Customer relationship management (CRM) is not just software, it is a new approach to business. The experience and principles accumulated in CRM frameworks offer the opportunity to develop effective business strategies, optimize marketing processes, improve advertising, retain and win clients, increase corporate culture. It is a solution formed of numerous processes. Applied correctly, the framework can increase company value through deeper understanding and better satisfaction of client needs.

   • Any business that has to deal with clients first-handedly, e.g. most service businesses.
   • Businesses where it is crucial to sell to customers repeatedly.
   • Businesses with complicated and lengthy sales process.
   • Businesses that actively attract new clients.
   • And, of course, any company who values and cares about its customers and prolonged relationships with them!

   • In times of increasing competition, especially in established markets.
   • When a company wants to sell repeatedly to the same customer.
   • When it is necessary to put in order, manage and develop a sales or servicing system.

   • CRM fosters teamwork, including collaboration between different departments.
   • CRM ties sales and marketing activities into a unified framework.
   • CRM accumulates and links different customer-related information.
   • CRM helps distribute work assignments and controls performance.
   • CRM defines processes and analyzes results.

Gartner’s 2009 and 2010 researches on CRM customer service and support capabilities “Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Service Contact Centers” marks Microsoft®’s visionary approach to developing its customer relationship management solutions. Gartner evaluates Microsoft®’s leading CRM product, Microsoft Dynamics® CRM, as highly valuable for business and innovative in its ability to notice market and industry trends, like cloud computing and xRM.

Microsoft Dynamics® CRM works best when used to its full capacity. Its openness to integration with many other Microsoft® solutions in various business directions (communication, collaboration, and business applications) puts it in the center of an organization’s customer service strategy and execution. Much of Microsoft Dynamics® CRM’s future vision is related to the concept of xRM, where the customer is given the tools to create its own brand of CRM solution for “x-management”, or “management of anything”.

Gartner also sees Software as a Service as a useful alternative in the customer service contact center market, mainly for small and midsize businesses. Gartner says that by 2011 SaaS will evolve from an interesting alternative delivery model into a critical selection factor at all levels of the customer service contact center. By 2013, at least 75% of customer service centers will use some form of SaaS application as a part of the contact center solution. This could be for knowledge management, desktop CRM functionality, feedback management or chat.

Read more of Gartner’s 2009 analysis of CRM systems’ customer service analysis here. The 2010 "Magic Quadrant" is not yet publicly available for reprint.