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Over the last few years the buzz has been extensive growth when it comes about CRM or Customer Relationship Management. Marketing executives and Sales executives around the country have jumped on the CRM bandwagon. In fact US businesses have spent over $6 billion in CRM technology software since 2000. So CRM really is as good as the buzz.

Companies of all types have and are investing in CRM system to help keep their customers happy and thus maintain their customers. Recent trends have seen consumer behavior change dramatically. Today's consumer isn't as concerned about a few cents difference in price. What they are demanding is value added services.

They want to be able to get what they need quickly and they want customer service. The internet has made the act of shopping easier than ever before. It's also easy as pie to find another business if you aren't happy with the service or product. The internet has put a great deal of pressure on businesses to improve.

Today's business is turning to value added services such as the CRM strategy to keep their customers. And there are so many excellent CRM software packages on the market such as Microsoft CRM which can help you carry out your strategy.

A CRM package can help you identify your customer, track your customers purchases, servicing, quotes, and even questions and answers. When the customer phones and you instantly know everything about them and their purchase they feel like they are a valued part of the business and the return to shop again and again.

In our modern market you won't survive with one time customers. You need to build long term customer relationships to stay a successful profitable business and your CRM software system can make this process seamless.

So if CRM sounds like the perfect solution for your company why does it fail for half of those that implement it? It wasn't the software that failed but rather staff that wasn't properly trained.

For a CRM system to be successful it requires the employees in all departments not just customer service, are trained. It requires getting staff to change the way they do their jobs.

The CRM software is a tool and the CRM program is a strategy that incorporates both staff and software to be successful. Think of it as a collective or cult. The biggest mistake is investing huge dollars in a piece of software and investing little in the strategy or theory itself.

Before purchasing any CRM software you need evaluate your company. You need to determine if there are problems that need to be resolved, your strong points, the type of data you will need to be able to pull, and if it's a large company it is critical that you get input from all departments for the program to be successful.

If your company is large and has an IT department they should be in charge of implementation. If you do not have an IT department you will want to hire services to do the installation. You might also consider hiring a consultant to help you determine what your company needs are.