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<p>This article discusses performance drivers of CRM projects and is particularly relevant for managers seeking to optimize their companies CRM efforts. Despite the billions of dollars that have been spent on the implementation of customer relationship management (CRM) systems, many of the adopting companies are unhappy with the results. This can be due to two reasons: first, either the CRM projects are poorly implemented and thus do not perform accordingly, or, second, companies expect too much from CRM systems. This research examines how technological and organizational implementations as well as internal support affect the objectives of CRM with regard to initiating, maintaining, and retaining customer relationships. The results indicate that internal support is an important factor for the performance of CRM implementation. Further, it helps to have a clear focus for a CRM system to specifically address diverse functions such as the acquisition, maintenance, and retention of customers and to tailor implementation effort to the needs of the major functions</p>
</abstract>

This article discusses performance drivers of CRM projects and is particularly relevant for managers seeking to optimize their companies CRM efforts. Despite the billions of dollars that have been spent on the implementation of customer relationship management (CRM) systems, many of the adopting companies are unhappy with the results. This can be due to two reasons: first, either the CRM projects are poorly implemented and thus do not perform accordingly, or, second, companies expect too much from CRM systems. This research examines how technological and organizational implementations as well as internal support affect the objectives of CRM with regard to initiating, maintaining, and retaining customer relationships. The results indicate that internal support is an important factor for the performance of CRM implementation. Further, it helps to have a clear focus for a CRM system to specifically address diverse functions such as the acquisition, maintenance, and retention of customers and to tailor implementation effort to the needs of the major functions

Left Behind Expectations - How to Prevent CRM Implementations from Failing

Assistant Professor of Marketing and Innovation, Kühne Logistics University, Hamburg, Germany

Professor of Marketing and Sales, Hamburg School of Business Administration, Hamburg, Germany

Professor of Marketing, Kühne Logistics University, Hamburg, Germany

NIM Marketing Intelligence Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Left Behind Expectations - How to Prevent CRM Implementations from Failing"}

This article discusses performance drivers of CRM projects and is particularly relevant for managers seeking to optimize their companies CRM efforts. Despite...

Left Behind Expectations - How to Prevent CRM Implementations from Failing

Published Online: Jul 19, 2014

Page range: 34 - 41

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/gfkmir-2014-0061

© 2014

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.