Customer Relationship Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Customer Relationship Management - Essay Example Customer relationship management also serves to evaluate the consumer as a means of providing them with the products which would be most suited to their demographic or psychographic profile (Coravue Inc., 2007). Generally this is accomplished by reviewing browsing habits stored in mass databases or reviewing comments left by customers on company websites. In the bricks-and-mortar sales environment, evaluating customer habits can sometimes be as easy as reviewing a credit card statement or sales history over a period of days or weeks. However, who really cares about customer relationship management' PepsiCo should, as there is little evidence that the company maintains a focus on CRM other than through brand-building exercises which appear to give the impression that PepsiCo products are more commodities than tools for building customer satisfaction and loyalty. Evidence suggests that PepsiCo, despite their extended, global reach and wide variety of subsidiaries and brand varieties, requires significant adjustment to existing CRM policies. This paper assesses the overall importance of customer relationship management whilst applying CRM literature to the current marketing environment at PepsiCo. Recommendations for improvements in CRM focus at the firm will also be proposed. Technological develo... elopments are generally the key to successful CRM programmes, allowing for business communications regarding CRM focus to be distributed as well as maintaining an adequate database of consumer-related information. The Internet, additionally, allows organisations to use real-time customer interaction, through a series of integrated communications messages, to support the brand's image (Turner, 2008). From the technological perspective, customer relationship management is about having the software support necessary to extend the brand/company experience into new areas of streamlined payment systems or interactive, entertaining product websites. PepsiCo is quite competent in its interactive marketing focus, developing a wide variety of contest websites, interactive product design websites (allowing consumers to interact in a virtual design environment), and countless others. For instance, the company utilised a promotional incentive by printing various codes on the tops of its Pepsi brand products, allowing customers to visit the corresponding website to win various prizes (Harwood, 2006). In this particular campaign, PepsiCo received 15 million entries, which suggests that the campaign was a tremendous success. It would be a likely assessment that much of the registration information regarding consumers was stored in a database in the event of requiring information for other promotional offers or incentives. Some might argue that promotional literature and interactive contest websites would not be included in CRM, however in terms of the successes of the Pepsi-Cola brand, these types of promotional activities are creating connection with consumer lifestyle and with the company itself. One need only visit a legitimate PepsiCo product website to witness an enormous