Any remodeler who has dutifully plumbed the depths of current sales and marketing theory has no doubt heard of CRM — which, for the acronym-challenged, stands for customer relationship management — and worried that perhaps he or she is missing the boat by not having something that polysyllabic as part of his business process.

The good news is that he or she probably does have CRM; they just don’t call it that. Before we had CRM, opined one blogger with unexpected insight and clarity, we had rapport.

One of the problems in applying CRM to the remodeling industry is that much of the literature references industries and business models that have different requirements than the average remodeling business. Most writers — if they agree on nothing else — concur that CRM means different things to different people.

Still, at the core of the concept are ideas that remodelers can, should and do incorporate into their business plans. One of the most basic things CRM does in any setting is collect accurate and relevant information about customers. That’s a starting point for managing the customer experience, assessing quality and measuring satisfaction.

One of the things advocates claim CRM will do is develop a “corporate memory” that will help businesses identify, anticipate and address common customer concerns in a consistent and professional manner, which in turn builds customer loyalty and referrals. Most CRM proponents agree that cultivating long-term customer relationships and loyalty is a key goal of any system.

Another key point to remember is that CRM, whatever it is today, most likely had rather humble beginnings as contact-management or lead-generation software with less emphasis on building long-term customer relationships.

A consequence of CRM’s lead-generation roots is the tendency of some remodelers to think that, except for the actual installation, their job is done once they get a customer, says Tim Musch director of business development for Market Sharp, a developer of lead tracking and contact management software.

“So you got a customer. Now what?” he asks. “You choices are two: You can go get another one and forget the one you just got, or in addition to getting another one you can maximize the revenue and profitability of your business by turning every single one of your customers into lifetime customers,” he says.

To do that you should put in place some form of customer relationship management or whatever else you may choose to call it. Regardless, it’s all about how to properly follow up with customers to make them happy and to give them mechanisms to offer you information as to what other products or services you might offer them in the future, Musch says.

“The days of just spending money on leads and buying business are pretty much over. We have to maximize the relationships we have with our past customers and make sure the customer relationship that began with a gutter job turns into a sunroom job down the road and into additional referrals as well,” he says.

As tempting as it may be to look for an out-of-the-box solution, CRM software is unlikely to be that solution in and of itself, although it may be a component. The CRM process needs people, technology and systems, says Musch.

The systems part is the part that gets broken down, he says. Many people think the software is the system, and it’s not.

People will install software and say “go.” If the software could talk back, Musch says, it would ask “where?”

Remodelers need to have a process in place so that when a job is sold a thank-you letter goes out. When it’s finished, a survey follows and information is collected on what other products the client might have an interest in. This is recorded someplace — most likely software — so that at some time in the future some very targeted marketing can be directed at people who have essentially given permission to sell them additional products, he explains.

Musch says that remodelers might want to think of software less in terms of customer relationship management as in terms of what they’re really trying to accomplish with it — business process automation.