All you wanted to know about CRM in one place

CRM is an acronym that stands for Customer Relationship Management. It describes the strategy that a company uses to handle customer interactions. One example of a common CRM strategy is the rewards card program offered by many supermarkets. The store gives its customers a free card that gives them access to special deals and discounts when they swipe the card during checkout.

This guest post was written by Mike Spalding. Mike works for Advantage.co.uk who specialize in business management solutions using CRM software; click here for more information. Ok, first of all, CRM stands for customer relationship management and let's face it, it sounds like something big businesses would enjoy talking about - which is why so few small businesses know about it or use it.

By John Edwards By now, you know that CRM technology can help your business. But what you may not know is just how many different things CRM applications can do for your company. In fact, it's hard to think of another business-related technology that's as versatile, and pays as many direct benefits, as CRM.

As a small business, how do you increase sales productivity? The answer is to work smarter - Salesforce CRM supports small business growth by making the most of your time. CRM gives salespeople more time to sell by giving the information they need and want all on one screen.

Last year I wrote about the emerging new round of the CRM wars following IBM's decision to replace its Siebel implementation with SugarCRM. In particular, the increasing ease of switching between CRM systems at the end of your subscription encourages customers to continually switch in order to get the best new features.

No matter if you are startup company or a small to mid-scale one, sooner or later you will undoubtedly need a software to manage business relations with the old, existing and new clients. It is advisable to start at the beginning to avoid the hassles or data mix-up and errors when you realize that you now have truckload of data to manage and re-organize.