Customer Relationship Management: Getting It Right!

2.1. Understanding Common CRM Obstacles

Since the broad adoption of the Internet, customers have more information and more control over what they decide to buy and from whom. The Internet has significantly raised customer expectations; at the same time, its emergence has created obstacles to meeting these expectations. The Internet has generated a whole slew of new, online systems that are very difficult to integrate with our old, often fragmented system infrastructure. It has also eliminated the “human glue” that used to connect information across these legacy systems and processes.

Added to the Internet-created infrastructure barriers are several major internal obstacles. Too many companies believe that they merely have to wave a magic wand ...