I have been involved with customer relationship management for over 15 years, and although that is not as long as the category has been around, it does coincide with an era where companies and commentators are calling into question the application’s effectiveness. To counter this perception, both CRM vendors and complementary third-party “add-ons” have developed new functionality that aims to improve the “R” in CRM, especially as it relates to sales engagement. But much of this additional functionality is dependent on the quality of the original base data – whether it’s facts about a customer, prospect of products or, if not more important, when, how and what activities were performed in furtherance of this relationship.
