"After almost a decade of investment in CRM systems, the benefits are by no means guaranteed. And yet there are still too many organisations who assume technology is the answer before really understanding the question."

Two recent events reminded me that IT departments are the last people who should have a controlling stake in the vexed subject of CRM systems.

A friend of mine is a regular long distance business rail traveller. They receive regular promotional material via email, and use a 'favourite journeys' facility on the website to save time. Good CRM, you might think. Their most recent journey was private, and required a last minute peak time walk-on fare. Of course, the train was packed. As my friend felt unwell, she asked the train manager if she could use First Class. The response was "stand-up, get another train, or pay the full First Class fare." At the moment the train manager became the customer relationship manager, the relationship broke down and may never be repaired. The investment in technology became worthless.

The second event involved a recent discussion about a CRM blueprinting engagement. It became quite clear during the course of this that IT had already determined that the answer was to implement technology-driven process change. And yet this is a B2B organisation in which personal relationships are absolutely critical, and the customer base is under 10,000. New technology might help some processes run more efficiently, but there's a good chance that in some cases they will simply improve the efficiency with which they annoy customers unless they put the customer experience first, and allow process to follow.

Management information ought to help organisations get under the skin of what really matters to customers by providing insights into the customer's experience, and satisfaction with it. More often than not, 'how well did we serve you' is a more useful question than 'how much did we sell you'. Businesses really should be more circumspect before signing up to an IT-driven CRM agenda.

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