Frank Hayes has written a great article at ComputerWorld called “Death of a Salesman” that looks into why the whole concept of CRM has fallen off-track. CRM itself is a good business strategy:

After all, the idea behind CRM is solid — maybe even brilliant. Customers are where the money comes from. We all want to get as much money as we can from them and to keep our best customers as long as possible.

So what is wrong with this picture? The problem, Hayes points out, is that CRM isn’t only about automation. Corporate culture and customer relations go hand in hand. But too many companies:

feed customers into the CRM sausage machine, a mechanical data-grinder that combines a phony familiarity — strangers in a call center who know everything about the customer — with a relentless, robotized drive to sell, sell, sell.

instead of using CRM technology to support the salesforce and going beyond simply automating a process.

Read the article here.