Investments in customer relationship management (CRM) applications have produced broad spectrum of results. Some companies report amazing outcomes, such as dramatic increases in revenue and boosts in customer satisfaction along with significant savings operating costs. For others, such investments have delivered only limited benefits or proved disappointing.

Not with standing notable success stories, we have been witnessing a paradox trend : While implementing CRM many organizations have lost sight of their customers. They focus on efficiency gains in specific areas like sales force automation (SFA) instead of looking at the bigger picture – from a customer perspective. They fail to become truly customer centris because they rely on point solutions with little or no integration – solutions that are not aligned with the organization’s long-term strategy and provide only a limited view of the customer.

They focus on single channels and rarely achieve true multichannel coverage, resulting in bad customer experiences. They either compromise on functionality or try to achieve too much at one time and end up with a complex, expensive implementation with hardly any return on investment. Organizations often just automate existing bad processes instead of redesigning their customer facing operations based on best practices.

No wonder customer satisfaction is near an all time low in many industries. It’s time to refocus on what CRM really is about – the customer – to achieve the results CRM has promise to deliver. In order to be successful, organizations must approach CRM without compromise.