The generally accepted purpose of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is to enable organizations to better manage their customers through the introduction of reliable systems, processes and procedures for interacting with those customers.

In today's competitive business environment, a successful CRM strategy cannot be implemented by only installing and integrating a software package designed to support CRM processes. A holistic approach to CRM is vital for an effective and efficient CRM policy. This approach includes training of employees, a modification of business processes based on customers' needs and an adoption of relevant IT-systems (including software and maybe hardware) and/or usage of IT-Services that enable the organization or company to follow its CRM strategy. CRM-Services can even replace the acquisition of additional hardware or CRM software-licences.

The term CRM is used to describe either the software or the whole business strategy (or lack of one) oriented on customer needs. The main misconception of CRM is that it is only software, instead of whole business strategy.

Major areas of CRM focus on service automated processes, personal information gathering and processing, and self-service. It attempts to integrate and automate the various customer serving processes within a company.