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Chinese calendar

The traditional Chinese calendar ( informally  ) is a lunisolar calendar, combining the solar, lunar, and other cycles for various social and agricultural purposes. More recently, in China and Chinese communities the Gregorian calendar has been adopted and adapted in various ways, and is generally the basis for standard civic purposes, though also incorporating traditional lunisolar holidays. Also, there are many types and subtypes of the Chinese calendar, partly reflecting developments in astronomical observation and horology, with over a millennium's worth of history. The major modern form is the Gregorian calendar-based official version of Mainland China, though diaspora versions are also notable in other regions of China and Chinese-influenced cultures; however, aspects of the traditional lunisolar calendar remain popular, including the association of the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac in relation to months and years.

The traditional calendar used the sexagenary cycle-based ganzhi system's mathematically repeating cycles of Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. Together with astronomical, horological, and phenologic observations, definitions, measurements, and predictions of years, months, and days were refined to an accurate standard. Astronomical phenomena and calculations emphasized especially the efforts to mathematically correlate the solar and lunar cycles from the perspective of the earth, which, however, are known to require some degree of numeric approximation or compromises.

The logic of the various permutations of the Chinese calendar has been based in considerations such as the technical form from mathematics and astronomy, the philosophical considerations, and the political, and the resulting disparities between different calendars is significantly notable. Various similar calendar systems are also known from various regions or ethnic groups of Central Asia, South Asia, and other ethnic regions. Indeed, the Chinese calendar has influenced and been influenced by most parts of the world these days. One particularly popular feature is the Chinese zodiac. The Chinese calendar and horology includes many multifaceted methods of computing years, eras, months, days and hours (with modern horology even splitting the seconds into very tiny sub-units using atomic methods).

Epochs are one of the important features of calendar systems. An epoch is a particular point in time at which a calendar system may use as its initial time reference, allowing for the consecutive numbering of years from a chosen starting year, date, or time. In the Chinese calendar system, examples include the inauguration of Huangdi or the birth of Confucius. Also, many dynasties had their own dating systems, which could include regnal eras based on the inauguration of a dynasty, the enthronement of a particular monarch, or eras arbitrarily designated due to political or other considerations, such as a desire for a change of luck. Era names are useful for determining dates on artifacts such as ceramics, which were often traditionally dated by an era name during the production process.

Historical variations of the lunisolar calendar are features of the Chinese calendar system. The topic of the Chinese calendar includes various traditional types of the Chinese calendar. As is generally the case with calendar systems, the Chinese calendars tend to focus on basic calendar functions, such as the identification of years, months, and days according to astronomical phenomena and calculations, with a special effort to correlate the solar and lunar cycles experienced on earth—an effort which is known to mathematically require some degree of approximation. One of the major features of some traditional calendar systems in China (and elsewhere) has been the idea of the sexagenary cycle. The Chinese lunisolar calendar has had several significant variations over the course of time and history. Many historical variations in the Chinese calendar are associated with political changes, such as dynastic succession. Solar and agricultural calendars have a long history in China. Purely lunar calendar systems were known in China; however, purely lunar calendars tended to be of limited utility, and were not widely accepted by farmers, who for agricultural purposes needed to focus on predictability of seasons for planting and harvesting purposes, and thus required a calendar useful for agricultural. For farming purposes and keeping track of the seasons Chinese solar or lunisolar calendars were particularly useful. Thus, over time, the publication of multipurpose and agricultural almanacs has become a longstanding tradition in China

Various other astronomical phenomena have been incorporated into calendars besides the cycles of the sun and the moon, for example, the planets and the constellations (or mansions) of asterisms along the ecliptic.

Many Chinese holidays and other areas both in ancient and modern times have been determined by the traditional lunisolar calendar or considerations based upon the lunisolar calendar; and, which now are generally combined with more modern calendar considerations. The traditions of the lunisolar calendar remain very popular and the Gregorian calendar has been used as the standard basis for civic calendars.

Etymology
The name of calendar is in, and was represented in earlier character forms variants (歷, 厤), and ultimately derived from an ancient form (秝). The ancient form of the character consists of two stalks of rice plant (禾), arranged in parallel. This character represents the order in space and also the order in time. As its meaning became complex, the modern dedicated character (曆) was created to represent the meaning of calendar.

Maintaining the correctness of calendars was an important task to maintain the authority of rulers, being perceived as a way to measure the ability of a ruler. For example, someone seen as a competent ruler would foresee the coming of seasons and prepare accordingly. This understanding was also relevant in predicting abnormalities of the Earth and celestial bodies, such as lunar and solar eclipses. The significant relationship between authority and timekeeping helps to explain why there are 102 calendars in Chinese history, trying to predict the correct courses of sun, moon and stars, and marking good time and bad time. Each calendar is named as XX曆 and recorded in a dedicated calendar section in history books of different eras. The last one in imperial era was 時憲曆. A ruler would issue an almanac before the commencement of each year. There were private almanac issuers, usually illegal, when a ruler lost his control to some territories.

Various modern Chinese calendar names resulted from the struggle between the introduction of Gregorian calendar by government and the preservation of customs by the public in the era of Republic of China. The government wanted to abolish the Chinese calendar to force everyone to use the Gregorian calendar, and even abolished the Lunar New Year, but faced great opposition. The public needed the astronomical Chinese calendar to do things at a proper time, for example farming and fishing; also, a wide spectrum of festivals and customs observations have been based on the calendar. The government finally compromised and rebranded it as the agricultural calendar in 1947, depreciating the calendar to merely agricultural use.

After the end of the imperial era, there are some almanacs based upon the algorithm of the last Imperial calendar with longitude of Peking. Such almanacs were under the name of "universal book" 通書, or under Cantonese name 通勝, transcribed as Tung Shing. And later these almanacs moved to new calculation based on the location of Purple Mountain Observatory, with longitude of 120°E.

Epochs
An epoch is a point in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era, thus serving as a reference point from which subsequent time or dates are measured. The use of epochs in Chinese calendar system allow for a chronological starting point from whence to begin point continuously numbering subsequent dates. Various epochs have been used. Similarly, nomenclature similar to that of the Christian era has occasionally been used: No reference date is universally accepted. The most popular is the Gregorian calendar.

During the 17th century, the Jesuit missionaries tried to determine the epochal year of the Chinese calendar. In his Sinicae historiae decas prima (published in Munich in 1658), Martino Martini (1614–1661) dated the Yellow Emperor's ascension at 2697 BCE and began the Chinese calendar with the reign of Fuxi (which, according to Martini, began in 2952 BCE). Philippe Couplet's 1686 Chronological table of Chinese monarchs (Tabula chronologica monarchiae sinicae) gave the same date for the Yellow Emperor. The Jesuits' dates provoked interest in Europe, where they were used for comparison with Biblical chronology. Modern Chinese chronology has generally accepted Martini's dates, except that it usually places the reign of the Yellow Emperor at 2698 BCE and omits his predecessors Fuxi and Shennong as "too legendary to include".

Publications began using the estimated birth date of the Yellow Emperor as the first year of the Han calendar in 1903, with newspapers and magazines proposing different dates. Jiangsu province counted 1905 as the year 4396 (using a year 1 of 2491 BCE, and implying that 2024 CE is ), and the newspaper Ming Pao reckoned 1905 as 4603 (using a year 1 of 2698 BCE, and implying that 2024 CE is ). Liu Shipei (劉師培, 1884–1919) created the Yellow Emperor Calendar (黃帝紀元, 黃帝曆 or 軒轅紀年), with year 1 as the birth of the emperor (which he determined as 2711 BCE, implying that 2024 CE is ). There is no evidence that this calendar was used before the 20th century. Liu calculated that the 1900 international expedition sent by the Eight-Nation Alliance to suppress the Boxer Rebellion entered Beijing in the 4611th year of the Yellow Emperor.

Taoists later adopted Yellow Emperor Calendar and named it Tao Calendar (道曆).

On 2 January 1912, Sun Yat-sen announced changes to the official calendar and era. 1 January was 14 Shíyīyuè 4609 Huángdì year, assuming a year 1 of 2698 BCE, making 2024 CE year. Many overseas Chinese communities like San Francisco's Chinatown adopted the change.

The modern Chinese standard calendar uses the epoch of the Gregorian calendar, which is on 1 January of the year 1 CE.

Lunisolar
Lunisolar calendars involve correlations of the cycles of the sun (solar) and the moon (lunar).

Solar and agricultural
A solar calendar (also called the Tung Shing, the Yellow Calendar or Imperial Calendar, both alluding to Yellow Emperor) keeps track of the seasons as the earth and the sun move in the solar system relatively to each other. A purely solar calendar may be useful in planning times for agricultural activities such as planting and harvesting. Solar calendars tend to use astronomically observable points of reference such as equinoxes and solstices, events which may be approximately predicted using fundamental methods of observation and basic mathematical analysis.

