CRM was originally put forward by Gartner Group, just as it put forward ERP.

As an authoritative research institution in the world, Gartner Group defines CRM as follows:

Definition of CRM: "Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is an enterprise-wide business strategy, aiming at improving profits, income and customer satisfaction."

We can see that Gartner emphasizes that CRM is a business strategy (not a system), involving the whole enterprise (not a department), and its strategic goal is to improve profitability, sales revenue and customer satisfaction.

The second authoritative definition:

CRM definition 2: "CRM is an enterprise that effectively organizes enterprise resources according to customer segmentation, cultivates customer-centric business behavior and implements customer-centric business processes, and takes it as a means to improve enterprise profitability, income and customer satisfaction."

CRM is to realize one-to-one marketing on the basis of customer segmentation, so the effective organization and allocation of enterprise resources is based on customer segmentation. Customer-centered is not a slogan, but the business behavior and process of enterprises should be customer-centered, so as to improve profits and customer satisfaction through such CRM means.

Let's continue to look at other authoritative definitions:

CRM definition 3: "CRM is a customer-centered business strategy, which uses information technology as a means to redesign business functions and reorganize workflow."

Gartner's definition is more from a strategic point of view, and this definition is expounded from a tactical point of view.

CRM is a business strategy based on enterprise development strategy, which is customer-centered, not product-oriented, but customer-oriented. Information technology is the means to realize CRM, which also shows that information technology is not all or necessary for CRM. What has CRM achieved? It is customer-centered, with information technology (CRM system) as a means to redesign business processes for enterprises and carry out business process reengineering (BPR).

CRM definition 4: "CRM refers to the enterprise's understanding and influencing customer behavior through meaningful communication, and ultimately achieving the purpose of improving customer acquisition, customer retention, customer loyalty and customer profitability."

In this definition, the interaction between enterprises and customers is fully emphasized, which is meaningful. Based on this, we can understand the customer and influence the behavior of guiding the customer on the basis of understanding the customer. Through such efforts, we can finally achieve the goal of acquiring more customers, retaining old customers and improving withered loyalty, so as to create value for customers.

Simply defined, CRM is the process of acquiring, maintaining and increasing profitable customers. CRM is firstly a set of advanced management concepts and technical means. By effectively integrating human resources, business processes and professional technology, we can finally provide perfect integration for enterprises in various fields involving customers or consumers, so that enterprises can meet customers' needs with lower cost and higher efficiency, and establish a one-to-one marketing model based on learning relationship with customers, so that enterprises can maximize customer satisfaction and loyalty, save lost customers, retain existing customers and continuously develop new customers. The core content of CRM is to shorten the sales cycle, reduce sales costs, expand sales, increase income and profits, seize more market share, seek new market opportunities and sales channels, and ultimately fundamentally enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises, so that enterprises can be invincible in the current fierce competitive environment. CRM embodies advanced ideas and best practices, and finally helps enterprises achieve the above goals by using various advanced technical means.

CRM takes customers as the center in the whole customer life cycle, that is to say, CRM regards customers as the core of enterprise operation. CRM simplifies various business processes related to customers (such as sales, marketing, service and support) and focuses on meeting customers' needs. CRM also integrates various communication channels with customers, such as face-to-face, telephone contact, Web access, etc., so that enterprises can use appropriate channels and communication methods to communicate with customers according to their preferences, and fundamentally improve the effectiveness of employees' communication with customers or potential customers. CRM can improve employees' responsiveness to customers and have a more comprehensive understanding of customers' whole life cycle. The CRM solution directly integrated with enterprise ERP system enables enterprises to meet customers' needs through closed-loop clearly defined steps and processes, so as to better grasp potential customers and existing customers.