A:  style="text-align: justify;">The problem with CRM is most companies view it as a project and not as a business process or enabler. Companies thought that by deploying a CRM solution they could cater to their customers. Their CRM projects failed because they were focused on technology rather than business processes.

On the other hand, companies who as part of their programme took their customers along with them never said that their CRM initiatives failed.

Today, there is a refocus on the reality and that reality is the emergence of e-customer or what some in the industry call as social CRM.

In simple words this is the explosion of online tools in the form of a blog or a community portal or in the form of a third party support site like Twitter. Now customers have more ability to solve problems on their own and the company which they deal with becomes the last resort for credible information.

So the locus of information power has shifted and moved in the online world like a message board or a social networking site.

This is a major challenge for organisations. I feel that there is a major shift towards socialisation, both to engage with the customer and to be accountable to the customer.

A:  style="text-align: justify;">What I meant was when enterprises say that they would initiate a CRM process, all they did was installed a Siebel or a Salesforce automation product.  So if you put in great technology to enable a bad process, you  end up doing bad things even better. This is a problem with social networking as well.

The challenge for companies is to keep the customer engaged and also keep in mind what the late Peter Drucker stated “customers never buy what we sell.” What he meant here was that customers buy experience, they buy stuff depending on their wants and needs, and they have specific interest in engaging with a particular company rather than anyone else.

Businesses that just put up social networking space on Facebook or Linked-in or any other social site, without a sound understanding of what they are trying to accomplish with the customer, will fail. Enterprises should ask themselves what the legitimate goals of establishing an online community are? After getting the right answer, they should look at ways to manage it effectively and not just put technology to work.

If they don’t do this, then they would end up eroding the brand rather than enhancing its reputation.

A:  style="text-align: justify;">Absolutely, many CRM solutions being used currently were engineered much before the Internet or social networking began.

If you look at all the CRM solutions for sales, marketing and service, they are focused on the need of the employees within the four walls of an organisation. These solutions enable them to launch marketing campaigns, service customers in the call centres, in the stores, etc.

CRM solutions were never architected to allow the interaction of customers or visitors on the company website. However, also remember that this new breed of social applications was not created with CRM in mind. So while the CRM empowered the capability of a service agent or a sales service person, the same does not hold true with social softwares. These social sites are enabler of business activity, but they do not have the CRM capability.

A:  style="text-align: justify;">CRM systems have had a strong record with both factors.  Take the example of a real-time office. A real-time office is a way to identify customers, who visit a company’s website. The website should identify the customers; know what they own and what they are looking for. Additionally, the site should also offer them a relevant product that matches their attributes.

If a company can do these things real-time on the website, it is far less expensive than reaching the customers through a marketing campaign. In addition, such websites also helps customers to find information on their own and make a decision on their likes or dislikes.

The trick here is to make sure that the voice of the customer is heard. Moving ahead, there would be a strong role played by community marketing where a broad section of the customer base reveal their likes and dislikes about a company’s products and services.

A:  style="text-align: justify;">What you find with the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors in the CRM space is that they are primarily focused on making money. They do not worry about the customers CRM program.

If you see Salesforce.com, which has over 1.5 million customers in the CRM space alone, you will find that they have focused single-mindedly to dislodge the older generation of sales force automation or CRM solutions like Siebel and replace them with their own.

So the notion of being a business enabler is still in its infancy especially in the times of SaaS. And if these companies are making easy money doing the easy stuff, why would they sweat for a tougher job.