Secrets of Customer Relationship Management

Book excerpt: When executives hear the term "customer relationship management" (CRM), they often break out in a cold sweat amid visions of six- or seven-figure implementations of staggeringly complex systems. But have no fear, you won't stumble over such looming obstacles in James G. Barnes's book. Rather he chooses an old-fashioned approach to CRM: actually building relationships with your customers. Barnes provides a variety of techniques to accomplish this basic task. Some of his suggestions are fresh and inspired, while others will sound pretty familiar to anyone in business. Either way, he documents them with his own thorough research and insightful accounts from other writers. Some readers will miss the nuts-and-bolts technical analysis that has come to define the modern concept of CRM, but getAbstract recommends this book to executives, marketing professionals and customer service managers who want to get back to traditional business values.