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   1 

   Personal and profile data.  These include contact details and characteristics for profiling 

customers such as age and sex (B2C) and business size, industry sector and individual’s 

role in the buying decision (B2B).  

  2 

   Transaction data.  A record of each purchase transaction including specific product pur-

chased, quantities, category, location, date and time, and channel where purchased.  

  3 

   Communications data.  A record of which customers have been targeted by campaigns, 

and their response to them (outbound communications). Also includes a record of 

inbound enquiries and sales representative visits and reports (B2B).   

 The behavioural data available through 2 and 3 are very important for targeting customers to 

more closely meet their needs. 

 Research completed by Stone  et al  . (2001) illustrates how customer data collected through 

CRM applications can be used for marketing. The types of data that are held, together with 

the frequency of their usage, are: 

 Basic customer information 

 75% 

 Campaign  history 

 62.5% 

 Purchase patterns (sales histories) 

 50% 

 Market  information 

 42.5% 

 Competitor  information 

 42.5% 

 Forecasts 

 25% 

 The data within CRM systems that were reported to be used for marketing applications were 

as follows: 

 Targeted  marketing 

 80% 

 Segmentation 

 65% 

 Keeping the right customers 

 47.5% 

 Trend  analysis 

 45% 

 Increased  loyalty 

 42.5% 

 Customised  offers 

 32.5% 

 Increase share of customer 

 27.5% 

 The Hewson Consulting Group ( 

www.hewson.co.uk

 ) identifies the following benefits of 

CRM systems to customers: 

   

● 

  Improved response times to customer requests for information.  

  

● 

  Delivered product meets customer requirements.  

  

● 

  Reduced costs of buying and using a product or service.  

  

● 

  Immediate access to order status and more responsive technical support.   

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Chapter 9  Customer relationship management

It is apparent that while many of these benefits could be achieved by phoning customer 

support staff who then access a CRM system, it may increase customer convenience, and 

reduce costs to the company, if they can access this information through a web interface. 

This approach is referred to as ‘