Does your CRM vendor actually practice CRM?
Many times, I'd imagine - but internalizing that concept is not as simple as it seems. Practicing a truly complete CRM approach is a company-wide endeavor. Implementing technology is a breeze compared to shifting corporate culture.
It's easy to see how retailers or manufacturers could slip up and revert back to the old CRM-as-an-IT-project mode; that allows them to reduce it to the comfortable status of an IT implementation, to firewall the rest of the company and most of the employees from exposure to it until it's in place - and it sows the seeds of ultimate failure.
So, who would you look to for object lessons of how to embrace the entire philosophy of CRM? One seemingly obvious category of companies would be CRM vendors. After all, they certainly understand the technology part of the equation, and thus they should be adept at the other aspects, too. Right?
