CHSE Odisha Vocational CRM cheat sheet

CRM is a strategy plus supporting systems for building, maintaining and profiting from long-term customer relationships; it is not merely software.

Three CRM types: operational (front-office automation of sales, service, marketing), analytical (data mining and segmentation of customer data), collaborative (shared touchpoints across channels and partners).

Relationship life cycle stages: acquisition, retention, and development (cross-sell/up-sell); each stage has distinct cost and revenue profiles.

Relationship marketing aims at repeat purchase and referral; transactional marketing aims at single sales; CRM economics favour retention because acquisition cost is typically far higher than retention cost.

Customer lifetime value (CLV) = expected contribution margin per period × expected relationship duration, discounted to present value; it ranks customers by worth rather than by revenue alone.

A customer is anyone who receives or is affected by an organisation's product; internal customers are colleagues served by other departments in the service chain.

CRM benefits: better customer knowledge, consistent service, higher satisfaction and loyalty, lower churn, improved targeting, and measurable marketing return.

CRM risks: high implementation cost, poor data quality, employee resistance, privacy breaches, and treating software purchase as the whole project.

Service quality dimensions (SERVQUAL): reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, tangibles; reliability is usually rated most important by customers.

Communication process: sender, encoding, channel, message, receiver, decoding, feedback, noise; noise at any stage causes service misunderstanding.

Active listening steps: attend, paraphrase, ask open questions, confirm understanding, summarise; open questions begin with what/how/why, closed questions invite yes/no.

Gap model of service quality: the customer gap arises from provider gaps in knowledge, standards, delivery, and communication; each provider gap has a specific remedy.

Non-verbal channels include tone, pace, posture, eye contact, gestures and facial expression; tone often carries more meaning than the words chosen.

Service blueprinting maps front-stage actions, back-stage actions and support processes; fail points on the map indicate where service recovery is likely needed.

Response standards should be expressed in measurable terms (for example, first reply within 4 working hours) rather than as vague promises.

Empathy statement structure: acknowledge the feeling, state the factual problem, state the action to be taken, and give a time commitment.

Acquisition funnel stages: awareness, interest, consideration, purchase; conversion rate at each stage = stage entrants proceeding ÷ stage entrants × 100.

Acquisition cost per customer (CAC) = total acquisition spend ÷ number of new customers acquired in the period.

Retention rate = (customers at end of period − new customers in period) ÷ customers at start of period × 100.

Churn rate = customers lost in period ÷ customers at start of period × 100; retention rate and churn rate sum to 100 when measured on the same base.

Loyalty ladder: prospect, shopper, client, advocate; movement up the ladder reflects increasing repeat purchase and referral behaviour.

Loyalty programmes use points, tiers, or rewards; effective designs reward behaviour the firm wants (repeat purchase, referral, data sharing), not just spend volume.

RFM segmentation scores recency, frequency and monetary value; each dimension is scored (commonly 1–5) and combined to prioritise customers.

Referral and word-of-mouth are low-cost acquisition channels; net promoter score (NPS) = % promoters − % detractors, measured on a 0–10 likelihood-to-recommend question.

CRM system modules typically cover sales force automation, marketing automation, customer service/helpdesk, analytics, and integration/APIs.

SaaS (cloud) CRM is vendor-hosted and subscription-priced; on-premise CRM is installed and maintained on the organisation's own servers.

A database is an organised collection of related data; a DBMS is the software that stores, retrieves and controls access to it.

Relational database terms: table (relation), row (record), column (field/attribute), primary key (unique identifier), foreign key (link to another table).

SQL commands: SELECT (retrieve), INSERT (add), UPDATE (modify), DELETE (remove); SELECT with WHERE filters rows and JOIN combines tables.

Data warehouse vs operational CRM database: the warehouse consolidates historical data from multiple sources for analysis, while the operational database supports live transactions.

CRM integration uses APIs to connect CRM with email, telephony, billing and e-commerce; without integration, records duplicate and reports disagree.

System selection criteria: functional fit, scalability, integration, data security, total cost of ownership, and vendor support.

Lead lifecycle: capture, qualify, assign, nurture, convert to opportunity, close; lead status must be updated at each transition.

Lead qualification frameworks: BANT (budget, authority, need, timeline) and lead scoring (points for fit attributes plus engagement behaviour).

Sales pipeline stages typically: prospecting, qualification, proposal, negotiation, closed won/closed lost; stage-weighted value = opportunity value × stage probability.

Sales force automation features: account and contact records, activity logging, task reminders, quotation generation, pipeline dashboards.

Marketing automation features: campaign management, email sequences, landing pages, lead capture forms, and campaign response tracking.

Campaign response rate = responses ÷ messages delivered × 100; cost per lead = campaign cost ÷ leads generated.

Cross-selling offers a related product to an existing customer; up-selling offers a higher-value version of the product the customer already buys.

A campaign record should link to leads and opportunities so that revenue can be attributed back to the marketing activity that generated it.

