<P> The third primary aim of CRM systems is to incorporate external stakeholders such as suppliers, vendors, and distributors, and share customer information across organizations . For example, feedback can be collected from technical support calls, which could help provide direction for marketing products and services to that particular customer in the future . </P> <P> A customer data platform (CDP) is a computer system used by marketing departments that assembles data about individual people from various sources into one database, with which other software systems can interact . As of February 2017 there were about twenty companies selling such systems and revenue for them was around US $300 million . </P> <P> The main components of CRM are building and managing customer relationships through marketing, observing relationships as they mature through distinct phases, managing these relationships at each stage and recognizing that the distribution of value of a relationship to the firm is not homogenous . When building and managing customer relationships through marketing, firms might benefit from using a variety of tools to help organizational design, incentive schemes, customer structures, and more to optimize the reach of its marketing campaigns . Through the acknowledgement of the distinct phases of CRM, businesses will be able to benefit from seeing the interaction of multiple relationships as connected transactions . The final factor of CRM highlights the importance of CRM through accounting for the profitability of customer relationships . Through studying the particular spending habits of customers, a firm may be able to dedicate different resources and amounts of attention to different types of consumers . </P> <P> Relational Intelligence, or awareness of the variety of relationships a customer can have with a firm, is an important component to the main phases of CRM . Companies may be good at capturing demographic data, such as gender, age, income, and education, and connecting them with purchasing information to categorize customers into profitability tiers, but this is only a firm's mechanical view of customer relationships . This therefore is a sign that firms believe that customers are still resources that can be used for up - sell or cross-sell opportunities, rather than humans looking for interesting and personalized interactions . </P>

What are the main components of a crm system