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CRM Still Lacking, Customers Tell Accenture Survey
 TMCnet Contributing Editor
Accenture has been positioned in the "Leaders" quadrant in Gartner (News - Alert) Inc.'s 2007 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) service provider marketplace analyses for Europe and North America.
For its recently published "Magic Quadrant for CRM Service Providers, Europe, 2007" and "Magic Quadrant for CRM Service Providers, North America, 2007" reports, Gartner evaluated vendors across Europe and North America on their ability to execute and their completeness of vision.
In both the North American and the European analyses, Gartner positioned Accenture based on its "ability to execute" and "completeness of vision." The combination of these two measurements is used to map a company's position in the Magic Quadrant.
Ironically enough, industry observer Marc Songini has reported on a survey released by Accenture finding that "most consumers of high technology products say that use of customer relationship management (CRM) software by their vendors has not improved their service offerings -- and in many cases has made it worse."
Accenture noted that such consumer dissatisfaction has a ripple effect on vendors, Songini writes, adding that "73 percent of those surveyed said that mere 'average' service would prompt them to consider evaluating products of other vendors."
The consulting firm in March surveyed 1,200 technology consumers and 35 executives at high technology companies about their experiences with automated service systems.
"This is a wake-up call that customer service should no longer be relegated to a mere instrument for extracting costs out of the business," Brett Anderson, managing director for CRM in Accenture's communications and high tech practice, said in a prepared announcement. "With so many technology products on a natural path to commoditization, technology companies need to use customer service to differentiate themselves from competitors."
As Songini says, one of the "more sobering statistics" is that "42 percent of the customers reported that they had to access CRM channels multiple times to resolve a problem, while 61 percent said automated service systems doesn't speed resolution."
Disconnects abound: The survey "noted that 58 percent of customers using CRM systems believe that their customer service is average or below average, while 75 percent of vendor executives surveyed said they believed automated systems are providing 'above average' service to their customers."
And as Songini notes, "about 77 percent of vendor executives said that self-service CRM systems have had a positive impact on their businesses. And 93 percent of those executives contended that CRM systems have speeded problem resolution and 74 percent said the technology has directly led to higher customer satisfaction."
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMC (News - Alert) Net. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.
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