Customer Relationship Management (CRM) are the processes to track and organize contacts with customers not just for marketing but for sales, order management, and customer service. CRM is much more than contact management software especially when integrated with order tracking and determining high value customers. Social CRM is happening now. This page brings together the latest news, comparison reviews, emerging products, blog posts, Twitter tweets, and videos about CRM and CRM software.

CRM software is a key element of CRM and the market for such products is growing rapidly with over $9 billion in revenue (worldwide 2008).http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1074615 Small businesses now have access to CRM online through software as a service (SaaS) providers including a new entrant Microsoft with its Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online offering. The top CRM vendors by revenue in 2008 were SAP, Oracle (including their acquisition Seibel), Salesforce.com, Microsoft, Amdocs, and others(41%).http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1074615

CRM has grown to become a key element in integration across the enterprise. Many enterprise resource planning (ERP) software vendors now have CRM software modules to aid in enterprise application integration.

The common features found in a CRM software package are Sales Force Automation that includes lead tracking, Marketing Automation, Customer Service (Help Desk or Contact Center/Call Center Automation, Business intelligence, and Collaboration.http://www.business-software.com/crm/buying-crm/crm-systems-features.php Business software that allows the management of your online marketing and internet marketing campaigns is essential to even a small business. Look for these features if you are in the market for a customer relationship management solution.

For the latest trends: 2009 CRM Software Industry Predictions (CRMsoftware360)http://www.crmsoftware360.com/2009-predictions.htm and 2010 CRM Trendshttp://www.crmtrends.com/crm.html An example of underutilized CRM is the tele-communications industry. Efforts to overcome "churn" have been largely after the customer has switched providers rather than using the predictive analytic capabilities of CRM.http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/CRM-for-Telecoms-Part-1-Getting-More-Strategic-69688.html?wlc=1270536904

PcMag.com http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,2806,4804,00.asp: Data Deposit Box, Salesforce Unlimited Edition, Sugar Enterprise 4.5 On Demand, Orb 1.0 (from 2005 on)

Top CRM Software Reviews http://www.comparecrm.com/: NetSuite, Microsoft, Maximizer, Goldmine, Commence, Infusion

Hosted CRM Providers http://www.crmreviews.com/: Aplicor, Appshore, Aprimo, CLP Suite, Commence CRM, Dataforce CRM, eGain, Entellium, Everest, Infusion Software, InsideSales.com, Microsoft, NetSuite, SageCRM.com, SalesAhoy, Salesboom, SalesForce.com, SalesJunction.com, Siebel CRM On Demand, Premise CRM, SugarCRM, Visitar

Top 7 CRM (2020 Software.com)http://www.2020software.com/

Reviewshttp://www.crmsoftware360.com/ including Top 5 for categories On-Demand, On-Premise, Open Source, Industry Solutions, and Specialty Solutions. Reviews of Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle OnDemand.

List of CRMs for Small Businesseshttp://www.smallbizcrm.com/centriccrm-v3.html

Top 10 CRM Software (Simple Thoughts)http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/top-10-customer-relationship-management-software/

1. Sugar CRM

2. Oracle's Siebel CRM

3. SAP CRM Software

4. Infor CRM Epiphany

5. Amdocs CRM software

6. salesforce.com On-Demand CRM software

7. Microsoft Dynamics CRM

8. SplendidCRM

9. CiviCRM

10. SourceTAP

Honorable Mention vtiger CRM

Traditional CRM products are represented by the top software leaders:

• Microsoft Dynamics
• Oracle CRM
• Salesforce.com
• SAP CRM

In the social CRM category, several have been identified - see reference for details http://blogs.zdnet.com/crm/?p=109:

• InsideView - combines traditional competitive intelligence and the social information needed to know the customer
• Helpstream - Web 2.0 focus on involving the customer community in solving customer service issues and capture their feedback
• Connectbeam - enterprise strength social collaboration application
• Infusionsoft - marketing and sales tools for 75 or less small businesses
• Really Simple Systems - small end of the small business market - turn on the functionality you want
• Jigsaw - Jigsaw Open Data Initiative free to members which includes over 10 million business contacts and over a million company records
• Silverpop - leader in the world of innovative email marketing and social connections

Software as Service (SaaS) Players

• Salesforce.com - "The Force"
• Zuora - SaaS-based billing and payments service integrated with salesforce.com
• LucidEra - Saas-enabled lead, pipeline and order insight analytics
• Aplicor - play strongly in the public sector

CompareCRM offers summaries of major CRM products and a number of white papers and reports (with registration) on various CRM vendorshttp://www.comparecrm.com/crm-vendors/crm-comparison.php

Web2CRM product reviewhttp://www.dynamicscrmtrickbag.com/2009/04/04/web-2-crm/

SmallBizCRMhttp://www.smallbizcrm.com/small-business-crm-software-web-based.html highly recommends web-based CRM products: InfusionCRM, Relenta, SalesNexus, Aplicor CRM

Free CRM Product Comparison Charthttp://www.comparebusinessproducts.com/crm.aspx

How to Run a Data-Driven Business (Forbes) 23Apr10http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/23/boost-productivity-with-data-entrepreneurs-technology-data.html?boxes=entrepreneurschannelinentre

Social CRM tries to capture data from social networking traffic like Twitter handles, Facebook page addresses or other online monikers. However social media data is unstructured so who does that record in your data really represent?http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/news/2240016468/Social-CRM-customer-data-management-can-be-the-hard-part

Gartner says only meaningful Social CRM business use case is to build external customer relationships.http://www.information-management.com/news/gartner_crm_remains_high_priority_budgets_stay_flat-10017232-1.html

Can Social CRM be done without technology? A provocative question being asked. Mere membership in a community is not participation.http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/69710.html?u=nelsonki&p=ENNSS_57104ffdc52c1947d1d62ce9131d2121 The best CRM may still leave your company unconnected from the customers using social media.http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=774&doc_id=192011&f_src=internetevolution_gnews

Top Customer Management Trends For 2010 (by Billing Views)http://www.billingviews.com/news/top-customer-management-trends-for-2010

Trend 1: Companies Return To Investing In Their Most Important Asset—Customers

Trend 2: Social CRM Hype Reaches A Crescendo

Trend 3: CRM Evolves To Become The Customer Management Ecosystem

Trend 4: Price/Value Trumps Functionality In Purchase Decisions

Trend 5: Customer Service Moves Back Into The Spotlight

Trend 6: The Struggle To Integrate Customer Data Continues

Trend 7: Scrutiny Of Business Cases Remains Intense

Trend 8: Following Best Practices Separates Winners From Losers

Head of ProjectVRM, Doc Searles, says "The marketplace needs entities that work for the customer, rather than the seller".http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Editorial/Magazine-Features/Its-Not-Your-Relationship-to-Manage-66870.aspx