Application of Theory of Inventive Problem Solving in Customer Relationship Management

In today´s competitive world it is not easy to attract costumers and keep them loyal just because of existence of rigorous competition and the increase of customer awareness about competing products or services. It is often said that attracting a new customer will cost 3 up to 5 times more than retaining a current one. So it is of great importance for a company to make its present customers loyal through better relationships with them. Methods and techniques applied by different companies to manage and improve their relationship with different customers, vary considerably and most of them are experimental. These methods and techniques are classified under the title: ´Customer Relationship Management´ or ´CRM´. In the meantime, theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) suggests that anything which has an innovative nature, like methods and techniques of CRM, can be made systematic. So in the first stage of this research, authors tried to extract CRM tricks applied by the well-known American retailer, Sears. Then they were sorted with regard to TRIZ principles. Results are shown here through a representative description of Sears´s operations. Then a comparison between CRM tricks and TRIZ 40 inventive principles is made. For better recognition of the relationship, both the tricks and the principles are shown in groups. Based on analysis of this comparison, analogies have been developed to help and facilitate development of new CRM tricks in future. In the conclusion section some major difficulties of TRIZ application in CRM is discussed