Glossary

Active Loyalty

repeat purchases, contacts and transactions made within an appropriate time period may be indicative of an actively loyal customer – measures such as recency of contact and frequency of contact initiated by the customer provide the basis of analysis ( see passive loyalty). 

Analytical CRM

data generated through operations is analysed to measure business performance.  ( see data warehouse ) 

Attrition

loss of customers to a competitor. 

Campaign Management

management of marketing communications channels. 

Channel Management

development and management of effective distribution channels ( e.g. Internet, field sales, call centre etc.). 

Collaborative CRM

use of information derived from customer interactions, inter-organisational communications ( e.g. between departments such as sales and marketing, finance and customer service etc. ) with the purpose of increasing customer satisfaction, developing the relationship and raising the barrier to switching.  The ultimate example is to involve customers in the development of new products and services. 

CRM Architecture

the infrastructure of CRM software, tools and applications to allow analysis of CRM systems.

Cross Selling  

the sale of related goods or services to customers.

Customer Interaction

Points

Customer Lifetime Value

the value of customers over the potential period of the relationship with an organization. 

Data Cleansing

removing inaccurate customer records, duplicate records or obsolete data from operational systems. 

Data Mining

the analysis and interpretation of data to establish patterns or associations within it using statistics or artificial intelligence.  Techniques including clustering data sets, predictive modelling and time series analysis. 

Data Models

these are sets of data related in some way.  

Predictive Modelling

is used to predict the propensity of customers to act in a certain way e.g. take up an offer, switch supplier, default on payment etc. 

Data Warehouse

a depository of information formatted from various databases designed for use in making business decisions. 

e-CRM

the use of web channels as part of a CRM strategy. 

Event - Triggered

Marketing

prospective marketing campaigns which are stimulated by predetermined occurrences in customer’s lives. 

Passive Loyalty

A term often used to describe customers who have not transacted with an organisation for a long time, or those who persist with the organisation in the absence of a better alternative.   Many organisations make the mistake of assuming customer satisfaction is present in the case of the latter. ( see active loyalty ). 

Segmentation

division of the target market on the basis of individual customer characteristics.