Up Close and Personal?
Up Close and Personal?
Paul Gamble, Merlin Stone and Neil WoodcockKogan Page£24.95ISBN:0 7494 3087 7
Keywords: Marketing, Relationship marketing, Effectiveness
The concept of "customer relationship marketing" (CRM) has become "the next big thing". However, the hype (mainly from those wanting to sell expensive IT solutions) is not always matched by an understanding of what it is and what it means. However, it does offer real potential to make a significant change to marketing.
Wal-Mart, for example, spent billions of dollars on developing and refining its customer database to allow it to personalise communications with customers -Wal-Mart is now the world's largest retailing organisation.
This book provides an insight into the world of CRM, based on research supported by IBM. It contains a mixture of marketing theory, practical guidance and implementation techniques backed up with case study experience. It emphasises that CRM is an ongoing activity - not a one-off "fix" - the approach must be constantly re-evaluated.
It suggests that organisations with effective CRM strategies can compete more effectively - and are the organisations of the future. The others will go to the wall.
