Survey: Employees, not customers, are key to CRM success

A recent IBM Business Consulting Services global survey of 370 executives found more CRM success stories than in the past, as well as surprising attributes of successful CRM implementations. Employee concerns are actually the most important factor in CRM success, according to IBM Business Consulting Services CRM partner Steve LaVelle. "I know it is not intuitive, but quantitatively, we found that aligning employees' needs with CRM goals and strategies is more important than adding value to customers," he says. "This is just one of the mismatches we found between what companies are doing, and what they need to do to be successful."

The extent to which management makes CRM a priority also affects CRM effectiveness, says IBM Business Consulting Services CRM services leader Adam Klaber. "Senior management in over 35 percent of the companies we surveyed are in fact impeding CRM success because they view it as 'useful' rather than 'critical' to their organisation's success," he says. The IBM survey also showed companies that approached CRM implementations at a functional level--affecting only marketing, sales, or customer service, for example--did not do as well as companies implementing CRM at a corporate or cross-functional level.

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