Which operational customer relationship management (CRM) technology maintains customer data and identifies prospective customers for future sales?

Operational CRM focuses on the automation of customer-facing processes such as sales, marketing, and customer service. Contact management is a foundational technology within this domain. It is designed to capture, store, and manage comprehensive data about customers and prospects, including contact details, interaction history, and activities. This centralized repository is crucial for sales teams to track leads, manage relationships, and identify potential customers for future sales efforts, directly addressing both functions mentioned in the question.

A. Cross-selling: This is a sales strategy that uses customer data to sell additional products, not the technology that maintains the data itself.

B. Campaign management: This technology focuses on designing and executing marketing campaigns for customer segments, rather than the fundamental management of individual contact and prospect data.

C. Call scripting: This is a specific tool providing pre-written dialogues for agents during calls; it does not manage customer data or identify prospects.

1. Laudon

K. C.

& Laudon

J. P. (2020). Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm (16th ed.). Pearson. In Chapter 9

"Achieving Operational Excellence and Customer Intimacy: Enterprise Applications

" the section on Sales Force Automation (SFA) describes contact management systems as a key capability for tracking all contact and prospect data (pp. 356-357).

2. Buttle

F.

& Maklan

S. (2019). Customer Relationship Management: Concepts and Technologies (4th ed.). Routledge. Chapter 2

"Strategic CRM

" explains that operational CRM includes sales force automation

which has contact management as a core function for maintaining a record of customers

prospects

and their interaction history.

3. Payne

A.

& Frow

P. (2005). A Strategic Framework for Customer Relationship Management. Journal of Marketing

69(4)

167–176. The framework presented distinguishes operational CRM as the automation of customer-facing processes. Contact management is an implicit

fundamental element of the "customer interaction management process" within the operational sphere (p. 172). https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.2005.69.4.167