Modern Chinese calendar and horology
The topic of the Chinese calendar also includes variations of the modern Chinese calendar, influenced by the Gregorian calendar. Variations include methodologies of the People's Republic of China and Taiwan.

Modern calendars
In China, the modern calendar is defined by the Chinese national standard GB/T 33661–2017, "Calculation and Promulgation of the Chinese Calendar", issued by the Standardization Administration of China on 12 May 2017.

Influence of Gregorian calendar
Although modern-day China uses the Gregorian calendar, the traditional Chinese calendar governs holidays, such as the Chinese New Year and Lantern Festival, in both China and overseas Chinese communities. It also provides the traditional Chinese nomenclature of dates within a year which people use to select auspicious days for weddings, funerals, moving or starting a business. The evening state-run news program Xinwen Lianbo in the People's Republic of China continues to announce the months and dates in both the Gregorian and the traditional lunisolar calendar.

History
The Chinese calendar system has a long history, which has traditionally been associated with specific dynastic periods. Various individual calendar types have been developed with different names. In terms of historical development, some of the calendar variations are associated with dynastic changes along a spectrum beginning with a prehistorical/mythological time to and through well attested historical dynastic periods. Many individuals have been associated with the development of the Chinese calendar, including researchers into underlying astronomy; and, furthermore, the development of instruments of observation are historically important. Influences from India, Islam, and Jesuits also became significant.

Phenology
Early calendar systems often were closely tied to natural phenomena. Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors (such as elevation). The plum-rains season, the rainy season in late spring and early summer, begins on the first bǐng day after Mangzhong and ends on the first wèi day after Xiaoshu. The Three Fu are three periods of hot weather, counted from the first gēng day after the summer solstice. The first fu is 10 days long. The mid-fu is 10 or 20 days long. The last fu is 10 days from the first gēng day after the beginning of autumn. The Shujiu cold days are the 81 days after the winter solstice (divided into nine sets of nine days), and are considered the coldest days of the year. Each nine-day unit is known by its order in the set, followed by "nine". In traditional Chinese culture, "nine" represents the infinity, which is also the number of "Yang". According to one belief nine times accumulation of "Yang" gradually reduces the "Yin", and finally the weather becomes warm.

Names of months
Lunar months were originally named according to natural phenomena. Current naming conventions use numbers as the month names. Every month is also associated with one of the twelve Earthly Branches.

 * Gregorian dates are approximate and should be used with caution. Many years have intercalary months.

Chinese astronomy
The Chinese calendar has been a development involving much observation and calculation of the apparent movements of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars, as observed from Earth.

Chinese astronomers
Many Chinese astronomers have contributed to the development of the Chinese calendar. Many were of the scholarly or shi class, including writers of history, such as Sima Qian.

Notable Chinese astronomers who have contributed to the development of the calendar include Gan De, Shi Shen, and Zu Chongzhi

Technology
Early technological developments aiding in calendar development include the development of the gnomon. Later technological developments useful to the calendar system include naming, numbering and mapping of the sky, the development of analog computational devices such as the armillary sphere and the water clock, and the establishment of observatories.

Ancient six calendars
From the Warring States period (ending in 221 BCE), six especially significant calendar systems are known to have begun to be developed. Later on, during their future course in history, the modern names for the ancient six calendars were also developed, and can be translated into English as Huangdi, Yin, Zhou, Xia, Zhuanxu, and Lu.

Calendar variations
There are various Chinese terms for calendar variations including:

 * Nongli Calendar (traditional Chinese: 農曆; simplified Chinese: 农历; pinyin: nónglì; lit. 'agricultural calendar')
 * Jiuli Calendar (traditional Chinese: 舊曆; simplified Chinese: 旧历; pinyin: jiùlì; Jyutping: Gau6 Lik6; lit. 'former calendar')
 * Laoli Calendar (traditional Chinese: 老曆; simplified Chinese: 老历; pinyin: lǎolì; lit. 'old calendar')
 * Zhongli Calendar (traditional Chinese: 中曆; simplified Chinese: 中历; pinyin: zhōnglì; Jyutping: zung1 lik6; lit. 'Chinese calendar')
 * Huali Calendar (traditional Chinese: 華曆; simplified Chinese: 华历; pinyin: huálì; Jyutping: waa4 lik6; lit. 'Chinese calendar') Chinese Calendar of 2017.png

Solar calendars
The traditional Chinese calendar was developed between 771 BCE and 476 BCE, during the Spring and Autumn period of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. Solar calendars were used before the Zhou dynasty period, along with the basic sexagenary system.

Five-elements calendar
One version of the solar calendar is the five-elements calendar, which derives from the Wu Xing. A 365-day year was divided into five phases of 73 days, with each phase corresponding to a Day 1 Wu Xing element. A phase began with a governing-element day, followed by six 12-day weeks. Each phase consisted of two three-week months, making each year ten months long. Years began on a jiǎzǐ day (and a 72-day wood phase), followed by a bǐngzǐ day  and a 72-day fire phase; a wùzǐ  day and a 72-day earth phase; a gēngzǐ  day and a 72-day metal phase, and a rénzǐ day  followed by a water phase. Other days were tracked using the Yellow River Map (He Tu).

Four-quarters calendar
Another version is a four-quarters calendar (, or ). The weeks were ten days long, with one month consisting of three weeks. A year had 12 months, with a ten-day week intercalated in summer as needed to keep up with the tropical year. The 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches were used to mark days.

Balanced calendar
A third version is the balanced calendar. A year was 365.25 days, and a month was 29.5 days. After every 16th month, a half-month was intercalated. According to oracle bone records, the Shang dynasty calendar (c. 1600 BCE) was a balanced calendar with 12 to 14 months in a year; the month after the winter solstice was Zhēngyuè.

Six ancient calendars
Modern historical knowledge and records are limited for the earlier calendars. These calendars are known as the six ancient calendars, or quarter-remainder calendars, , since all calculate a year as $365 1/4$ days long. Months begin on the day of the new moon, and a year has 12 or 13 months. Intercalary months (a 13th month) are added to the end of the year. The Qiang and Dai calendars are modern versions of the Zhuanxu calendar, used by mountain peoples.

Zhou dynasty
The first lunisolar calendar was the Zhou calendar, introduced under the Zhou dynasty (1046 BCE – 256 BCE). This calendar sets the beginning of the year at the day of the new moon before the winter solstice.

Competing Warring states calendars
Several competing lunisolar calendars were also introduced as Zhou devolved into the Warring States, especially by states fighting Zhou control during the Warring States period (perhaps 475 BCE - 221 BCE). The state of Lu issued its own Lu calendar. Jin issued the Xia calendar with a year beginning on the day of the new moon nearest the March equinox. Qin issued the Zhuanxu calendar, with a year beginning on the day of the new moon nearest the winter solstice. Song's Yin calendar began its year on the day of the new moon after the winter solstice.

Qin and early Han dynasties
After Qin Shi Huang unified China under the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE, the Qin calendar was introduced. It followed most of the rules governing the Zhuanxu calendar, but the month order was that of the Xia calendar; the year began with month 10 and ended with month 9, analogous to a Gregorian calendar beginning in October and ending in September. The intercalary month, known as the second Jiǔyuè, was placed at the end of the year. The Qin calendar was used going into the Han dynasty.

Han dynasty Tàichū calendar
Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141 – 87 BCE) introduced reforms in the seventh of the eleven named eras of his reign, Tàichū, 104 BCE – 101 BCE. His Tàichū Calendar defined a solar year as $365 385/1539$ days (365;06:00:14.035), and the lunar month had $29 43/81$ days (29;12:44:44.444). Since $$\left(365+\frac{385}{1539}\right)\times19=\left(29+\frac{43}{81}\right)\times \left(19\times 12 + 7 \right) $$ the 19 years cycle used for the 7 additional months was taken as an exact one, and not as an approximation.

This calendar introduced the 24 solar terms, dividing the year into 24 equal parts of 15° each. Solar terms were paired, with the 12 combined periods known as climate terms. The first solar term of the period was known as a pre-climate (节气), and the second was a mid-climate (中气). Months were named for the mid-climate to which they were closest, and a month without a mid-climate was an intercalary month.

The Taichu calendar established a framework for traditional calendars, with later calendars adding to the basic formula.

Northern and Southern Dynasties Dàmíng calendar
The Dàmíng Calendar, created in the Northern and Southern Dynasties by Zu Chongzhi (429 CE – 500 CE), introduced the equinoxes.

Tang dynasty Wùyín Yuán calendar
The use of syzygy to determine the lunar month was first described in the Tang dynasty Wùyín Yuán Calendar.

Yuan dynasty Shòushí calendar
The Yuan dynasty Shòushí calendar used spherical trigonometry to find the length of the tropical year. The calendar had a 365.2425-day year, identical to the Gregorian calendar.

