51hWPenRp4L._SL500_AA280_ Would you come for advise to a doctor who cannot pronounce Health Care? I wouldn’t and it is mystifying why companies would want to pay for CRM research report from AMR - “The Customer Management Market Sizing Report, 2007-2012″ if it’s analysts do not understand that CRM stands for Relationship Management - not Customer Management. Even Wikipedia does not recognize such a thing. I would guess because there is no such thing. You can attempt to manage customers, but it will not be a very long attempt or very successful one because there will be no customers any more to manage.

“Looking back at the last economic downturn in the 2001 to 2003 time frame, the customer management market suffered as projects were cut and vendors were acquired or went out of business,” write the AMR analysts. “However, the effect on would-be buyers was even more devastating as customer satisfaction ratings plummeted for years after the economy recovered.”

The AMR analysts seem to imply that “plummeted customer satisfaction ratings” somehow relates to consolidation of CRM vendors market, but I violently disagree. The reason for that is focus on the wrong target - i.e. focus on efficiency instead of effectiveness. Investing in poorly implemented call centers, staffed with poorly trained and poorly paid Service Representatives, who are not empowered to provide real service, does bring efficiency. However it also results in poor customer experience, lost loyalties, and lost sales.

Those organizations that “streamlined operational and supply chain efficiencies through the last economic downturn, leaving the customer experience as the most important potential competitive weapon,” will drive even more investment in CRM systems, write the AMR analysts.

AMR predicts that remaining CRM vendors will strive again because economic uncertainty will scare corporate management to waste more money chasing the salvation, instead of re-focusing on doing the right thing - building authentic VALUABLE RELATIONSHIP with their customers. But that is not a kind of advice you would get from the technology analysts, who hedge their bets carefully

To fix the problem, customer management vendors “need to find ways to build more carrots into their tools to create sustainably high adoption rates,” states the report. “If success rates don’t improve and total cost of ownership doesn’t come down, buyers will find CRM investments harder to justify, especially if budgets begin to shrink.”

Perhaps you should look for more practical and meaningful advise than this.

Use what you stand for to attract customers; use what you do to retain them. Ensure they’re always free to go, and they will stay.