CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT has been a major business movement for several years. Most organizations are convinced of the value to be gained by focusing on customers and, in turn, gaining customer loyalty, which translates into repeat purchase behavior. Whether this is packaged as CRM or just recognized as good business practice is obviously not important. What is important is that companies today are concentrating far more on their customers.
As a result, over the last few years we have witnessed a flurry of spending on CRM and other customer-centric technology solutions for sales force automation, call center optimization and marketing automation, as well as Web-based interaction capabilities. Recent estimates indicate that over 75% of all CRM spending is on technology. Yet the vast majority of CRM investors do not see technology as the solution