3.01 CRM & corporate culture

No customer relationship management program will work consistently over time unless it becomes a part of the business’s overall corporate culture. Corporate culture refers to the values and ideals that an organization encourages among its employees. If a business doesn’t teach its employees to value customer relationships, none of the processes or technology involved in CRM will make a lasting impact. A CRM program may look good on paper, but it is a business’s people who will “make it or break it.”

Making changes to an organization’s corporate culture can be difficult and time-consuming. A culture that values long-term customer relationships must be communicated consistently, and the communication must come from top management down. One way to reinforce a customer-centric corporate culture is to reward employees (with bonuses, incentives, etc.) based on how well they meet established CRM goals.

Christopher J. Bucholtz explains in his article “3 Ways Corporate Culture Can Crush CRM Links to an external site..”