By Bob Violino

Nov. 3, 2003—Customer relationship management projects fail for a number of reasons: lack of strategic planning; unenthusiastic support from sales, marketing or other key departments; or a dearth of accurate, real-time customer data. RFID technology doesn’t address the first two challenges, but some industry analysts expect RFID to help companies deal with the last issue by providing a wealth of information.

RFID could get him the right customer information

Although CRM means different things to different people, it is commonly defined as a corporate objective to learn more about customers’ needs, preferences and behavior in order to serve them better and develop better relationships with them. With CRM, companies use various technologies and processes to gain better insight into customer behavior and activity.

CRM software gives companies a centralized, relational database consisting of customer information. Data is gathered from a variety of customer interaction points, including retail stores, Web sites, direct-mail campaigns, call centers, mobile salespeople, and marketing and advertising campaigns. The database can include customer contact information; sales data; shipment and fulfillment dates; account, service and support records; and general customer demographics.

Analysis of this data can give a company a much clearer view of which products and services its customers tend to buy and where they buy them, how they use these purchases, what they are likely to purchase in the future, how they prefer to contact the company and other characteristics. It can also give a company a good sense of who its most valuable and reliable customers are. When CRM works well, it provides benefits such as improved customer service, more efficient marketing campaigns and cross-selling, more effective call centers, an expanding customer base and, subsequently, higher revenue.