CRM solutions present unified and integrated customer information at the fingertips of anyone who comes in contact with customers. This decentralizes decision making resulting in quicker response to the customer and resolution of his problems. As a result, companies are able to provide efficient and effective service their customers.

As mentioned earlier, technology today has allowed businesses to make available online an integrated real time database of customer information and interaction to everybody in the organization. This enables the organization to not only take quick but also effective decisions in acquiring, developing and retaining customers through higher levels of customer satisfaction.

CRM helps increase the level of customer satisfaction and delight. For example, CRM solutions allows companies to capture customer requests and complaints made through company’s branch and regional offices, corporate office, call centres as well as through multiple channels like email, internet, web site and telephone. It not only captures but also directs it to the right person on a real time basis. CRM solutions also assist in automatically escalating the customer request or complaint to predetermined higher levels of management for appropriate action in case the request has not been addressed in a timely manner. This can re­sult in a significant reduction in turnaround time in resolving complaints and answering queries resulting in high levels of customer satisfaction.

Let me give you some examples of how CRM solutions can be used to increase customer satisfaction. Let’s say you’re shopping online, and you order for a particular brand but it is out of stock. The store will now check its database for purchases made by you earlier and offer you an alternative brand which you have purchased earlier or which is a comparable brand. Instead of your first choice, they’ll offer you a second choice because they know what it is. You have the option of saying no or yes to the second choice.

Square D, a high tech company in U.S., is using CRM and related technologies to increase customer satisfaction. For example, if a drive installed at one of its customers site gets damaged because of  power surge, the server will sense the damage and send an e-mail to the plant engineer's mobile phone to inform him of the problem. At the same times, it will also send an e-mail order to Square D for replacement drives and another email to the contractor requesting him to send an engineer at the plant the following day to install the drives. By the time the plant engineer arrives the next morning, the drives will be ready for installation, and a Square D manager will be present to discuss the event. That's how high-tech Square D needs to be in order to secure customer loyalty in its business. This is only possible with CRM and its related technologies.