Businesses ignore CRM at their peril

NEWS Businesses are not managing customers online and are losing revenue as potential spenders click onto competitors' sites. A lack of CRM in organisations that are increasingly reliant on web-based communication with potential clients is adding up to masses of lost revenue, according to research from Rainfinity. The study of 92 ebusiness directors carried out by Aspect Consulting across Europe shows that of the 63 per cent who claim ebusiness is key to their strategy, only 53 per cent attempt to monitor the success or failure of website customer transactions. More surprising is the fact that 60 per cent of the group that do monitor networks rely on customers to alert them to transaction failures. Three-quarters of those questioned did not possess CRM or network system management technology to alert them to failures and only a nominal number intend to remedy the situation. Colin Rowland, European VP at Rainfinity, said the more complex ebusiness becomes, the more likely systems are to crash. He said: "The reliability of an ebusiness system is based on the availability of each individual component. If four of five components are running at 99 per cent but one is running at 96 per cent, the total up time will be 92 per cent." A Bain and Company 2000 survey states a five per cent increase of customer retention will result in between 25 and 50 per cent profit increase.