Although the Chinese calendar lost its place as the country's official calendar at the beginning of the 20th century, its use has continued. The Republic of China Calendar published by the Beiyang government of the Republic of China still listed the dates of the Chinese calendar in addition to the Gregorian calendar. In 1929, the Nationalist government tried to ban the traditional Chinese calendar. The Kuómín Calendar published by the government no longer listed the dates of the Chinese calendar. However, Chinese people were used to the traditional calendar and many traditional customs were based on the Chinese calendar. The ban failed and was lifted in 1934. The latest Chinese calendar was "New Edition of Wànniánlì, revised edition", edited by Beijing Purple Mountain Observatory, People's Republic of China.

Shíxiàn calendar
From 1645 to 1913 the Shíxiàn or Chongzhen was developed. During the late Ming dynasty, the Chinese Emperor appointed Xu Guangqi in 1629 to be the leader of the ShiXian calendar reform. Assisted by Jesuits, he translated Western astronomical works and introduced new concepts, such as those of Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, and Tycho Brahe; however, the new calendar was not released before the end of the dynasty. In the early Qing dynasty, Johann Adam Schall von Bell submitted the calendar which was edited by the lead of Xu Guangqi to the Shunzhi Emperor. The Qing government issued it as the Shíxiàn (seasonal) calendar. In this calendar, the solar terms are 15° each along the ecliptic and it can be used as a solar calendar. However, the length of the climate term near the perihelion is less than 30 days and there may be two mid-climate terms. The Shíxiàn calendar changed the mid-climate-term rule to "decide the month in sequence, except the intercalary month." The present traditional calendar follows the Shíxiàn calendar, except:
 * 1) The baseline is Chinese Standard Time, rather than Beijing local time.
 * 2) (Modern) astronomical data, rather than mathematical calculations, is used.

Proposals
To optimize the Chinese calendar, astronomers have proposed a number of changes. Gao Pingzi (1888–1970), a Chinese astronomer who co-founded the Purple Mountain Observatory, proposed that month numbers be calculated before the new moon and solar terms to be rounded to the day. Since the intercalary month is determined by the first month without a mid-climate and the mid-climate time varies by time zone, countries that adopted the calendar but calculate with their own time could vary from the time in China.

Horology
Horology, or chronometry, refers to the measurement of time. In the context of the Chinese calendar, horology involves the definition and mathematical measurement of terms or elements such observable astronomic movements or events such as are associated with days, months, years, hours, and so on. These measurements are based upon objective, observable phenomena. Calendar accuracy is based upon accuracy and precision of measurements.

The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, similar to the Hindu, Hebrew and ancient Babylonian calendars. In this case the calendar is in part based in objective, observable phenomena and in part by mathematical analysis to correlate the observed phenomena. Lunisolar calendars especially attempt to correlate the solar and lunar cycles, but other considerations can be agricultural and seasonal or phenological, or religious, or even political.

Basic horologic definitions include that days begin and end at midnight, and months begin on the day of the new moon. Years start on the second (or third) new moon after the winter solstice. Solar terms govern the beginning, middle, and end of each month. A sexagenary cycle, comprising the heavenly stems and the earthly branches, is used as identification alongside each year and month, including intercalary months or leap months. Months are also annotated as either long ( for months with 30 days) or short ( for months with 29 days). There are also other elements of the traditional Chinese calendar.

Day
Days are Sun oriented, based upon divisions of the solar year. A day is considered both traditionally and currently to be the time from one midnight to the next. Traditionally days (including the night-time portion) were divided into 12 double-hours, and in modern times the 24 hour system has become more standard.

Month
Months are Moon oriented. Month, the time from one new moon to the next. These synodic months are about $29 17/32$ days long. This includes the Date, when a day occurs in the month. Days are numbered in sequence from 1 to 29 (or 30). And, a Calendar month, is when a month occurs within a year. Some months may be repeated.

Year
A year is based upon the time of one revolution of Earth around the Sun, rounded to whole days. Traditionally, the year is measured from the first day of spring (lunisolar year) or the winter solstice (solar year). A year is astronomically about $365 31/128$ days. This includes the calendar year, when it is authoritatively determined on which day one year ends and another begins. The year usually begins on the new moon closest to Lichun, the first day of spring. This is typically the second and sometimes third new moon after the winter solstice. A calendar year is 353–355 or 383–385 days long. Also includes Zodiac, $1/undefined$ year, or 30° on the ecliptic. A zodiacal year is about $30 7/16$ days.

Solar terms
Solar term, $1/undefined$ year, or 15° on the ecliptic. A solar term is about $15 7/32$ days.

Planets
The movements of the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (sometimes known as the seven luminaries) are the references for calendar calculations.
 * The distance between Mercury and the sun is less than 30° (the sun's height at chénshí:, 8:00 to 10:00 am), so Mercury was sometimes called the "chen star" ; it is more commonly known as the "water star".
 * Venus appears at dawn and dusk and is known as the "bright star" or "long star".
 * Mars looks like fire and occurs irregularly, and is known as the "fire star" ( or ). Mars is the punisher in Chinese mythology. When Mars is near Antares, it is a bad omen and can forecast an emperor's death or a chancellor's removal.
 * Jupiter's revolution period is 11.86 years, so Jupiter is called the "age star" ; 30° of Jupiter's revolution is about a year on earth.
 * Saturn's revolution period is about 28 years. Known as the "guard star", Saturn guards one of the 28 Mansions every year.

Big Dipper
The Big Dipper is the celestial compass, and its handle's direction indicates or some said determines the season and month.

3 Enclosures and 28 Mansions
The stars are divided into Three Enclosures and 28 Mansions according to their location in the sky relative to Ursa Minor, at the center. Each mansion is named with a character describing the shape of its principal asterism. The Three Enclosures are Purple Forbidden,, Supreme Palace , and Heavenly Market. The eastern mansions are, , , , , ,. Southern mansions are, , , , , ,. Western mansions are, , , , , ,. Northern mansions are, , , , , ,. The moon moves through about one lunar mansion per day, so the 28 mansions were also used to count days. In the Tang dynasty, Yuan Tiangang matched the 28 mansions, seven luminaries and yearly animal signs to yield combinations such as "horn-wood-flood dragon".

List of lunar mansions
The names and determinative stars of the mansions are:

Descriptive mathematics
Several coding systems are used to avoid ambiguity. The Heavenly Stems is a decimal system. The Earthly Branches, a duodecimal system, mark dual hours ( or ) and climatic terms. The 12 characters progress from the first day with the same branch as the month (first Yín day of Zhēngyuè; first Mǎo day  of Èryuè), and count the days of the month.

The stem-branches is a sexagesimal system. The Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches make up 60 stem-branches. The stem branches mark days and years. The five Wu Xing elements are assigned to each stem, branch, or stem branch.

Day
China has used the Western hour-minute-second system to divide the day since the Qing dynasty. Several era-dependent systems had been in use; systems using multiples of twelve and ten were popular, since they could be easily counted and aligned with the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.

Week
As early as the Bronze Age Xia dynasty, days were grouped into nine- or ten-day weeks known as xún. Months consisted of three xún. The first 10 days were the early xún, the middle 10 the mid xún , and the last nine (or 10) days were the late xún. Japan adopted this pattern, with 10-day-weeks known as jun (旬). In Korea, they were known as sun (순,旬).

The structure of xún led to public holidays every five or ten days. Officials of the Han dynasty were legally required to rest every five days (twice a xún, or 5–6 times a month). The name of these breaks became huan (, "wash").

Grouping days into sets of ten is still used today in referring to specific natural events. "Three Fu", a 29–30-day period which is the hottest of the year, reflects its three-xún length. After the winter solstice, nine sets of nine days were counted to calculate the end of winter.

The seven-day week was adopted from the Hellenistic system by the 4th century CE, although its method of transmission into China is unclear. It was again transmitted to China in the 8th century by Manichaeans via Kangju (a Central Asian kingdom near Samarkand), and is the most-used system in modern China.

Month
Months are defined by the time between new moons, which averages approximately $29 17/32$ days. There is no specified length of any particular Chinese month, so the first month could have 29 days (short month, ) in some years and 30 days (long month, ) in other years.

A 12-month-year using this system has 354 days, which would drift significantly from the tropical year. To fix this, traditional Chinese years have a 13-month year approximately once every three years. The 13-month version has the same long and short months alternating, but adds a 30-day leap month. Years with 12 months are called common years, and 13-month years are known as long years.

Although most of the above rules were used until the Tang dynasty, different eras used different systems to keep lunar and solar years aligned. The synodic month of the Taichu calendar was $29 43/81$ days long. The 7th-century, Tang-dynasty Wùyín Yuán Calendar was the first to determine month length by synodic month instead of the cycling method. Since then, month lengths have primarily been determined by observation and prediction.

