Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Customer relationship management (CRM) combines business practices with software that helps teams maintain a usable record of enquiries, customer conversations, sales opportunities, and service history. A CRM can hold contact details, notes, status changes, reminders, and records of consent or communication preferences. The practical goal is to make follow-up consistent instead of leaving information in disconnected inboxes and spreadsheets.

A CRM is not automatically a lead source, a marketing campaign, or a guarantee of better sales. Its value depends on accurate data, appropriate permissions, and clear workflows. For example, a new website quote request might create an opportunity assigned to an owner, with follow-up deadlines and later outcomes. Automation can help, but poor routing rules can also create duplicate contacts or missed enquiries.

Choose fields based on decisions the team actually makes and define retention, access, and data-quality standards. Distinguish CRM as the overall management practice from one vendor’s CRM application, and from customer support software that covers only post-sale requests.