ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the central role of customer-related data in the achievement of customer relationship management (CRM) outcomes and the importance of data quality to CRM performance. It also shows how to understand issues that need to be considered in developing a customer-related database and uses of knowledge management systems in CRM. Most of the data maintained in corporate databases are structured. Structured customer-related data are stored in three different types of database such as hierarchical, network and relational. Information for customer-related databases can be sourced internally or externally. Customer-related data are either secondary or primary. Customer-related databases need to be updated to keep them useful. Maintaining customer-related databases means that CRM users will be more likely to have their need for accurate and relevant data met. Companies often face the challenge of integrating data from several sources into a coherent single view of the customer. An important contributor to effective CRM is storing and leveraging customer-related knowledge.
