"In this age of social media and instant communication, customers are growing increasingly demanding of the businesses they patronize."

That's from a recent blog post by Soffront, discussing the benefits of on-demand CRM. It's hard to argue with that statement. Anybody who's dealt with customers recently knows they "expect results immediately, they want answers instantaneously, and they want to know that they are not only acknowledged, but also appreciated," according to the post.

Soffront officials take the logical position that, given such, businesses "are at a disadvantage when they don’t make their customer relationship management (CRM) a priority in their business model." Now we know what you're thinking: "What's for dinner? If it's casserole one more time I swear I'm ordering Domino's." You're probably also thinking hey, larger corporations have the bucks for that stuff, we're a small shop, we have to acquire, maintain and retain our customer base on a limited budget.

Don't worry, bro, you're covered. You might be out of luck with the casserole, but there is web-based CRM hosting. "Web- based CRM programs make perfect sense," Soffront officials say, adding "it’s not just about the money, either. Well, it’s partly about the money, but it’s about a number of other benefits as well."

The blog post notes that much like other types of service-oriented programs, "customer support software can be costly and difficult to maintain. Whereas on-site customer support programs often have to be updated, maintained, and sustained by an in-house IT department -- an altogether separate cost -- a hosted CRM program gives businesses the advantage of a fully supported system for much less."

Earlier this month TMC reported that CRM vendor Soffront recently welcomed i-Control Alliance to its “CRM family.” Company officials said i-Control Alliance is "a new business venture providing policy accuracy and compliance services. Like all good startups that know how important CRM software is for their business, i-Control was evaluating several different CRM tools."