A customer visits your site or product, checks the available options and services offered. Then he decides to go along with you or not. Good business policy is to give a personal touch to each customer so that they feel at home each time. But taking care of their needs at each step becomes a time taking process if done manually. On the other hand automation makes it more smooth and effective. If CRM is practiced along with automation, it sets everything into a correct perspective.
Read more about it in the article written by Inside-CRM at http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/five-ways-marketing-automation-and-crm-go-together-like-peanut-butter-and-jelly-70904