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When the so-called experts dispense advice about CRM implementations, whether they're first-timers or replacements of old systems, they always include a caveat about the future. You need to solve today's problems with the new system, but you also need a way to "future-proof" your investment so that the next set of problems to present themselves don't force you back into the CRM selection process...

I like the saying, "Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude toward us." ...

As a CRM journalist, I always enjoy talking to integrators (or resellers, or VARS, or partners, or whatever term they choose to describe themselves). It's always an interesting contrast to speaking with vendors. The discussion you have with a vendor is like taking an anatomy course; the discussion you have with an integrator is like speaking to the coroner.

What's the ultimate goal of CRM? As much as I and others of my ilk might talk about the positive interactions, good feelings and peer-to-peer relationships that result when CRM is done well, they're just happy means to an end. The end is, and always will be, inflating the bottom line. ...

My friend Hank retired from the Coast Guard after a 20-year career, and now he's pursuing a second career of service as the executive director for the Alameda Food Bank, another truly worthy career path ...

CRM is a business tool. Lke any business tool, its objective is tied to money -- either making more of it through increased sales, or saving it through greater efficiency. ...

One of the great conundrums about CRM is the disconnect between its stated intention and what it's usually really used for. ...

Social CRM has been contemplated and debated, defined and refined, cussed and discussed. These many years of excited conversation about what SCRM could do for businesses and what businesses need to do to make it a reality have created more questions than answers for many companies ...

I worked on an exercise in messaging for a CRM vendor this week, and it was both entertaining and frustrating at times. It was entertaining to hear smart people offer clever takes on what they do (and, perhaps more colorfully, what their competition does), but it was frustrating to realize that the definition of "CRM" is becoming increasingly complex and, I fear, confusing.

This story was originally published on June 2, 2011, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. ...

Dreamforce's two-and-a-half hour keynote on Wednesday featured plenty of technology talk -- the ability to add individual customers to Chatter, the use of HTML5 to create native-like mobile CRM applications, a scheme to allow customers to store some sensitive data in an on-premises location rather than within Salesforce's data centers, and more. And technology is neat -- don't get me wrong. The art and science of managing customer relationships would be lost without it...

As is so sadly the case with many environment-oriented subjects, Green IT was consigned to the back burner at a lot of businesses when the economy began grinding its gears several years ago. ...

Sales has had a rough couple of years. Although customers have been harder to find, the pressure on sales pros to produce has become ever greater. ...

At the CRM Evolution show in New York on Tuesday, Brian Vellmure, the principal and founder of Initium Technology, gave a talk on the future of customer relationships. ...

By now, most people understand the power and the value of adding a social component to your customer relationship management strategy. Perhaps you're not yet ready to go to full social CRM, but you no doubt recognize that there is a lot of value in engaging with customers in the ways they want to engage. As social media become ever more omnipresent, you'll have no choice but to engage with customers through those channels...

Whether you're a user or whether you purposely ducked the invitations to join, you've probably discovered that Google+ is all but inescapable as a topic of conversation. ...

Whenever I talk about CRM to people who aren't CRM experts, I find the discussion devolving into an examination of the real common denominator in all of this: the human aspects of doing business. The "R" of relationships resonates far more strongly with people than the "M" in management, and for good reason. ...

A business that's succeeding at CRM (and that means the discipline of CRM, not the technology) will have come to some realizations. First off, even though the business no longer controls the conversation with the customer, that conversation has never been more important to pay attention to and to respond to in a coherent and, when possible, personalized way.

We get so wound up talking about the value of online communities for social CRM purposes -- for instance, in building loyalty, identifying potential leads, and improving the quality of service our businesses deliver -- that sometimes we forget that they're really scaled-up versions of actual communities. ...

It's often said that CRM is always a work in progress. Never mind the fact that I'm the one who's often saying it -- it's true, if you're doing it right. You should always be looking for areas where you can coach your people, adjust your processes, and fine-tune your technology ...