The days of the month are always written with two characters and numbered beginning with 1. Days one to 10 are written with the day's numeral, preceded by the character Chū ; Chūyī is the first day of the month, and Chūshí  the 10th. Days 11 to 20 are written as regular Chinese numerals; Shíwǔ is the 15th day of the month, and Èrshí  the 20th. Days 21 to 29 are written with the character Niàn before the characters one through nine; Niànsān, for example, is the 23rd day of the month. Day 30 (when applicable) is written as the numeral Sānshí.

History books use days of the month numbered with the 60 stem-branches: ". Tiānshèng 1st year…Èryuè…Dīngsì, the emperor's funeral was at his temple, and the imperial portrait was installed in Nanjing's Hongqing Palace."

Because astronomical observation determines month length, dates on the calendar correspond to moon phases. The first day of each month is the new moon. On the seventh or eighth day of each month, the first-quarter moon is visible in the afternoon and early evening. On the 15th or 16th day of each month, the full moon is visible all night. On the 22nd or 23rd day of each month, the last-quarter moon is visible late at night and in the morning.

Since the beginning of the month is determined by when the new moon occurs, other countries using this calendar use their own time standards to calculate it; this results in deviations. The first new moon in 1968 was at 16:29 UTC on 29 January. Since North Vietnam used UTC+07:00 to calculate their Vietnamese calendar and South Vietnam used UTC+08:00 (Beijing time) to calculate theirs, North Vietnam began the Tết holiday at 29 January at 23:29 while South Vietnam began it on 30 January at 00:15. The time difference allowed asynchronous attacks in the Tet Offensive.

Names of months and lunar date conventions
Current naming conventions use numbers as the month names, although Lunar months were originally named according to natural phenomena phenology. Each month is also associated with one of the twelve Earthly Branches. Correspondences with Gregorian dates are approximate and should be used with caution. Many years have intercalary months.

Though the numbered month names are often used for the corresponding month number in the Gregorian calendar, it is important to realize that the numbered month names are not interchangeable with the Gregorian months when talking about lunar dates.

 * Incorrect: The Dragon Boat Festival falls on 5 May in the Lunar Calendar, whereas the Double Ninth Festival, Lantern Festival, and Qixi Festival fall on 9 September, 15 January, and 7 July in the Lunar Calendar, respectively.
 * Correct: The Dragon Boat Festival falls on Wǔyuè 5th (or, 5th day of the fifth month) in the Lunar Calendar, whereas the Double Ninth Festival, Lantern Festival and Qixi Festival fall on Jiǔyuè 9th (or, 9th day of the ninth month), Zhēngyuè 15th (or, 15th day of the first month) and Qīyuè 7th (or, 7th day of the seventh month) in the Lunar Calendar, respectively.
 * Alternate Chinese Zodiac correction: The Dragon Boat Festival falls on Horse Month 5th in the Lunar Calendar, whereas the Double Ninth Festival, Lantern Festival and Qixi Festival fall on Dog Month 9th, Tiger Month 15th and Monkey Month 7th in the Lunar Calendar, respectively.

One may identify the heavenly stem and earthly branch corresponding to a particular day in the month, and those corresponding to its month, and those to its year, to determine the Four Pillars of Destiny associated with it, for which the Tung Shing, also referred to as the Chinese Almanac of the year, or the Huangli, and containing the essential information concerning Chinese astrology, is the most convenient publication to consult. Days rotate through a sexagenary cycle marked by coordination between heavenly stems and earthly branches, hence the referral to the Four Pillars of Destiny as, "Bazi", or "Birth Time Eight Characters", with each pillar consisting of a character for its corresponding heavenly stem, and another for its earthly branch. Since Huangli days are sexagenaric, their order is quite independent of their numeric order in each month, and of their numeric order within a week (referred to as True Animals in relation to the Chinese zodiac). Therefore, it does require painstaking calculation for one to arrive at the Four Pillars of Destiny of a particular given date, which rarely outpaces the convenience of simply consulting the Huangli by looking up its Gregorian date.

Solar term
The solar year, the time between winter solstices, is divided into 24 solar terms known as jié qì (節氣). Each term is a 15° portion of the ecliptic. These solar terms mark both Western and Chinese seasons, as well as equinoxes, solstices, and other Chinese events. The even solar terms (marked with "Z", for, Zhongqi) are considered the major terms, while the odd solar terms (marked with "J", for , Jieqi) are deemed minor. The solar terms qīng míng (清明) on 5 April and dōng zhì (冬至) on 22 December are both celebrated events in China.

Solar year
The calendar solar year, known as the suì, begins on the December solstice and proceeds through the 24 solar terms. Since the speed of the Sun's apparent motion in the elliptical is variable, the time between major solar terms is not fixed. This variation in time between major solar terms results in different solar year lengths. There are generally 11 or 12 complete months, plus two incomplete months around the winter solstice, in a solar year. The complete months are numbered from 0 to 10, and the incomplete months are considered the 11th month. If there are 12 complete months in the solar year, it is known as a leap solar year, or leap suì.

Due to the inconsistencies in the length of the solar year, different versions of the traditional calendar might have different average solar year lengths. For example, one solar year of the 1st century BCE Tàichū calendar is $365 385/1539$ (365.25016) days. A solar year of the 13th-century Shòushí calendar is $365 97/400$ (365.2425) days, identical to the Gregorian calendar. The additional .00766 day from the Tàichū calendar leads to a one-day shift every 130.5 years.

Pairs of solar terms are climate terms, or solar months. The first solar term is "pre-climate", and the second is "mid-climate".

If there are 12 complete months within a solar year, the first month without a mid-climate is the leap, or intercalary, month. In other words, the first month that does not include a major solar term is the leap month. Leap months are numbered with rùn, the character for "intercalary", plus the name of the month they follow. In 2017, the intercalary month after month six was called Rùn Liùyuè, or "intercalary sixth month" and written as 6i or 6+. The next intercalary month (in 2020, after month four) will be called Rùn Sìyuè and written 4i or 4+.

Lunisolar year
The lunisolar year begins with the first spring month, Zhēngyuè, and ends with the last winter month, Làyuè. All other months are named for their number in the month order. See below on the timing of the Chinese New Year.

Years were traditionally numbered by the reign in ancient China, but this was abolished after founding the People's Republic of China in 1949. For example, the year from 12 February 2021 to 31 January 2022 was a Xīnchǒu year of 12 months or 354 days.

The Tang dynasty used the Earthly Branches to mark the months from December 761 to May 762. Over this period, the year began with the winter solstice.

Age reckoning
In modern China, a person's official age is based on the Gregorian calendar. For traditional use, age is based on the Chinese Sui calendar. A child is considered one year old at birth. After each Chinese New Year, one year is added to their traditional age. Their age therefore is the number of Chinese calendar years in which they have lived. Due to the potential for confusion, the age of infants is often given in months instead of years.

After the Gregorian calendar was introduced in China, the Chinese traditional-age was referred to as the "nominal age" and the Gregorian age was known as the "real age".

Eras
Ancient China numbered years from an emperor's ascension to the throne or his declaration of a new era name. The first recorded reign title was Jiànyuán, from 140 BCE; the last reign title was Xuāntǒng , from 1908 CE. The era system was abolished in 1912, after which the current or Republican era was used.

Stem-branches
The 60 stem-branches have been used to mark the date since the Shang dynasty (1600 BCE – 1046 BCE). Astrologers knew that the orbital period of Jupiter is about 12×361 = 4332 days, which they divided period into 12 years of 361 days each. The stem-branches system solved the era system's problem of unequal reign lengths.

Chinese New Year
The date of the Chinese New Year accords with the patterns of the lunisolar calendar and hence is variable from year to year.

The invariant between years is that the winter solstice, Dongzhi is required to be in the eleventh month of the year This means that Chinese New Year will be on the second new moon after the previous winter solstice, unless there is a leap month 11 or 12 in the previous year.

This rule is accurate, however there are two other mostly (but not completely) accurate rules that are commonly stated:

 * The new year is on the new moon closest to Lichun (typically 4 February).
 * The new year is on the first new moon after Dahan (typically 20 January)

It has been found that Chinese New Year moves back by either 10, 11, or 12 days in most years. If it falls on or before 31 January, then it moves forward in the next year by either 18, 19, or 20 days.

Chinese lunar date conventions
Though the numbered month names are often used for the corresponding month number in the Gregorian calendar, it is important to realize that the numbered month names are not interchangeable with the Gregorian months when talking about lunar dates.

Holidays
Various traditional and religious holidays shared by communities throughout the world use the Chinese (Lunisolar) calendar:

Holidays with the same day and same month
The Chinese New Year (known as the Spring Festival/春節 in China) is on the first day of the first month and was traditionally called the Yuan Dan (元旦) or Zheng Ri (正日). In Vietnam it is known as Tết Nguyên Đán (節元旦). Traditionally it was the most important holiday of the year. It is an official holiday in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Mauritius. It is also a public holiday in Thailand's Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala and Satun provinces, and is an official public school holiday in New York City.

