In the end, durable customer relations are only partly about clever technology, however imaginatively used.

ECONOMIST: Managing customers

Lockheed Martin has a long tradition of in-your-face customer relations that occasionally has led to the loss of federal business the company should have won.

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The focus is primarily on gaining operational efficiencies in the internal environment, improving customer relations, and efficiencies through improved partner access.

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It is not our customary method of Customer Relations to be so public in how we work through these situations, but with so many people involved in the occurrence, you also should be involved in the solution.

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At its heart is a change in relations between customers and businesses, so that each customer is treated differently.

ECONOMIST: Direct hit

Bingo equipment makers are reaching out to the new demographic with hand-held, electronic bingo devices and fluorescent bingo paper and daubers that glow in the dark, says Kathy Donnelly, vice president of customer relations at Arrow International, which bills itself as the world's largest manufacturer of bingo supplies.

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"Compared with the others BT is in a much stronger position because it has a massive number of customer relations already, " said Toby Syfret, a television market analyst at Enders Analysis.

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Some new cloud-based solutions act as payment processors, as well as offering back-end customer relations management systems and the ability to accept mobile payments in the growing Internet economy.

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In the past, departments such as sales, marketing, customer service, public relations, and supply chain might each have had their own data sets, which they managed separately.

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