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The concept behind CRM 2.0 is the method of actually making customer relationship management (CRM) work this time. In the past, CRM has not been utilized by companies to its full potential, making it struggle to be perceived as a highly useful tool.
 Just as most CRMs have become more advanced and user-friendly into the 21st century, so too have companies begun recognizing the importance in leveraging web data and CRM technology to give them better business insight when engaging customers.
In addition to major retail CRM providers such as SalesForce and Microsoft CRM, other online applications providers such as Zoho provide free, limited versions of CRM for individuals and smaller companies to utilize.
Microsoft Online Services also offers cloud-hosted versions of CRM, enabling smaller businesses to cut costs through a montly subscription model, with the CRM hosted on Azure-powered servers.
The key aspect in communicating to the customer is to know how they want to be communicated to. CRM has more so become a useful tool by allowing a more holistic approach for discerning customer needs. Essentially, this means having a dialogue with the customer and truly hearing what they want, while having information resources to find solutions that meet their needs on an individual level.
An example of a business utilizing the CRM 2.0 approach is Dell through IdeaStorm.com. Visitors to the site are able to suggest and vote on new concepts that they have interest in and have a way to communicate with both Dell as well as fellow consumers with related interests.
You need to choose the right package or service for your business. If you are new to utilizing CRM technology or are in the beginning stages of moving forward with customer relationship management, it is better to initially go for simple wins. An example of a simple-win strategy for obtaining more customer data for a CRM system is implementing a social networking site such as Linkedin into the application to obtain more relevant data on your business contacts. Integrating real-time data with traditional CRM systems is a great way to stay in-the-know, while simplifying the need to research customer information.
What makes a real impact on businesses using CRM is when they can have it customized to meet their particular needs. For example, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 offers a custom task management application called the Task Management Tool (TMT). TMT enables task information to be stored in one central location and assignments to be made and tracked—solving management issues that impact organizations. |