Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the art of enhancing the relationship with the customers, since every company irrespective of the size invests in building long term relations with the customers. The biggest challenge for organizations today is to evolve beyond mere customer satisfaction forms Globalization is a buzzword today which has led to excessive competition. In today's hyper-competitive world, organizations looking to implement successful CRM strategies.
CRM has to be imbibed within the organization and subsequently become an integral part of the organization and a part of their Corporate strategy. Only then can we think on the grounds of doing business that will foster a stronger relationship between companies and the customers they provide products and services to. Customer loyalty talks about a customer being loyal to the store for various reasons. The Company has to develop effective CRM strategies for building strong relations with the customers and one of the best ways to do this is to build up customer loyalty. Factors defining Customer loyalty:
• The customer is highly satisfied (with the products, stores)
• The customer goes for a repeat purchase
• The customer recommends about the product, stores to his peers.
Though many of the Organizations succeed in the first point, the customer is highly satisfied, but this does not necessarily imply that he would come back to the store for repeat purchases. The goal of a customer strategy is to find out what the customers want. Once the company finds out what their customers want, they must give that to them as soon as possible. And the more the company tries to connect itself with the customers by way of gaining the confidence of the customers, the more loyal the customers become to the company. But the point here is does the company take any further efforts to retain these so called "Loyal customers"? Customer loyalty describes the tendency of a customer to choose one business or product over another for a particular need. Customer loyalty is often the outcome of well planned customer relationships, well-managed customer retention programs; customers who are targeted by a retention program demonstrate higher loyalty to a business. Customer retention programs are often designed with the intension of keeping the customer's status active.
It is not an easy task, but the best way to start is by listening to what the customers have to say. Gone are the days when companies believed that they could offer whatever products they wanted, and the customers will automatically purchase it. Not only is this practice a grave mistake, it is also a sign of arrogance. Today, with the advancement in technology one cannot ignore the level of awareness that the customer has. Sustaining the competition is another important factor that cannot be ignored. Thus the organization need to take steps in driving the customer's needs and design the customer loyalty program accordingly. While the company had a great degree of customer service at first, it eventually declines because customers are unhappy with the products and the offerings with time.
A loyal customer can mean a consistent source of revenue over a period of many years. However, this loyalty cannot be taken for granted. It will continue only as long as the customer feels they are receiving better value than they would obtain from another supplier.