A Complete View of CRM Outsourcing

Essay by docperio44University, Bachelor'sA+, April 2005

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Outsourcing - An Inside Look

The key to a company's success is good customer service. Regardless of which industry one is a part of, customer care is of utmost importance. An increasing number of organizations are realizing that with growing competition, new technological innovations and constantly improving services and products, consumers are being pulled in different directions. It is vital to ensure that customer loyalty programs are an integral part of an organization. Acquiring new customers is important, but holding on to existing customers is crucial. After all if existing clients are satisfied they will help in acquiring new ones by spreading the news of the outstanding customer services. To serve customers better, many companies have adopted a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. These systems integrate people, process and technology in order to maximize a company's relationship with all their customers (American Society for Quality 1). With the advent of CRM's, companies have been looks outside the company boundaries for aid in such a demanding customer service field.

More precisely, the companies are looking to tender their CRM responsibilities to an external party in some form of a contract. This is commonly referred as outsourcing and it is becoming one of the most rapidly growing industries.

The Need for Outsourcing

Outsourcing is a company's decision to hire an outside firm to handle the company's computer operations, network operations, and IT function to a vendor for a specified time (Lankford 2). This strategic move is decided by higher management when they realize that the handling of these operations by another party will reduce costs and expenses. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a major component that many companies are looking to outsource due to the component's large scale and the importance. Customer service is a large component of CRM. When a company...