Up close and personal? - Paul R Gamble|Merlin Stone|Neil Woodcock

Now that e-commerce is making customers more powerful than ever before, how can you be sure that your enterprise will be the supplier of choice? Nobody can predict human behaviour but the ideas behind customer relationship marketing (CRM) are certainly designed to ensure the best chance of success. Although based on apparently simple ideas, involving keeping in touch and responding to customer contacts, many companies still shy away from the awesome task of building a relationship with thousands, or even millions, of people.;As customers become increasingly sophisticated in their expectations, the diversity and range of products and services on offer gets ever wider. How can companies ensure that their products or services are the preferred choice, and continues to be? Do customers become confused by too extensive a choice? Will people welcome a close relationship with their suppliers or will they find it over intrusive and an invasion of privacy? Database technology of different kinds can facilitate a range of relationship marketing techniques.;The important issues for modern enterprises, large and small, is to understand the why, what, how, when and where of using them. This book provides practical insights into effective customer relationship marketing by looking in depth at: strategies, policies and plans; measuring the impact; segmentation; the implementation programme; customer loyalty and continuity; transparent marketing, customer value and process management; customer knowledge management; technical systems and data management; and managing good and bad customers.;Based on world-wide research into CRM supported by IBM, "Up Close and Personal?" brings together the work of three experts in the field who provide a combination of marketing theory, practical guidance, case studies and implementation techniques, while emphasizing the need for constant re-evaluation.