The Double Third Festival is on the third day of the third month. The Dragon Boat Festival, or the Duanwu Festival (端午節), is on the fifth day of the fifth month and is an official holiday in China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. It is also celebrated in Vietnam where it is known as Tết Đoan Ngọ (節端午)

The Qixi Festival (七夕節) is celebrated in the evening of the seventh day of the seventh month. It is also celebrated in Vietnam where it is known as Thất tịch (七夕) ).

The Double Ninth Festival (重陽節) is celebrated on the ninth day of the ninth month. It is also celebrated in Vietnam where it is known as Tết Trùng Cửu (節重九).

Full moon holidays (holidays on the fifteenth day)
The Lantern Festival is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month and was traditionally called the Yuan Xiao (元宵) or Shang Yuan Festival (上元節). In Vietnam, it is known as Tết Thượng Nguyên (節上元).

The Zhong Yuan Festival is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. In Vietnam, it is celebrated as Tết Trung Nguyên (中元節) or Lễ Vu Lan (禮盂蘭).

The Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. In Vietnam, it is celebrated as Tết Trung Thu (節中秋).

The Xia Yuan Festival is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the tenth month. In Vietnam, it is celebrated as Tết Hạ Nguyên (節下元).

Celebrations of the twelfth month
The Laba Festival is on the eighth day of the twelfth month. It is the enlightenment day of Sakyamuni Buddha and in Vietnam is known as Lễ Vía Phật Thích Ca Thành Đạo.

The Kitchen God Festival is celebrated on the twenty-third day of the twelfth month in northern regions of China and on the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth month in southern regions of China.

Chinese New Year's Eve is also known as the Chuxi Festival and is celebrated on the evening of the last day of the lunar calendar. It is celebrated wherever the lunar calendar is observed.

Celebrations of solar-term holidays
The Qingming Festival (清明节) is celebrated on the fifteenth day after the Spring Equinox. It is celebrated in Vietnam as Tết Thanh Minh (節清明).

The Dongzhi Festival (冬至) or the Winter Solstice is celebrated as Lễ hội Đông Chí (禮會冬至) in Vietnam.

Religious holidays based on the lunar calendar
East Asian Mahayana, Daoist, and some Cao Dai holidays and/or vegetarian observances are based on the Lunar Calendar.

Celebrations in Japan
Many of the above holidays of the lunar calendar are also celebrated in Japan, but since the Meiji era on the similarly numbered dates of the Gregorian calendar.

Double celebrations due to intercalary months
In the case when there is a corresponding intercalary month, the holidays may be celebrated twice. For example, in the hypothetical situation in which there is an additional intercalary seventh month, the Zhong Yuan Festival will be celebrated in the seventh month followed by another celebration in the intercalary seventh month. (The next such occasion will be 2033, the first such since the calendar reform of 1645.

Similar calendars
Like Chinese characters, variants of the Chinese calendar have been used in different parts of the Sinosphere throughout history: this includes Vietnam, Korea, Singapore, Japan and Ryukyu, Mongolia, and elsewhere.

Outlying areas of China
Calendars of ethnic groups in mountains and plateaus of southwestern China and grasslands of northern China are based on their phenology and algorithms of traditional calendars of different periods, particularly the Tang and pre-Qin dynasties.

Non-Chinese areas
Korea, Vietnam, and the Ryukyu Islands adopted the Chinese calendar. In the respective regions, the Chinese calendar has been adapted into the Korean, Vietnamese, and Ryukyuan calendars, with the main difference from the Chinese calendar being the use of different meridians due to geography, leading to some astronomical events — and calendar events based on them — falling on different dates. The traditional Japanese calendar was also derived from the Chinese calendar (based on a Japanese meridian), but Japan abolished its official use in 1873 after Meiji Restoration reforms. Calendars in Mongolia and Tibet have absorbed elements of the traditional Chinese calendar but are not direct descendants of it.

title: Chinese calendar


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Customer relationship management

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information.

CRM systems compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone (which many software come with a softphone), email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. They allow businesses to learn more about their target audiences and how to better cater to their needs, thus retaining customers and driving sales growth. CRM may be used with past, present or potential customers. The concepts, procedures, and rules that a corporation follows when communicating with its consumers are referred to as CRM. This complete connection covers direct contact with customers, such as sales and service-related operations, forecasting, and the analysis of consumer patterns and behaviours, from the perspective of the company. According to Gartner, the global CRM market size is estimated at $69 billion in 2020.

The global customer relationship management market size is projected to grow from $101.41 billion in 2024 to $262.74 billion by 2032, at a CAGR of 12.6%

History
The concept of customer relationship management started in the early 1970s, when customer satisfaction was evaluated using annual surveys or by front-line asking. At that time, businesses had to rely on standalone mainframe systems to automate sales, but the extent of technology allowed them to categorize customers in spreadsheets and lists. One of the best-known precursors of modern-day CRM is the Farley File. Developed by Franklin Roosevelt's campaign manager, James Farley, the Farley File was a comprehensive set of records detailing political and personal facts about people FDR and Farley met or were supposed to meet. Using it, people that FDR met were impressed by his "recall" of facts about their family and what they were doing professionally and politically. In 1982, Kate and Robert D. Kestenbaum introduced the concept of database marketing, namely applying statistical methods to analyze and gather customer data. By 1986, Pat Sullivan and Mike Muhney had released a customer evaluation system called ACT! based on the principle of a digital Rolodex, which offered a contact management service for the first time.

The trend was followed by numerous companies and independent developers trying to maximize lead potential, including Tom Siebel of Siebel Systems, who designed the first CRM product, Siebel Customer Relationship Management, in 1993. In order to compete with these new and quickly growing stand-alone CRM solutions, established enterprise resource planning (ERP) software companies like Oracle, Zoho Corporation, SAP, Peoplesoft (an Oracle subsidiary as of 2005) and Navision started extending their sales, distribution and customer service capabilities with embedded CRM modules. This included embedding sales force automation or extended customer service (e.g. inquiry, activity management) as CRM features in their ERP.

Customer relationship management was popularized in 1997 due to the work of Siebel, Gartner, and IBM. Between 1997 and 2000, leading CRM products were enriched with shipping and marketing capabilities. Siebel introduced the first mobile CRM app called Siebel Sales Handheld in 1999. The idea of a stand-alone, cloud-hosted customer base was soon adopted by other leading providers at the time, including PeopleSoft (acquired by Oracle), Oracle, SAP and Salesforce.com.

The first open-source CRM system was developed by SugarCRM in 2004. During this period, CRM was rapidly migrating to the cloud, as a result of which it became accessible to sole entrepreneurs and small teams. This increase in accessibility generated a huge wave of price reduction. Around 2009, developers began considering the options to profit from social media's momentum and designed tools to help companies become accessible on all users' favourite networks. Many startups at the time benefited from this trend to provide exclusively social CRM solutions, including Base and Nutshell. The same year, Gartner organized and held the first Customer Relationship Management Summit, and summarized the features systems should offer to be classified as CRM solutions. In 2013 and 2014, most of the popular CRM products were linked to business intelligence systems and communication software to improve corporate communication and end-users' experience. The leading trend is to replace standardized CRM solutions with industry-specific ones, or to make them customizable enough to meet the needs of every business. In November 2016, Forrester released a report where it "identified the nine most significant CRM suites from eight prominent vendors".

Strategic
Strategic CRM concentrates upon the development of a customer-centric business culture.

The focus of a business on being customer-centric (in design and implementation of their CRM strategy) will translate into an improved CLV.

Operational
The primary goal of CRM systems is integration and automation of sales, marketing, and customer support. Therefore, these systems typically have a dashboard that gives an overall view of the three functions on a single customer view, a single page for each customer that a company may have. The dashboard may provide client information, past sales, previous marketing efforts, and more, summarizing all of the relationships between the customer and the firm. Operational CRM is made up of 3 main components: sales force automation, marketing automation, and service automation.
 * Sales force automation works with all stages in the sales cycle, from initially entering contact information to converting a prospective client into an actual client. It implements sales promotion analysis, automates the tracking of a client's account history for repeated sales or future sales and coordinates sales, marketing, call centers, and retail outlets. It prevents duplicate efforts between a salesperson and a customer and also automatically tracks all contacts and follow-ups between both parties.
 * Marketing automation focuses on easing the overall marketing process to make it more effective and efficient. CRM tools with marketing automation capabilities can automate repeated tasks, for example, sending out automated marketing emails at certain times to customers or posting marketing information on social media. The goal with marketing automation is to turn a sales lead into a full customer. CRM systems today also work on customer engagement through social media.
 * Service automation is the part of the CRM system that focuses on direct customer service technology. Through service automation, customers are supported through multiple channels such as phone, email, knowledge bases, ticketing portals, FAQs, and more.

