Customer relationship management (CRM) has been defined as a corporate wide approach to understanding customer behavior, influencing it through continuous relevant communication, and developing long-term relationships to enhance customer loyalty, acquisition, retention, and profitability. This chapter describes the importance of the interrelationships between call/contact centers and the stages of developing and implementing a CRM strategy. The center is the first point of customer contact and is therefore the first entree to establishing and maintaining long-term customer relationships.

CRM is often perceived by senior management with mixed feelings on the one hand, it is a great opportunity to enhance customer relationships and to increase revenues and profitability at the same time, and on the other hand, it is a costly and time-consuming process that will alter fundamentally the corporate culture. CRM is also fraught with the numerous potential pitfalls that confront any major corporate project involving people, processes, and technologies. Aligning the vagaries of operating a call center with CRM poses some serious challenges for corporate executives. CRM is not a technology or even a group of technologies; it is a continually evolving process that requires a shift in attitude away from the traditional internal focus of a business and defines the approach a company takes toward its customers, backed up by a thoughtful investment in people, technology, and business processes.

CRM is a logical step in the series of major commercial and IT initiatives that have been implemented since the 1980s, beginning with downsizing. Most of these early initiatives had...