Article

CRM Confusion: The Double Definition of CRM

by Will Slade
Senior CRM Technical Consultant, Protech Associates, Protech Associates

The acronym CRM is increasingly becoming a household name, or at the very least a well-known business term.

But what exactly is CRM these days?

To most, CRM has the fairly straight-forward definition it started with: Customer Relationship Management - the ability to track leads, prospects, customers, opportunities, sales, marketing, and customer service.

But CRM really has a double definition.

There is the common sales-oriented definition and then there is a newer additional definition for CRM referring to it as a platform, or "xRM". In the past few years the xRM approach to CRM has gained so much momentum that it often overshadows the traditional CRM definition.

Hence, there tends to be some confusion when trying to compare a wide variety of solutions that include the term "CRM".

Some businesses simply want the sales features of a CRM solution, while other organizations don't want any sales features at all - they want to meet a unique need like tracking meeting registrations or managing members of an organization.  Both may refer to their system as CRM.  A group other than "customers" may have taken over the first letter of the acronym.

There are still CRM systems that can only provide the traditional CRM sales features. But most modern commercial CRM solutions (such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM) provide both - the traditional CRM features and the increasingly popular and powerful platform features that help extend CRM as well as leverage the latest technology. These features include:

  • Outlook integration
  • Skype integration
  • Mobility
  • Social media monitoring
  • Easy analytics and dashboards
  • Intuitive user ...

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About Will Slade

My goal is to help organizations understand the unique business value derived from using CRM as the focal point to the entire enterprise. I work to help organizations understand what a well-planned CRM-xRM can do and the value of having a single place to go for customer/member engagement information, transactions, communications, and social interactions.

More about Will Slade