Achieving the promise of CRM

Abstract

Enduring profitable relationships are what all businesses seek, but guidance on how to achieve them has been largely prescriptive and based upon theory. What the discipline of customer relationship management (CRM) has lacked is a descriptive investigation of those principles and practices that drive excellence. In partnership with the American Productivity and Quality Center, a world-renowned independent leader in benchmarking, both quantitative and qualitative data from 32 companies across North America were gathered and analysed in order to ameliorate this shortcoming. The ten qualitative findings collectively reveal what it takes to establish and foster profitable relationships with customers and other stakeholders, such as channel partners and employees. Relying primarily upon these research insights, the paper documents how leading organisations achieve superior business results through CRM and describes the key elements of a winning strategy, the effective ways in which organisations align their resources and relationships and the mechanisms by which measurement and accountability are realised. In brief, the paper focuses upon answering this single question: what are the best practices actually in use today among exemplary relationship-focused organisations that are proven to deliver business results?