There are countless unique and different goals that organizations use to define customer relationship management.   However, the goals of any effective customer relationship management program are similar because they all try to be able to understand and respond to customers' needs and wants.   The days when customers walked into their brick and mortar stores, glaced at a catalogue while the business owner took their orders are becoming obsolete. This support network for many communities has been replaced by a much larger entity that encompasses the global community. The Internet and its’ varies applications has altered the way in which the world views and conducts business.

As a result, over time, the needs and desires of these businesses and their customers have changed. Now, the business community is moving at an ever accelerating pace. Results are expected immediately in the marketplace, customers are not willing to wait for answers or products. Due to the high levels of competition that the global marketplace has created the very nature of business itself has shifted.   Companies today do not have the luxury of being able to wait for results. Any time lost in collecting, analyzing, and acting on data can create negative ramifications such as lost customers and/or revenues.

Ultimately the goal of a CRM is to identify and create relationships between the business, vendors, and customers. While monitoring their proactive and reactive responses, many software companies have designed generic and specific packages for companies to address the need for efficiency and relevance in their data collection. Generally, tools which perform operational CRM enable a company to better understand how customer demands can inform and frame business activity. According to Judith Lamont www.kmworld.com, CRM software supplies the infrastructure needed to identify markets.  However, Thompson (2005) argues, successful CRM vendors also must address issues such as ensuring satisfaction between customers and business partners, developing loyalty, and identifying/ measuring the outcomes of the CRM applications. Thompson adds to this by stating that  there are three key functions of successful CRM as:

     1) developing a customer-centric strategy;

     2) using appropriate metrics to guide [the] CRM journey;

     3) aligning [the] organization with [the] strategy. (p. 6)

Business’ face more challenges then ever before when creating an effective CRM plan and choosing appropriate applications to mine data. These business’ need to first and foremost identify the types of information they need and can collect this from users. They must also balance the privacy rights of Internet users themselves. The issues facing businesses that incorporate CRM technology and the Internet are significant, but not impossible to find solutions for. As the Internet's application abilities change over time and corresponding issues arise, solutions also emerge to minimize the problems associated with an e-business CRM.