Analytical
The role of analytical CRM systems is to analyze customer data collected through multiple sources and present it so that business managers can make more informed decisions. Analytical CRM systems use techniques such as data mining, correlation, and pattern recognition to analyze customer data. These analytics help improve customer service by finding small problems which can be solved, perhaps by marketing to different parts of a consumer audience differently. For example, through the analysis of a customer base's buying behavior, a company might see that this customer base has not been buying a lot of products recently. After reviewing their data, the company might think to market to this subset of consumers differently to best communicate how this company's products might benefit this group specifically.

Collaborative
The third primary aim of CRM systems is to incorporate external stakeholders such as suppliers, vendors, and distributors, and share customer information across groups/departments and organizations. For example, feedback can be collected from technical support calls, which could help provide direction for marketing products and services to that particular customer in the future.

Customer data platform
A customer data platform (CDP) is a computer system used by marketing departments that assembles data about individual people from various sources into one database, with which other software systems can interact. As of February 2017, there were about twenty companies selling such systems and revenue for them was around US$300 million.

Components
The main components of CRM are building and managing customer relationships through marketing, observing relationships as they mature through distinct phases, managing these relationships at each stage and recognizing that the distribution of the value of a relationship to the firm is not homogeneous. When building and managing customer relationships through marketing, firms might benefit from using a variety of tools to help organizational design, incentive schemes, customer structures, and more to optimize the reach of their marketing campaigns. Through the acknowledgment of the distinct phases of CRM, businesses will be able to benefit from seeing the interaction of multiple relationships as connected transactions. The final factor of CRM highlights the importance of CRM through accounting for the profitability of customer relationships. Through studying the particular spending habits of customers, a firm may be able to dedicate different resources and amounts of attention to different types of consumers.

Relational Intelligence, which is the awareness of the variety of relationships a customer can have with a firm and the ability of the firm to reinforce or change those connections, is an important component to the main phases of CRM. Companies may be good at capturing demographic data, such as gender, age, income, and education, and connecting them with purchasing information to categorize customers into profitability tiers, but this is only a firm's industrial view of customer relationships. A lack in relational intelligence is a sign that firms still see customers as resources that can be used for up-sell or cross-sell opportunities, rather than people looking for interesting and personalized interactions.

CRM systems include:

 * Data warehouse technology, which is used to aggregate transaction information, to merge the information with CRM products, and to provide key performance indicators.
 * Opportunity management, which helps the company to manage unpredictable growth and demand and implement a good forecasting model to integrate sales history with sales projections.
 * CRM systems that track and measure marketing campaigns over multiple networks, tracking customer analysis by customer clicks and sales.
 * Some CRM software is available as a software as a service (SaaS), delivered via the internet and accessed via a web browser instead of being installed on a local computer. Businesses using the software do not purchase it but typically pay a recurring subscription fee to the software vendor.
 * For small businesses, a CRM system may consist of a contact management system that integrates emails, documents, jobs, faxes, and scheduling for individual accounts. CRM systems available for specific markets (legal, finance) frequently focus on event management and relationship tracking as opposed to financial return on investment (ROI).
 * CRM systems for eCommerce focus on marketing automation tasks such as cart rescue, re-engaging users with email, and personalization.
 * Customer-centric relationship management (CCRM) is a nascent sub-discipline that focuses on customer preferences instead of customer leverage. CCRM aims to add value by engaging customers in individual, interactive relationships.
 * Systems for non-profit and membership-based organizations help track constituents, fundraising, sponsors' demographics, membership levels, membership directories, volunteering and communication with individuals.
 * CRM not only indicates technology and strategy but also indicates an integrated approach that includes employees knowledge and organizational culture to embrace the CRM philosophy.

Effect on customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction has important implications for the economic performance of firms because it has the ability to increase customer loyalty and usage behavior and reduce customer complaints and the likelihood of customer defection. The implementation of a CRM approach is likely to affect customer satisfaction and customer knowledge for a variety of different reasons.

Firstly, firms can customize their offerings for each customer. By accumulating information across customer interactions and processing this information to discover hidden patterns, CRM applications help firms customize their offerings to suit the individual tastes of their customers. This customization enhances the perceived quality of products and services from a customer's viewpoint, and because the perceived quality is a determinant of customer satisfaction, it follows that CRM applications indirectly affect customer satisfaction. CRM applications also enable firms to provide timely, accurate processing of customer orders and requests and the ongoing management of customer accounts. For example, Piccoli and Applegate discuss how Wyndham uses IT tools to deliver a consistent service experience across its various properties to a customer. Both an improved ability to customize and reduced variability of the consumption experience enhance perceived quality, which in turn positively affects customer satisfaction. CRM applications also help firms manage customer relationships more effectively across the stages of relationship initiation, maintenance, and termination.

Customer benefits
With CRM systems, customers are served on the day-to-day process. With more reliable information, their demand for self-service from companies will decrease. If there is less need to interact with the company for different problems, then the customer satisfaction level is expected to increase. These central benefits of CRM will be connected hypothetically to the three kinds of equity, which are relationship, value, and brand, and in the end to customer equity. Eight benefits were recognized to provide value drivers. In 2012, after a review of previous studies, one article summarized some of the most significant benefits to customer satisfaction as follows:
 * 1) Enhanced ability to target profitable customers.
 * 2) Integrated assistance across channels.
 * 3) Enhanced sales force efficiency and effectiveness.
 * 4) Improved pricing.
 * 5) Customized products and services.
 * 6) Improved customer service efficiency and effectiveness.
 * 7) Individualized marketing messages are also called campaigns.
 * 8) Connect customers and all channels on a single platform.

 * 1) Improve customer service: In general, customers have questions, concerns, or requests. CRM services provide companies the ability to produce, allocate, and manage requests or other tasks generated by customers. For example, call centre software, which helps to connect a customer to the manager or person who can best assist them with their existing problem, is one of the CRM abilities that can be implemented to increase efficiency.
 * 2) Increase personalized service or one-to-one service: Personalizing customer service or one-to-one service provides companies to improve understanding and gaining knowledge of the customers and also to have better knowledge about their customers' preferences, requirements and demands.
 * 3) Improve responsiveness to customer's needs: Customers' situations and needs can be better understood by firms focusing on customer needs and requirements.
 * 4) Better customer segmentation: In CRM, segmentation is used to categorize customers according to some similarity, such as industry, job or some other characteristics, into similar groups. However, these characteristics can be one or more attributes. Segmentation can be defined as a subdividing customers based on an already known good discriminator.
 * 5) Improve marketing customization: Marketing customization allows a firm or organization to adapt and change its services or products based on presenting a different and unique product or service for each customer. To ensure that customer needs and requirements are met, customization can be used by the organization. Companies can put investment in information from customers and then customize their products or services to maintain customer interests.
 * 6) Offers multichannel integration: Multichannel integration illustrates the point of co-creation of customer value in CRM. However, a company's skill to perform multichannel integration successfully is heavily dependent on the organization's ability to collect customer information from all channels and incorporate it with other related information.
 * 7) Time savings: CRM systems let companies interact with customers more frequently using personalized messaging and communication that can be produced rapidly and matched on a timely basis. This allows for companies to better understand their customers and therefore forecast their needs.
 * 8) Improve customer knowledge: Firms can make and improve products and services through the information obtained from tracking customer behaviour (e.g., via website tracking) to suit customer tastes and needs. CRM could contribute to a competitive advantage in improving a firm's ability to collect customer information to customize products and services according to customer needs.

Examples
Research has found a 5% increase in customer retention boosts lifetime customer profits by 50% on average across multiple industries, as well as a boost of up to 90% within specific industries such as insurance. Companies that have mastered customer relationship strategies have the most successful CRM programs. For example, MBNA Europe has had a 75% annual profit growth since 1995. The firm heavily invests in screening potential cardholders. Once proper clients are identified, the firm retains 97% of its profitable customers. They implement CRM by marketing the right products to the right customers. The firm's customers' card usage is 52% above the industry norm, and the average expenditure is 30% more per transaction. Also 10% of their account holders ask for more information on cross-sale products.

Amazon has also seen successes through its customer proposition. The firm implemented personal greetings, collaborative filtering, and more for the customer. They also used CRM training for the employees to see up to 80% of customers repeat.

Customer profile
A customer profile is a detailed description of any particular classification of customer which is created to represent the typical users of a product or service. Customer profiling is a method to understand your customers in terms of demographics, behaviour and lifestyle. It is used to help make customer-focused decisions without confusing the scope of the project with personal opinion. Overall profiling is gathering information that sums up consumption habits so far and projects them into the future so that they can be grouped for marketing and advertising purposes. Customer or consumer profiles are the essences of the data that is collected alongside core data (name, address, company) and processed through customer analytics methods, essentially a type of profiling. The three basic methods of customer profiling are the psychographic approach, the consumer typology approach, and the consumer characteristics approach. These customer profiling methods help you design your business around who your customers are and help you make better customer-centered decisions.

