Greg Gianforte: At present around 87 percent of the global CRM market is custom built, just as 20 years ago everyone built their own accounting systems. We're surprised the failure rate is not even higher than the 70 percent often quoted by analysts.

Why should the failure rate for CRM systems be so high?

Generally speaking, firms that have failed in CRM implementations will have failed to manage one of the following: customisation, process behaviour, policies, training, communications or organisation structure. If you don't get people to change their behaviour, it doesn't matter what system you put in - you won't get any change.

So aside from installing the CRM technology, how should organisations manage the process to achieve good results?

There are various levers of change that you have to pull if you want to make effective changes. It's not just about changing your software, you also have to change your sales processes, marketing capabilities or the way you serve your customers. It's all about how you change your business.

Which is the most common reason for the failure of CRM projects?

The one that has been a big driver of failures is customisation. I always ask chief executives whether they can achieve the results they are trying to achieve by acting and behaving the same way because if they think they can, I am wasting their time.

So if organisations accept the need for change, they could be halfway to a successful CRM system rollout?

[The problem is] even among those firms that say they can't [improve] by doing the same things, the first thing they do when they buy a CRM system is try to customise it to match the way they used to do things. Some firms put in up to 500 customisations and changes in the software without realising that all they are doing is automating the bad processes they had before.

Why do you place such importance on keeping records of customer history?

We look to accumulate customer history - a record of every client interaction - and then allow firms to use analytics to mine that information to trigger outbound email communication. Customer history may well be the most important asset inside the corporate wall.

How can firms exploit this historical data?

With retailers, a service interaction can tell you a lot about a customer. For example, if someone calls up a toy company in January to ask how to put batteries in a toy for a two-year-old, the chances are next year they will have a three-year-old. Companies can use that interaction to anticipate the customer's needs for toys next Christmas and push them an email or maybe a coupon to pick up a toy for a three-year-old from their high street store.

And how can online systems make such processes more efficient?

We are trying to help companies achieve high self-service rates so that most of their customers can find their answer on the web and don't have to pick up the phone or send an email. We are also applying self-learning technologies to help firms gain more information about their customers.

ABOUT GREG GIANFORTE

Greg Gianforte is chief executive of hosted CRM specialist RightNow Technologies.

In 1986, Gianforte founded Brightwork, a developer of network management applications. Gianforte sold the company to McAfee Associates in 1994.

He has a BE in electrical engineering and an MS in computer science from Stevens Institute of Technology.