That spells trouble. On its own, eCRM software is a pretty skimpy panacea. A real person would be nice. No doubt some CFOs can remember the old days, back when customer service was a guy in Modesto with a telephone and a mechanical pencil. The morphing is not surprising.
Companies now handle customer requests sent over a host of machines, gadgets, and channels.
That ever-expanding list includes fax, telephone, US mail, email, chat, voice over Internet, World Wide Web, and the wireless Web. Covering all the bases can be tough. Indeed, a finance chief can spend months trying to figure out which eCRM software does what, and why. To avoid the problem, an increasing number of corporate managers are looking to outsiders to help with eCRM projects. There's certainly no shortage of choices, that's for sure.