Improving CRM
Consultants hold that it is important for companies to establish strong CRM systems to improve their relational intelligence. According to this argument, a company must recognize that people have many different types of relationships with different brands. One research study analyzed relationships between consumers in China, Germany, Spain, and the United States, with over 200 brands in 11 industries including airlines, cars, and media. This information is valuable as it provides demographic, behavioral, and value-based customer segmentation. These types of relationships can be both positive and negative. Some customers view themselves as friends of the brands, while others as enemies, and some are mixed with a love-hate relationship with the brand. Some relationships are distant, intimate, or anything in between.

Data analysis
Managers must understand the different reasons for the types of relationships, and provide the customer with what they are looking for. Companies can collect this information by using surveys, interviews, and more, with current customers. Companies must also improve the relational intelligence of their CRM systems. Companies store and receive huge amounts of data through emails, online chat sessions, phone calls, and more. Many companies do not properly make use of this great amount of data, however. All of these are signs of what types of relationships the customer wants with the firm, and therefore companies may consider investing more time and effort in building out their relational intelligence. Companies can use data mining technologies and web searches to understand relational signals. Social media such as social networking sites, blogs, and forums can also be used to collect and analyze information. Understanding the customer and capturing this data allows companies to convert customers' signals into information and knowledge that the firm can use to understand a potential customer's desired relations with a brand.

Employee training
Many firms have also implemented training programs to teach employees how to recognize and create strong customer-brand relationships. Other employees have also been trained in social psychology and the social sciences to help bolster customer relationships. Customer service representatives must be trained to value customer relationships and trained to understand existing customer profiles. Even the finance and legal departments should understand how to manage and build relationships with customers.

Call centers
Contact centre CRM providers are popular for small and mid-market businesses. These systems codify the interactions between the company and customers by using analytics and key performance indicators to give the users information on where to focus their marketing and customer service. This allows agents to have access to a caller's history to provide personalized customer communication. The intention is to maximize average revenue per user, decrease churn rate and decrease idle and unproductive contact with the customers.

Growing in popularity is the idea of gamifying, or using game design elements and game principles in a non-game environment such as customer service environments. The gamification of customer service environments includes providing elements found in games like rewards and bonus points to customer service representatives as a method of feedback for a job well done. Gamification tools can motivate agents by tapping into their desire for rewards, recognition, achievements, and competition.

Contact-center automation
Contact-center automation, CCA, the practice of having an integrated system that coordinates contacts between an organization and the public, is designed to reduce the repetitive and tedious parts of a contact center agent's job. Automation prevents this by having pre-recorded audio messages that help customers solve their problems. For example, an automated contact center may be able to re-route a customer through a series of commands asking him or her to select a certain number to speak with a particular contact center agent who specializes in the field in which the customer has a question. Software tools can also integrate with the agent's desktop tools to handle customer questions and requests. This also saves time on behalf of the employees.

Social media
Social CRM involves the use of social media and technology to engage and learn from consumers. Because the public, especially young people, are increasingly using social networking sites, companies use these sites to draw attention to their products, services and brands, with the aim of building up customer relationships to increase demand. With the increase in the use of social media platforms, integrating CRM with the help of social media can potentially be a quicker and more cost-friendly process.

Some CRM systems integrate social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook to track and communicate with customers. These customers also share their own opinions and experiences with a company's products and services, giving these firms more insight. Therefore, these firms can both share their own opinions and also track the opinions of their customers.

Enterprise feedback management software platforms combine internal survey data with trends identified through social media to allow businesses to make more accurate decisions on which products to supply.

Location-based services
CRM systems can also include technologies that create geographic marketing campaigns. The systems take in information based on a customer's physical location and sometimes integrates it with popular location-based GPS applications. It can be used for networking or contact management as well to help increase sales based on location.

Business-to-business transactions
Despite the general notion that CRM systems were created for customer-centric businesses, they can also be applied to B2B environments to streamline and improve customer management conditions. For the best level of CRM operation in a B2B environment, the software must be personalized and delivered at individual levels.

The main differences between business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business CRM systems concern aspects like sizing of contact databases and length of relationships.

Social networking
In the Gartner CRM Summit 2010 challenges like "system tries to capture data from social networking traffic like Twitter, handles Facebook page addresses or other online social networking sites" were discussed and solutions were provided that would help in bringing more clientele.

The era of the "social customer" refers to the use of social media by customers.

Mobile
Some CRM systems are equipped with mobile capabilities, making information accessible to remote sales staff.

Cloud computing and SaaS
Many CRM vendors offer subscription-based web tools (cloud computing) and SaaS. Salesforce.com was the first company to provide enterprise applications through a web browser, and has maintained its leadership position.

Traditional providers moved into the cloud-based market via acquisitions of smaller providers: Oracle purchased RightNow in October 2011, and Taleo and Eloqua in 2012; SAP acquired SuccessFactors in December 2011 and NetSuite acquired Verenia in 2022.

Sales and sales force automation
Sales forces also play an important role in CRM, as maximizing sales effectiveness and increasing sales productivity is a driving force behind the adoption of CRM software. Some of the top CRM trends identified in 2021 include focusing on customer service automation such as chatbots, hyper-personalization based on customer data and insights, and the use of unified CRM systems. CRM vendors support sales productivity with different products, such as tools that measure the effectiveness of ads that appear in 3D video games.

Pharmaceutical companies were some of the first investors in sales force automation (SFA) and some are on their third- or fourth-generation implementations. However, until recently, the deployments did not extend beyond SFA—limiting their scope and interest to Gartner analysts.

Vendor relationship management
Another related development is vendor relationship management (VRM), which provide tools and services that allow customers to manage their individual relationship with vendors. VRM development has grown out of efforts by ProjectVRM at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Identity Commons' Internet Identity Workshops, as well as by a growing number of startups and established companies. VRM was the subject of a cover story in the May 2010 issue of CRM Magazine.

Customer success
Another trend worth noting is the rise of Customer Success as a discipline within companies. More and more companies establish Customer Success teams as separate from the traditional Sales team and task them with managing existing customer relations. This trend fuels demand for additional capabilities for a more holistic understanding of customer health, which is a limitation for many existing vendors in the space. As a result, a growing number of new entrants enter the market while existing vendors add capabilities in this area to their suites.

AI and predictive analytics
In 2017, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics were identified as the newest trends in CRM.

Criticism
Companies face large challenges when trying to implement CRM systems. Consumer companies frequently manage their customer relationships haphazardly and unprofitably. They may not effectively or adequately use their connections with their customers, due to misunderstandings or misinterpretations of a CRM system's analysis. Clients may be treated like an exchange party, rather than a unique individual, due to, occasionally, a lack of a bridge between the CRM data and the CRM analysis output. Many studies show that customers are frequently frustrated by a company's inability to meet their relationship expectations, and on the other side, companies do not always know how to translate the data they have gained from CRM software into a feasible action plan. In 2003, a Gartner report estimated that more than $2 billion had been spent on software that was not being used. According to CSO Insights, less than 40 percent of 1,275 participating companies had end-user adoption rates above 90 percent. Many corporations only use CRM systems on a partial or fragmented basis. In a 2007 survey from the UK, four-fifths of senior executives reported that their biggest challenge is getting their staff to use the systems they had installed. Forty-three percent of respondents said they use less than half the functionality of their existing systems. However, market research regarding consumers' preferences may increase the adoption of CRM among developing countries' consumers.

Collection of customer data such as personally identifiable information must strictly obey customer privacy laws, which often requires extra expenditures on legal support.

Part of the paradox with CRM stems from the challenge of determining exactly what CRM is and what it can do for a company. The CRM paradox, also referred to as the "dark side of CRM", may entail favoritism and differential treatment of some customers. This can happen because a business prioritizes customers who are more profitable, more relationship-orientated or tend to have increased loyalty to the company. Although focusing on such customers by itself isn't a bad thing, it can leave other customers feeling left out and alienated potentially decreasing profits because of it.

CRM technologies can easily become ineffective if there is no proper management, and they are not implemented correctly. The data sets must also be connected, distributed, and organized properly so that the users can access the information that they need quickly and easily. Research studies also show that customers are increasingly becoming dissatisfied with contact center experiences due to lags and wait times. They also request and demand multiple channels of communication with a company, and these channels must transfer information seamlessly. Therefore, it is increasingly important for companies to deliver a cross-channel customer experience that can be both consistent as well as reliable.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Customer relationship management


text: Talk:Coffea

title: Talk:Coffea


text:
Chuck-a-luck

Chuck-a-luck, also known as birdcage, or sweat rag, is a game of chance played with three dice. It is derived from grand hazard and both can be considered a variant of sic bo, which is a popular casino game, although chuck-a-luck is more of a carnival game than a true casino game. The game is sometimes used as a fundraiser for charity.

