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3. Anticipate Customer Needs. Building strong customer relationships positively alters the selling process in many ways. Knowledge of your customers presents new opportunities for making the right offer to the right person at the right time. Analysis of customer profiles, especially using powerful analytics tools, can provide insight about who buys what from you when. Contact management systems can detect cross-sell and upsell opportunities and act upon them by presenting suggestions to agents during service calls, dynamically responding to customer input or automatically presenting customized offers in Web pages and IVR systems. Even government and nonprofit organizations can use these principles to better fulfill their charters and anticipate the needs of their constituents.

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2. Handle Different Customers Differently. This idea has been repeated so many times that it’s practically taken for granted now. But the power of this principle lies in the potential for optimizing the value of each customer relationship through differential treatment. Based on customer segmentation, call centers can provide user-appropriate Web and interactive voice response (IVR) interfaces, routing routines, service levels and content. It is important, however, not to differentiate simply because technology exists that can do so. Segment customers sensibly. There are hidden costs to differentiation that must be weighed against the increased value that personalization can be expected to produce. Effective strategy ultimately seeks to optimize the value and "wallet share" of each customer segment.

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1. Continuously Learn About Your Customers. This is the first principle of managing customer relationships because it is the most fundamental. From this everything else follows. When you know your customers, you can make sound business decisions about how to develop your relationships with them. Collect and analyze information about your customers to get to know them well. Maintain your knowledge in customer profiles that are available to all who need them. But don’t stop there. Apply everything you know to building a customer valuation model. Knowing the value of customer relationships is essential for managing them wisely.

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If you’re still trying to sort out what customer relationship management really means, you're not alone. The term has been so hyped and so broadly interpreted that it remains a source of confusion. And once codified as a popular business movement, terms tend rise and fall with the trends of the day.

But it’s important to remember that building profitable customer relationships will never go out of style. From the days of the corner store in centuries past, to the global enterprises of the future, the following 12 principles will remain the backbone of building a successful business. Each is both compelling on its own and intertwined with the others — there is no question, though, that customer relationship management as an integrated whole is greater than the sum of these parts.