5.3 Relationship Marketing

Definition: Customer relationship management is comprised of the activities that are used to establish, develop, and maintain customer sales.

Customer relationship management (CRM) seeks to ensure that every effort an organization undertakes has as its purpose the development and maintenance of a profitable customer relationship. The practice of CRM requires internal and external processes. External processes are those that connect the company with its customers, while internal processes involve the management or information acquired from customers (A breakdown in either process will result in the   CRM experiment not meeting the expectations of either the company or the customer.

Eg: customer identification, customer differentiation, customer interaction, customization, loyalty programs, technology... (p53)