There are two ways to justify an investment in customer relationship management (CRM) – increase revenues or reduce costs. Costs can only be reduced so much, but that is generally where most people focus their attention because it is easier to quantify. The really large paybacks in CRM will occur from increasing the revenues of the organization – which some people also refer to as top-line growth. When reduced to the simplest terms, increasing revenues and profits can only be derived from three sources – better customer management, targeted selling efforts and focused customer retention. (2001-02-04)