Yesterday, ReadWrite Web posted  a story titled: "CRM: A $75 Billion Failure?" I posted it to our Yammer at work and a colleague responded asking:

Evaluating the cost-to-value of CRM software is certainly a valuable exercise, but this article doesn't even address it aside from the first sentence.

That first sentence says:

In the past ten years, $75 billion has been spent on CRM software, according to Gartner analyst Michael Maoz. During that time, customer satisfaction has risen only 3-5 percent.

Regardless of the truth or fiction of ReadWrite Web's headline, I think the Maoz's premise is wrong. If the best way to judge the effectiveness of CRM (Constituent/Customer Relationship Management) systems is increases in customer satisfaction, then you can assume the goals of these systems are to increase customer satisfaction.

The acronym CRM also implies that. Real relationships come with the expectation that both people are putting forth an effort. We rarely keep relationships where it is clear that our friend is simply trying to maximize the value they are getting from us.

But that is exactly what the companies Maoz is looking at and the nonprofits I work for are trying to do. CRM should really stand for Constituent/Customer Relationship Maximization. The goal isn't happy customers, the goal is customers who buy or donate and one means to that end is to have happy customers.

So customer or donor satisfaction is only as important as it relates to a customer's desire to continue to buy.

If you read on you can see the article is really about arguing for more social solutions to improve customer satisfaction. So the piece basically says hammers are better at hammering than a salami.

While I would agree with that statement salami's are still very, very tasty and CRM systems are valuable at maximizing customer value at any level of satisfaction.