Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Made Simple
The next steps in Student Advantage’s CRM programs involve a type of on-campus cash card that parents could add money to from afar and students could use to buy books, meals and other college necessities in on-campus partner establishments. Information about purchases would feed back to the Student Advantage data warehouse and provide even more granular and precise data about students’ buying patterns and behavior. The marketing possibilities at that point are almost boundless, and, Macfarlane says, those types of projects combined with the power provided by CRM will cause "the biggest transformation between where we are and where we are going."
Even so, the potential impact of CRM projects can’t allow companies to lose sight of the fundamental power in customer contact. CRM must be used to help each customer feel special, says Don Singleton, Student Advantage’s senior director of customer member services. "It doesn’t matter if you have 10 customers or a million. Every time a customer talks to you they want to feel like they’re your only customer."
