CRM systems criticised for poor customer analysis and profiling

While more than half of business leaders acknowledge that meeting customer needs is critical to developing sustainable competitive advantage, a mere one in ten CRM users believe their system is up to accurately analysing and profiling them.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, according to studies undertaken by market researcher Ipsos MORI some 44% of managers felt that one of their biggest challenges was trying to ensure that every action they took as a business was geared to meeting the needs of different types of customers. Less than a quarter said they were good at such activity, however.

Moreover, despite the fact that 72% of Chartered Institute of Marketing members with CRM applications in place believed that there has been a fundamental shift in customer behaviour and spending patterns since the start of the recession, three-quarters said that their department only had low levels of visibility into relevant enterprise-wide customer data.

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