CRM and customer service: strategic asset or corporate overhead?

Purpose To provide practitioners of management a sense of the importance of strategically leveraging the customer relationship management (CRM), which has been growing since the mid‐1990s. Many industries were experiencing increased demand from their customers for higher quality and easier access to service. Corporations and top managers started to rethink their traditional ways of providing service. Customer relationships started to become a strategic asset among corporations. Design/methodology/approach A review of the applied literature on practices for improving customer relationships include analyzing the customer, being proactive to their needs, segmenting customers by group and empowering employees to improve the customer experience. Findings Once the need and importance surfaced, tools such as technology to provide customers and employees faster and more useful information surfaced. Once a CRM strategy and technology for customer service was in place, it became vital to develop processes for measuring and monitoring performance. Metrics created to measure customer retention; acquisition and market share have been implemented and used as a key management tool. Practical implications This paper describes how strengthening customer relationships have been moved to the top of the corporate priority list and cites examples of how the technology can improve CRM strategies. Originality/value Going forth with understanding the customer by segment and implementing CRM processes and applying software tools. Continually monitoring of customer satisfaction and behavior and measuring successes with benchmarking and more will make sure the processes continue to evolve in the best method.