Press Releases

San Ramon, Calif. – February 23, 2012 – Ventana Research has released its latest Benchmark Research, “In Pursuit of Excellent Customer Relationships: Achieving maturity in managing the customer experience,” assessing the maturity of organizations’ ability to manage customer relationships.

The CRM field has dramatically changed how organizations manage relationships across multiple channels, and a whole new field of business processes and technologies has been developed to help organizations deliver the best customer experience. Thanks to the Internet, customers have more ways to buy products, more outlets to buy from, more ways to contact these outlets regarding customer service concerns and a diverse set of channels to provide comments and opinions about the products or services.

Ventana Research undertook this benchmark research to acquire real-world information about how organizations are managing customer relationships and to determine if they have been maturing in order to adapt to a new world of challenges in meeting customer expectations. It explored how organizations are expanding their customer service strategies, processes they use to improve customer-facing activities, channels of interaction they support, how they are managing their customer data, and the tools they use to take customer-related actions and decisions to today’s situations.

The research shows that while 91 percent of companies identified as customer-focused or very customer-focused, many organizations are still very lacking when it comes to CRM. For example, just 19 percent of organizations have created a cross-functional team to develop their customer service strategy, despite the fact that today’s customer service is likely to span across several business units. On the positive side, 64 percent of organizations are using customer personas and over half are developing customer service processes by customer segment.

“In the last fifteen years, CRM has made steps in the right direction, but has not reached its ultimate goal of managing customer relationships in a satisfactory manner. The current diversity of interaction channels, along with new methods for customers to communicate their opinion and experience, places demand on organizations to invest into customer relationship processes more significantly than ever before,” said Mark Smith, CEO and Chief Research Officer of Ventana Research. “This research provides the undeniable facts and education required for organizations to adopt the best practices and technology to improve its processes efficiently.”

"Most organizations would agree that their customers are more important than ever," said Richard Snow, Head of Customer and Content Management Research at Ventana Research. "However, at a time when social media and mobility are having a major influence on customer expectations and behavior, this research shows that most companies have a lot of catch-up on if they are going to build successful, long-term customer relationships."

Ventana Research will expand on the key findings of this benchmark research during a live interactive webinar on Thursday, March 8, 2012 at 10:00am Pacific Time. To participate in the webinar, or view it after it has taken place, visit: http://www.ventanaresearch.com/CRMWebinar/

Those interested in learning more about this benchmark research and the education to help organizations improve can find additional information at http://www.ventanaresearch.com/CRM11/. As a part of your registration you will receive insights and education from Ventana Research on using technology effectively in business. Ventana Research provides guidance to organizations in business applications and technology to improve customer relationships through its Ventana OnDemand (http://www.ventanaresearch.com/ondemand) and with its assessment and educational services offerings. (http://www.ventanaresearch.com/services/).

About Ventana Research

Ventana Research is the most authoritative and respected benchmark business technology research and advisory services firm. We provide insight and expert guidance on mainstream and disruptive technologies through a unique set of research-based offerings including benchmark research and technology evaluation assessments, education workshops and our research and advisory services, Ventana On-Demand. Our unparalleled understanding of the role of technology in optimizing business processes and performance and our best practices guidance are rooted in our rigorous research-based benchmarking of people, processes, information and technology across business and IT functions in every industry. This benchmark research plus our market coverage and in-depth knowledge of hundreds of technology providers means we can deliver education and expertise to our clients to increase the value they derive from technology investments while reducing time, cost and risk.

Ventana Research provides the most comprehensive analyst and research coverage in the industry; business and IT professionals worldwide are members of our community and benefit from Ventana Research’s insights, as do highly regarded media and association partners around the globe. Our views and analyses are distributed daily through blogs and social media channels including Twitter, Facebook,LinkedIn and Business Week’s Business Exchange.

To learn how Ventana Research advances the maturity of organizations’ use of information and technology through benchmark research, education and advisory services, visit www.ventanaresearch.com.

Media: Copies of benchmark research report and interviews are available upon request.

Media Contact:

Bailey Donoghue

(925) 242-2412

marketing@ventanaresearch.com