What is 'CRM'?

What is 'CRM'?

Tim Burress (E-mail Etiquette and Organization Specialist) gives expert video advice on: What is a 'hyperlink'? and more...

Customer Relation Management systems, or CRMs, are systems that largely exist inside of Outlook or Lotus Notes, the e-mail systems that companies are using, and they track the relationship between people that you're communicating with. In other words, if I'm communicating with someone named Ben, and he's a client of mine, the Customer Relation Management system can track how many times I e-mail Ben, what kind of communication I've sent to him, how often I'm calling him, how often I'm e-mailing him, what type of information I've sent to him. Customer Relation Management systems can also record the demographics, such as how old is Ben, what's Bens race, what's Bens age, what's his status within the company, is he a decision-maker, is he in marketing, and all that kind of stuff. So everything used to manage that account or that person, is what's called CRMs.