Chapter 1
Customer Relationship Management at a Glance
IN THIS CHAPTER
Examining the fundamentals of customer relationship management
Understanding how customer relationship management helps you manage your business
You may not realize it yet, but every time you log in to Salesforce, you’re accessing an extremely powerful lever of change for you, your group, and your company.
It sounds like a tall order, but consider the answer to this question: What value do you put on your customer relationships? If you’re a sales rep, it’s your livelihood. And if you’re in management, you have fewer assets more valuable than your existing customer base. What if you had a tool that could truly help you manage your customers?
That’s where customer relationship management software comes in. Customer relationship management (CRM) is an umbrella term for the parts of your business that involve the “front office,” also known as those that have direct interactions with your customers and prospective customers. The CRM life cycle encompasses business processes and associated applications that help businesses better track their leads, manage customers, track opportunities, resolve cases, and more.
The more you and your team adopt a CRM system into your work and then determine how you want your business ...