Some ideas continue to command respect among hardened management theorists years after they first appeared, and some provoke snorts of derision. Customer relationship management (CRM) - around which an entire industry has been erected - gets more than its fair share of snorts.
We all experience CRM, the bad side of it, every time we get stuck in touch-tone hell, with a recorded voice asking us to please select one of the following options - for the fifth time. Yet the underlying idea is perfectly logical - concentrate on your customers, learn about their needs and behaviour, use what you learn to improve the relationship and, ultimately, sell them more of what it is you’re selling them.
