Will the Real Elvis Please Stand Up?

When a magazine page is laid out with headlines or text missing, the art department will usually type “FAKE” in bold letters in the missing copy’s place, to alert the editors they need to fill in the appropriate material.

(Of course, even when editors do fill in the blanks, things can slip through. Several years ago, a technical mix-up led to an early incomplete version of DIRECT’s Database Marketing section going to print with a dummy story that began “FAKE things come a lot easier in the United States than the United Kingdom.” I never figured out which bothered me more – that the fake story ran, or that not one single reader ever called or e-mailed to say they noticed the error. But I digress.)

After spending several days in Las Vegas recently for the summer National Center for Database Marketing (NCDM) conference, I came to the conclusion that “FAKE FAKE FAKE” should precede just about everything written about that fair city. They have a fake New York. A fake Paris. A fake Egypt. A fake Rio. And on the showgirls, fake…nails. Now that I think about it, I bet even the Starship Enterprise I toured at the Hilton was fake.

It was this unreality slap that made me look to the NCDM exhibition hall floor for a dose of the truth – in real time, of course. What I got was an affirmation of something I already knew to be a fact: Customer relationship management is hot. It’s the buzzword of the moment; everyone needs it, everyone wants it. Sure, they might not even be sure what it is, but they’ve got to have it.

The marketplace, for its part, is doing back-flips Cirque du Soleil would envy to give it to them. At both NCDM and DCI’s recent CRM shows in New York and Boston, the amount of public relations reps desperate for reporters to meet with their clients was dizzying.

For the media, it’s a tough call: Many of these companies didn’t exist 20 minutes ago. Who do we spend our time getting to know?

For customers in the market for a CRM solution, the situation is even more perilous: Who do they spend their money with? And once they allot those valuable budget dollars, will that company be around in six months to support the product? It’s like trying to find the King in a room full of Elvis impersonators.

Sure, they can all carry a tune – but who’s the real deal?

Who Will Survive? The CRM technology landscape will no doubt have changed again in the next few years as the also-rans are winnowed out of the competition like a B-to-B version of “Survivor.” (C’mon, did you think I was the only columnist in the United States who could restrain herself from writing about the castaways? Get real.)

It’s notable that Richard Hatch, the winner of CBS’ game show/reality program/phenomenon, was – whether your thought he was a rat or a snake or both – the only “Survivor” who kept his eye on the prize and consistently operated with a clear goal in mind. The competitors that emerge as the CRM solution leaders will be the companies that do just that, with an important – and predictable – twist.

Of course, the CRM vendors that stay afloat will be those offering customers workable and economically viable solutions. But the real survivors will be the ones that practice CRM as well as preach it, building relationships by offering customers ample support and service to implement, maintain and upgrade those pricey systems.

As Sheryl Nance-Nash reported in the September issue of 1to1, many firms aren’t using the CRM technology they’ve purchased to the fullest extent. Integration is part of the problem – companies need to tie together all the components of their CRM systems to get a complete picture of their customers. But companies also have to step up their internal integration – particularly between the marketing and information technology departments – to make CRM work.

Fingerhut, for example, estimates it generates $3.5 million annually in profits from CRM technology, largely from eliminating wasted mailings.

It is simply good business sense. Software companies with the savvy to help customers achieve their own profit goals will emerge as the real deal, thank you. Thank you very much.