicating a demand for certain products. Using this information within a CRM framework will help you focus on customer needs.

2. Customer Surveys: Surveys can be given online or through the mail. An effective CRM system can take this information and make it available to marketers, sales people, and customer service people. With a clear understanding of customer needs, each department is more likely to meet those needs.

3. Customer Purchasing Habits: With data mining and other techniques, you can learn what your customers buy from you. What are your top selling items? Who’s buying them? What isn’t selling? Answers to these questions and more lie in customer purchasing habits.

4. Customer Service Calls: Anytime a customer calls you is an opportunity to learn more about him. A CRM system designed for your company can help service representatives increase knowledge of your customers.

The second way to understand your customers is to integrate customer information into your company’s system. This allows everyone access to customer information. Marketers can identify customer demographics. Sales people can generate new leads based on customer buying trends. Customer service based on the information gathered.

The Internet is driving a revolution of one-to-one marketing and mass communications.