8

IOMA’S REPORT ON CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT DECEMBER 2003

ICRM news briefs� All things come to those who wait—including results from a CRM implementation! That, in anutshell, is the remarkable conclusion of an Accenture (Bermuda; www.accenture.com) Institute forStrategic Change study of 163 businesses in North America, Europe, and Australia, as reported in the CIOMagazine (www.cio.com) article, “Enterprise Systems Show Results,” by Lorraine Cosgrove Ware. Keyfinding: After two years, the majority of respondents implementing enterprise (ERP and CRM) systemssaw payback in just about every area of hoped-for result. Sample results:

Benefits Achieved From CRM or ERP

Percentage of Respondents Seeing Results in:One to

Benefit One Year Two Years Four Years

Faster information transactions 78% 89% 94%Improved financial management 70 90 97Better managerial decisionmaking 58 80 90Cycle time reduction 57 78 88Improved inventory and asset management 50 70 82Ease of expansion/growth and increased flexibility 48 68 79Improved customer service and retention 46 68 79Headcount reduction 5 55 70Increased revenue 29 49 62

Of course, the companies enjoying these benefits didn’t just install software and sit back. AsAccenture consultant Tom Davenport put it, “We now have evidence that getting value from enterprisesystems (ES) is not a project, but a way of life.” In other words: If the ES project ends when the softwaregoes live, “it’s unlikely that substantial value will be achieved.” For more pointers on patiently reapingCRM rewards, see the CIO article.

� What makes customers loyal to a company? Good service. At least that’s the answer given by 56%of the 2,367 consumers surveyed by Genesys (Daly City, Calif.; www.genesyslab.com) for its GlobalConsumer Survey: Examining the Impact of Customer Service. The firm polled consumers across theworld about their views on customer service and call centers, and the results are well worth your whileto download from the Genesys site. Other factors that affected loyalty:

Good product 28%Good price 7Other 6Trusted brand name 3

More findings of note: 76% of respondents would buy from a company based on a good call centerexperience, while 85% would stop doing business based on a poor one—in fact, 56% of the peoplesurveyed reported having stopped doing business with a company because of a poor call centerexperience.

9

IOMA’S REPORT ON CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT DECEMBER 2003

� Web personalization doesn’t appear to pay, warns the Jupiter Research report, Beyond thePersonalization Myth, according to the CNET News.com (news.com.com/2100-1038-5090716.html)article, “Report Slams Web Personalization,” by Paul Festa. “Companies trying to get personal with theirWeb site visitors in hopes of increasing sales are wasting more money than they’re earning,” observesFesta. For one thing, it costs about four times as much to “personalize” a site than to run a “comparabledynamic site.” Worse yet, Jupiter’s study found that personalizing a site “was more than twice as likelyto result in finding visitors who would never pay for anything as it was to attract paying customers.” Why?For one reason, about 25% of customers surveyed resist Web site customization attempts for fear ofmisuse of their personal information by marketers. What to do? Make your site easier to use, concludesJupiter. “Given flexible, usable navigation and search, Web site visitors will be more satisfied with theirexperiences and will find fewer barriers to the profitable behavior sought by site operators,” Jupiterconcludes. “In fact, good navigation can replace personalization in most cases.”

� The State of CRM Software 2003-2004: “Buyer’s Guide” Ratings of CRM Software; Key Trends;Core Issues, by Dick Lee and David Mangen, Ph.D. The guide includes: more than 1,000 customerassessments of CRM software; customer satisfaction ratings of the top 14 systems; customer ratings ofsystem effectiveness supporting marketing analysis, marketing campaign management, sales forceautomation, call center sales and service, field service, e-service, and more; customer feedback on CRMconsultants and analysts, and research-based reporting of CRM industry trends and issues—all in a mere124 pages. While ICRM has had no opportunity as yet to review this “kitchen sink” of a CRM softwareguide, we have found other publications on CRM by Lee refreshingly frank and helpful. To order: Go tothe CRMGuru.com store (www.crmguru.com/store/hym002.html). Cost: $195.

� Customer service and CRM not on the chopping block—yet. “Companies may have been hit hardby the lingering recession, but customer-facing applications and customer service haven’t lost theirluster,” concludes InformationWeek’s (www.informationweek.com) Helen D’Antoni (hdantoni@cmp.com) in her article, “Changes Afoot For Customer Service.” In 2002, the U.S. “was the dominant marketfor [CRM] tools and products, accounting for $7.1 billion, or approximately half of worldwide sales.” Sheadds that the Aberdeen Group (Boston; www.aberdeen.com) expects this market share to “hold steadyinto 2006.” Information Week Research’s own “Evolving IT Priorities” series backs this up, finding that90% of managers surveyed say “improving customer service is a primary concern.” In fact, D’Antonireports that the research showed that “customer-service initiatives were immune even to the cost-cuttingand budget-crunching efforts that were so prevalent a year ago, when many companies faced more direcircumstances. Of the 300 sites surveyed last year about fourth-quarter objectives, 91% were committedto improving their customer service.”

� Good news on the credibility front? Maybe, considering a study by LRN (www.lrn.com), a providerof legal, compliance, and business ethics management and education services. Key finding: Based onresponses from 1,001 Americans, the study found “corporations still may lack general credibility amongthe rank and file, [but] the majority of employees have strong trust in their supervisors.” Specifically, whenasked, “How much trust do you have in your boss?” respondents answered: “a lot” (63%); “some” (17%);“very little” (8%); “none” (4%); “don’t have a boss” (8%).