Data quality dimensions: accuracy, completeness, consistency, timeliness, uniqueness, validity; each can be measured and monitored.

Duplicate records are detected by matching rules on name, phone, email and address; merging keeps one surviving record and links history.

Data lifecycle: capture, validation, storage, use, sharing, archival, deletion; retention periods should be defined per data category.

Personal data means information relating to an identified or identifiable individual; sensitive categories (health, biometric, financial) require stricter handling.

Consent must be informed, specific and withdrawable; purpose limitation means data collected for one purpose is not reused for an unrelated purpose without a lawful basis.

Data subject rights commonly include access, correction, erasure, restriction, portability and objection; requests must be logged and answered within the legal deadline.

Security safeguards: role-based access control, least privilege, encryption in transit and at rest, audit logs, and staff awareness training.

A data breach must be contained, assessed for risk, recorded, and notified to the regulator and affected individuals where the applicable law requires.

Complaint handling sequence: receive and log, acknowledge, investigate, resolve, confirm satisfaction, record root cause, and act on prevention.

Service recovery paradox: a well-handled failure can raise satisfaction above the pre-failure level, but repeated failures destroy the effect.

Justice dimensions in recovery: distributive (fair compensation), procedural (fair process and speed), interactional (respectful treatment); all three must be met.

Escalation rules define thresholds (value, risk, repetition, legal threat) at which a complaint moves to a supervisor or specialist team.

Complaint categories for analysis: product quality, delivery, billing, staff behaviour, information error, and system failure; coding allows trend detection.

Angry-customer de-escalation: let the customer finish, acknowledge emotion, avoid blame and defensiveness, state what can be done, confirm agreement.

First-contact resolution (FCR) = complaints resolved at first contact ÷ total complaints × 100; it is a core recovery performance measure.

Root cause analysis tools: the 5 Whys and cause-and-effect (fishbone) diagrams; corrective action must address the cause, not the symptom.

Metric types: lagging indicators (revenue, churn) report outcomes; leading indicators (pipeline coverage, response time) predict outcomes.

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) is usually a single-question rating; NPS measures advocacy; customer effort score (CES) measures ease of resolution.

CLV formula (simple form) = average order value × purchase frequency per year × retention years × margin rate.

Churn and retention must be computed on a defined cohort and period; mixing cohorts produces misleading rates.

Segmentation methods: demographic, geographic, behavioural, psychographic, and value-based (RFM or CLV tiers).

Dashboard design rules: one metric per visual, consistent time axis, comparison against target or prior period, and drill-down to source records.

A/B testing compares two variants on a single metric with random assignment; the difference is only credible if the sample is large enough.

Data-to-action loop: define metric, collect data, analyse, decide, act, and re-measure; a metric with no owner and no action is decorative.

A CV for a CRM or customer-service role should state measurable achievements (for example, reduced response time by 30%) rather than duties only.

Interview structure: research the employer, prepare STAR answers (situation, task, action, result), prepare role-specific questions, and follow up in writing.

Workplace etiquette essentials: punctuality, clear written communication, confidentiality of customer data, and respectful escalation of problems.

Employment types in India include permanent, fixed-term contract, internship, apprenticeship, and self-employment; each carries different obligations.

Entrepreneur skills: opportunity recognition, market research, costing and pricing, basic bookkeeping, marketing, and customer retention.

Break-even quantity = fixed costs ÷ (selling price per unit − variable cost per unit); it shows the sales volume needed before profit begins.

A small business plan covers the offer, target customer, competition, pricing, cost structure, marketing channel, and cash-flow forecast.

Statutory awareness for customer-facing work: consumer protection rights, data protection duties, and workplace safety and anti-harassment policies.

Definition and scope of CRM strategy

Operational, analytical and collaborative CRM

Relationship life cycle: acquisition, retention, development

Customer lifetime value concept

Internal versus external customers

Benefits and risks of CRM adoption

SERVQUAL five dimensions

Communication process and noise

Active listening techniques

Service quality gap model

Non-verbal communication channels

Measurable response standards

Acquisition funnel and conversion rate

CAC formula

Retention and churn formulas

Loyalty ladder stages

RFM segmentation

Net promoter score calculation

CRM module types

SaaS versus on-premise CRM

Relational database terminology

Core SQL commands

Data warehouse versus operational database

API integration purpose

Lead lifecycle stages

BANT qualification

Pipeline stage weighting

Sales force automation features

Marketing automation features

Campaign response and cost per lead

Data quality dimensions

Duplicate detection and merging

Data lifecycle stages

Consent and purpose limitation

Data subject rights

Breach response steps

Complaint handling sequence

Service recovery paradox

Three justice dimensions

Escalation thresholds

First-contact resolution formula

Root cause analysis tools

Leading versus lagging indicators

CSAT, NPS and CES

Simple CLV formula

Cohort-based churn measurement

Segmentation methods

Data-to-action loop

STAR interview method

Achievement-based CV writing

Employment types in India

Break-even formula

Small business plan contents

Statutory awareness topics