A customer relation is fundamentally one of the critical aspects for any business growth.  The inter-relation between clients and the staff need to be enhanced in order to boost profitability.  Customers are regarded as the ‘kingpins’ in the business structure. Customer relations management (CRM) is an integrated and dynamic process of planning, organizing and controlling the consumers of the products by technically, conceptually and behaviorally manipulating the customers to win their confidence and support. In CRM, the management promotes a link between the employees and the customers. Workers will normally produce to quality and satisfaction if they have an understanding of what the customer really wants and expects. This implies that the workers have to relate with the customer so as to acquire as much information as possible on how they can add value to the products. Customer relations management is aimed at ‘sealing’ the interaction ‘gap’ that exists between the workers and the clients. A result-oriented CRM is that which delivers; a change in buying behavior of the customers, a support from the customers and customers contribution to product enhancement. The effectiveness of CRM can be assessed through the following ways;

Instructions

1

Buying behavior

The customers usually respond to their needs and expectations in different ways and buying of the products is one of them. Customers will buy products when they feel that they are of the required value. The price of the product must match the quality. If this is not the case, the customer withdraws their buying behavior and stops purchasing the products. If there is a measurable increase in the buying of the product on application of a CRM strategy, this implies that it’s effective. A drop or no significant change in buying behavior means that the strategy is ineffective.

2

Customer complaints

Usually customer complaints are aspects that are used to establish the effectiveness of the CRM strategies in place. Customer complaints are recorded when the needs and expectations are not met by the company. This may be due to inferior quality products, high priced products in relation to quality, poor customer care, poor after-sales service, and poor product delivery.  Basically customers tend to complaint when they feel they have not been offered what they deserve. If the complaints intensify, this implies that the CRM is not effectively demonstrated.

3

Customer response

Customer response may imply attachment of the customers to the company such as through offering suggestions, opinions, strategies, approaches and even surveys information to help the company advance its productivity, profitability, effectiveness, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. These are other aspects which are beyond the convectional buyer-seller relationship. Customer response is said to be high when the customers are seen to participate in other supportive initiatives for the company. This signifies that there is a special bond between the customers and the company. This bond is created by the basic ways of buyer-seller relations such as offering quality products, and promoting customer care. For instance, if a company sets questionnaires to the customers to get information on particular product research subject, and there is no significant response by the clients, this implies that there is no good relationship with the company. This means that the CRM is not effective and appropriately being applied.