Traditional CRM is Not Delivering Desired Customer Experience Transformation

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New international survey commissioned by Pegasystems finds most organizations see customer experience improvement as highly desirable, but remain caught in reactive maintenance mode imposed by legacy CRM systems

CAMBRIDGE, MA, February9, 2010:Customer experience transformation is rapidly becoming a key businessdifferentiator in the battle to retain customers and grow revenues and walletshare.  But many businesses have yet to riseto this challenge, due to constraints imposed by their legacy CustomerRelationship Management (CRM) platforms. As a result, they continue to focus onroutine operational savings rather than dramatically improving their customers’experience and net promoter scores. These are among the main findings of amajorglobal surveyof international businesses across the UK, mainland Europeand the U.S. undertaken by Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA), the industry leader in businessprocess-driven customer experience transformation.

“Overall,62% of respondents saw differentiating their value proposition by customerservice rather than by product as essential or very important,” says Amy Bethke, senior director of customerprocess management solutions at Pegasystems.  “And this was reinforced by the fact that, ascustomers or consumers, an overwhelming 74% were very likely or likely to buymore from a company as a result of service excellence that goes beyondexpectations.”

“Butthis does not mean that they have been able to achieve these goals within theirown business,” Bethke adds.  “While theyaspire to transform their customers’ experience, they often prioritizereductions in operational spend (seen to be the main challenge by 34% ofrespondents) over improvements to the customer experience. And only just morethan half of the businesses questioned have a CRM solution that actuallyextends beyond the contact center and even fewer – just 43% – provide aconsistent customer experience across all delivery channels.  Perhaps most tellingly of all, only two infive have customer service represented at the board level.  Clearly, traditional CRM approaches are notenough to enable these critical business goals.”     

An intent-drivenapproach

Asthe broader economy shows signs of an upturn and spending plans on CRM increases,the survey also reflects businesses continuing to achieve ‘more withless’.  In addition, respondentstypically believed that their existing CRM systems could perform better and domore.  This reflects the fact that formost call centers the goal is limited by the technology approach to building upas much customer data as possible.

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