How many customers do you need to have before you can practice CRM? One.

If you have one customer and one competitor you need CRM.

The concept of managing relationships with customers is not new. Companies have been interfacing with customers since the beginning of trade. We've spent the past 30 years automating the enterprise and our supply chains. This quest for better quality, reduced costs, and compressed cycle times has spawned multi-billion dollar software and service industries for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM).

Automation has been all too successful.
Innovative products become mainstream and then bargain-basement specials in the blink of an eye.
Result: Competitive advantage is tough to sustain based on basic products or services.
Customers now have a choice and, most importantly, they are aware of their choices. The power has shifted to the customer. The customer is truly the king!

The Internet has accelerated this power shift, because it's far easier for customers to shop around and for competitors to reach them through electronic marketing programs.With the intensified competition, companies realized that they need to treat their customers differently - with respect.
Customers have a lot more choices and they don’t have to be loyal to any company. Companies are now desperately trying to figure out ways to manage customer relationships effectively, not only to acquire new customers but to retain their existing ones. According to a Harvard Business Review study by Reicheld & Sasser, some companies can boost profits by almost 100% by retaining just 5% of more of their customers.