This is a very important component of CRM strategy yet the most unmanaged. It is of special importance in e-tailing companies or Internet ventures where almost the entire correspondence between the customer and the company is electronic.

It also assumes special importance in B2C e-tailing and e-commerce companies because with the huge customer base it would be physically impossible to be personalized or customized without effective email correspondence management.

So what do I mean by email management and how do we go about achieving it?

By email management we mean a system where all the email can be so organized so as to present it to us in a format we desire. From a CRM perspective, it should be able to sift through all the correspondence to present all the correspondence received from or sent to any particular customer in an appropriate format. An appropriate format would entail presenting the interaction between any customer in a subject-wise (tree-type) format or in a chronological fashion or a combination of both.

Moreover the email management system should be so robust that it should be able to search and retrieve correspondence from the entire correspondence database based on versatile search tools. The search criteria could be established based on name, email, subject or any words in the body. The search tools should also be able to retrieve all correspondence related to a particular subject and present as a neat list all the emails that were part of that subject.

From the emails so procured it should be able to "suck out" all the email addresses of the recipients and present to you as a list that can be read by your bulk mailer (should you require to do a personalized bulk follow up).

Also, one of the most important aspects for successful one-to-one initiatives is the integration of email correspondence with the information held about the customer. This is one of the only channels in automated e-commerce where the customer can communicate with the company in an open-ended manner or in a manner he likes and about whatever he chooses to communicate. This obviously is a great opportunity to develop relationships, which is what CRM is all about.

As you can see, that requires some level of development but once you have it, it's well worth it - it will bring a huge upsurge in your customer relationships as well as efficiency to your enterprise.

Any person who runs an online business will tell you how invaluable such a tool could be to boost their revenues by follow-up marketing but the bottom line is that this is a must have for any company big or small that is increasingly moving onto the email correspondence as a preferred means of communication.

The best part - although the most challenging - is when this correspondence history can be integrated with the other database that houses customer records to present a complete view of the customer. With the complete integration, you are ready to tap through the full power of CRM.

Click here to read about an effective email management system