From the perspective of corporate strategy, preferential prices for goods can give companies an advantage in short-term competition, but the long-term survival and development of companies requires attention to customers. Generally speaking, old customers bring more benefits than new customers because the cost of acquiring new customers is much higher than that of old customers. Retaining old customers can bring more profits to companies in the long run. Price cuts or other incentives can certainly attract new customers, but these customers will also choose other companies with lower prices at the same speed under the temptation of competitors. Price may be an effective means to attract customers at certain times, but it is not a long-term strategy to retain customers. Therefore, customer relationship management has long-term strategic significance for companies.
According to the definition proposed by Gartner Group, customer relationship management (CRM) refers to the method by which companies communicate with customers and understand their needs in order to win new customers, maintain old customers, and continuously increase corporate profits, thereby influencing customer purchasing behavior. In other words, customer relationship management is a means to improve customer satisfaction and thus enhance corporate competitiveness through in-depth analysis of customer details. CRM is a business strategy of an enterprise, not a certain IT technology. Hurwitz Group believes that the focus of CRM is to automate and improve business processes related to customer relationships in areas such as sales, marketing, customer service and support. CRM is both a set of principles and a set of software and technology. Its goal is to reduce sales cycles and sales costs, increase revenue, find new markets and channels required for business expansion, and improve customer value, satisfaction and loyalty.
There is no unified definition of CRM. The connotation of CRM can be understood as three levels: concept, technology, and implementation. Among them, the concept is the key to the success of CRM, which is the foundation and soil for the implementation and application of CRM; information systems and IT technologies are the means and methods for the successful implementation of CRM; implementation is the direct factor that determines whether CRM is successful or not and how effective it is. No matter how it is defined, the core of CRM is “customer-centric”, which is a management concept for enterprises to improve their core competitiveness, improve customer service levels, improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, and thus improve their profitability. Especially in the context of cross-border e-commerce, the asymmetry of information has been reduced a lot compared to before, and it has become particularly important for enterprises to achieve effective customer relationship management.
Customer service personnel need to do a good job in customer relationship management and implement customer-centricity in their work, including collecting customer information, conducting customer analysis, customer level classification and improving customer loyalty.