The Limits of Customer Relationship Management Systems

February 14th, 2009 Sean Murphy

• “Not everything that counts can be counted; and not everything that can be counted, counts.”
  Albert Einstein
• “In physical science the first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of Science, whatever the matter may be.”"
  William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (see Kelvin Quotations for more).

Relationships are not best managed by control charts: in some arenas Lord Kelvin was wrong. Complement surveys and metrics with serious conversation and passionate engagement with your customers.

Entry Filed under: Customer Development,skmurphy