Rules
Chuck-a-luck is played with three standard dice that are kept in a device shaped somewhat like an hourglass which resembles a wire-frame bird cage and pivots about its centre. The dealer rotates the cage end over end, with the dice landing on the bottom.

Wagers are placed based on possible combinations that can appear on the three dice. The possible wagers are usually fewer than the wagers that are possible in sic bo and, in that sense, chuck-a-luck can be considered to be a simpler game. In the simplest variant, betters place stakes on a board labelled 1–6. They receive a 1:1 payout if the number bet on appears once, a 2:1 payout if the number appears twice, and a 3:1 payout if the number is rolled all 3 times. In this respect, the basic game resembles Crown and Anchor, but with numbered dice instead of symbols.

Additional wagers that are commonly seen, and their associated odds, are set out in the table below.

House advantage or edge
Chuck-a-luck is a game of chance. On average, the players are expected to lose more than they win. The casino's advantage (house advantage or house edge) is greater than most other casino games and can be much greater.

For example, there are 216 (6 × 6 × 6) possible outcomes for a single throw of three dice. For a specific number:

 * there are 75 possible outcomes, where only one die will match the number;
 * there are 15 possible outcomes, where only two dice will match; and
 * there is one possible outcome, where all three dice will match; and
 * there are 125 possible outcomes, where no die will match the number.

At odds of 1 to 1, 2 to 1 and 10 to 1 respectively for each of these types of outcome, the expected loss as a percentage of the stake wagered is:

1 - ((75/216) × 2 + (15/216) × 3 + (1/216) × 11) = 4.6%

At worse odds of 1 to 1, 2 to 1 and 3 to 1, the expected loss as a percentage of the stake wagered is:

1 - ((75/216) × 2 + (15/216) × 3 + (1/216) × 4) = 7.9%

If the odds are adjusted to 1 to 1, 3 to 1 and 5 to 1 respectively, the expected loss as a percentage is:

1 - ((75/216) × 2 + (15/216) × 4 + (1/216) × 6) = 0%

Commercially organised gambling games almost always have a house advantage which acts as a fee for the privilege of being allowed to play the game, so the last scenario would represent a payout system used for a home game, where players take turns being the role of banker/casino.

Variants

 * Chuck-a-luck is essentially identical to the traditional Vietnamese game Bau cua ca cop.
 * A version of the Big Six wheel is loosely based on chuck-a-luck, with various combinations of three dice appearing in 54 slots on a spinning wheel. Because of the distribution of the combinations, the house advantage or edge for this wheel is greater than for chuck-a-luck.

In popular culture
There is a reference to chuck-a-luck in the Abbott and Costello film Hold That Ghost.

In Fritz Lang's 1952 film, Rancho Notorious, chuck-a-luck is the name of the ranch run by Altar Keane (played by Marlene Dietrich) where outlaws hide from the law. Chuck-a-luck is featured in the lyrics to the theme song and in some plot points.

The game is played by Lazar in the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun.

The game is played by Freddie Rumsen in Mad Men Season 2 Episode 9: Six-Month Leave.

In Dragonfly in Amber the character Claire Randall describes the activity inside of an inn as having several soldiers playing chuck-a-luck on the floor along with a dog sleeping by the fire and smelling strongly of hops.

title: Chuck-a-luck


text:
Chipmunk

Chipmunks are small, striped rodents of Sciuridae, the squirrel family; specifically, they are ground squirrels (Marmotini). Chipmunks are found in North America, with the exception of the Siberian chipmunk which is found primarily in Asia.

Taxonomy and systematics
Chipmunks may be classified either as a single genus, Tamias, or as three genera: Tamias, of which the eastern chipmunk (T. striatus) is the only living member; Eutamias, of which the Siberian chipmunk (E. sibiricus) is the only living member; and Neotamias, which includes the 23 remaining, mostly western North American, species. These classifications were treated as subgenera due to the chipmunks' morphological similarities. As a result, most taxonomies over the twentieth century have placed the chipmunks into a single genus. However, studies of mitochondrial DNA show that the divergence between each of the three chipmunk groups is comparable to the genetic differences between Marmota and Spermophilus,   so the three genera classifications have been adopted here.

The common name originally may have been spelled "chitmunk", from the native Odawa (Ottawa) word jidmoonh, meaning "red squirrel" (cf. Ojibwe ᐊᒋᑕᒨ ajidamoo). The earliest form cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is "chipmonk", from 1842. Other early forms include "chipmuck" and "chipminck", and in the 1830s they were also referred to as "chip squirrels", probably in reference to the sound they make. In the mid-19th century, John James Audubon and his sons included a lithograph of the chipmunk in their Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, calling it the "chipping squirrel [or] hackee". Chipmunks have also been referred to as "ground squirrels" (although the name "ground squirrel" may refer to other squirrels, such as those of the genus Spermophilus).

Diet
Chipmunks have an omnivorous diet primarily consisting of seeds, nuts and other fruits, and buds. They also commonly eat grass, shoots, and many other forms of plant matter, as well as fungi, insects and other arthropods, small frogs, worms, and bird eggs. They will also occasionally eat newly hatched baby birds. Around humans, chipmunks can eat cultivated grains and vegetables, and other plants from farms and gardens, so they are sometimes considered pests. Chipmunks mostly forage on the ground, but they climb trees to obtain nuts such as hazelnuts and acorns. At the beginning of autumn, many species of chipmunk begin to stockpile nonperishable foods for winter. They mostly cache their foods in a larder in their burrows and remain in their nests until spring, unlike some other species which make multiple small caches of food. Cheek pouches allow chipmunks to carry food items to their burrows for either storage or consumption.

Ecology and life history
Eastern chipmunks, the largest of the chipmunks, mate in early spring and again in early summer, producing litters of four or five young twice each year. Western chipmunks breed only once a year. The young emerge from the burrow after about six weeks and strike out on their own within the next two weeks.

These small mammals fulfill several important functions in forest ecosystems. Their activities harvesting and hoarding tree seeds play a crucial role in seedling establishment. They consume many different kinds of fungi, including those involved in symbiotic mycorrhizal associations with trees, and are an important vector for dispersal of the spores of subterranean sporocarps (truffles) which have co-evolved with these and other mycophagous mammals and thus lost the ability to disperse their spores through the air.

Chipmunks construct extensive burrows which can be more than 3.5 m in length with several well-concealed entrances. The sleeping quarters are kept clear of shells, and feces are stored in refuse tunnels.

The eastern chipmunk hibernates in the winter, while western chipmunks do not, relying on the stores in their burrows.

Chipmunks play an important role as prey for various predatory mammals and birds but are also opportunistic predators themselves, particularly with regard to bird eggs and nestlings, as in the case of eastern chipmunks and mountain bluebirds (Siala currucoides).

Chipmunks typically live about three years, although some have been observed living to nine years in captivity.

Chipmunks are diurnal. In captivity, they are said to sleep for an average of about 15 hours a day. It is thought that mammals which can sleep in hiding, such as rodents and bats, tend to sleep longer than those that must remain on alert.

Genera
Genus Eutamias
 * Siberian chipmunk, Eutamias sibiricus

Genus Tamias
 * Eastern chipmunk, Tamias striatus
 * †Tamias aristus

Genus Neotamias
 * Allen's chipmunk, Neotamias senex
 * Alpine chipmunk, Neotamias alpinus
 * Buller's chipmunk, Neotamias bulleri
 * California chipmunk, Neotamias obscurus
 * Cliff chipmunk, Neotamias dorsalis
 * Colorado chipmunk, Neotamias quadrivittatus
 * Durango chipmunk, Neotamias durangae
 * Gray-collared chipmunk, Neotamias cinereicollis
 * Gray-footed chipmunk, Neotamias canipes
 * Hopi chipmunk, Neotamias rufus
 * Least chipmunk, Neotamias minimus
 * Lodgepole chipmunk, Neotamias speciosus
 * Long-eared chipmunk, Neotamias quadrimaculatus
 * Merriam's chipmunk, Neotamias merriami
 * Palmer's chipmunk, Neotamias palmeri
 * Panamint chipmunk, Neotamias panamintinus
 * Red-tailed chipmunk, Neotamias ruficaudus
 * Siskiyou chipmunk, Neotamias siskiyou
 * Sonoma chipmunk, Neotamias sonomae
 * Townsend's chipmunk, Neotamias townsendii
 * Uinta chipmunk, Neotamias umbrinus
 * Yellow-cheeked chipmunk, Neotamias ochrogenys
 * Yellow-pine chipmunk, Neotamias amoenus

In popular culture

 * Alvin and the Chipmunks, an animated virtual band
 * Chip 'n' Dale, cartoon Disney chipmunks

title: Chipmunk