Customer relationship management (CRM):An application on tourism sector

Globalization, increase in supply and changes in the characteristics of customers have made competition more difficult for companies. The companies which had focused on products in 20th century, focused on customers in late 20th and 21st centuries. This process continued as developing long ? term customer relations, so that these companies could make profit and become more advantageous in competition, by increasing the value of the customer. This new system which began to be used in marketing is called Customer Relations Management (CRM). CRM is a whole system which includes human, process and technology which is applied in order to develop long ? term relations with the customer and increase the profit. CRM is an application in which the company systematically analyses the information which it took from the customer and uses for the customer. Through another point of view, CRM is a revolving profitable investment which is expected to provide the company with extra benefit. However as a result of CRM, when the companies intent to increase their profits, customers gain access to quality products and services with cheaper prices. In this study which was performed on all of the tourism companies in Turkey, some interview questions were asked to the managers of these companies and these companies were analyzed according to the answers of the questions. At the end of the study the issues of feasibility of CRM in tourism companies, its application levels and suitability of those companies for CRM were assessed.