USA CRM vendors get C’s in R-E-S-P-E-C-T

International research and consulting firm The Customer Respect Group today released a few frankly damning findings from their “Second Quarter 2006 Online Customer Respect Study.” Sponsored by on-demand sales methodology firm Select Selling and focusing on leading CRM vendors, the study, according to its authors, “is the only is the only one to bring an objective and consistent measure to the analysis of corporate performance from an online customer’s perspective.” Hyperbole or no, the verdict of the Customer Respect Group does draw attention.

To kick things off, the CRG report begins with an often measured and subsequently quoted statistic. This time, findings had over half of respondents opining that that a poor website experience has a major impact on the overall view of the company, its reputation and brand image. The primary measure employed in the report is CRG’s own equation, the so-called “Customer Respect Index.” (It even comes with a trademarked acronym: CRI.) CRG seeks to measure the respect given the online customer (!). Its report involved researching the practices of over 2,500 corporate websites, and “constantly interviewing” internet users. The CRI is composed of six sub-indices that factor into three “meta-concepts” (their term) identified by customers as critical concerns in using websites: meta-concept site usability includes the sub-indices simplicity and attitude (i.e. accessibility); communication; and trust, which includes principles, privacy and transparency. Vendors were split into two groups: on-premises and on-demand.

The first line under “evaluation results” in the report summary reads “Overall, CRM vendors faired (sic) below average…” Would you like to know more? The statistics in brief look disheartening for the industry. The report summary states that just one of seven on-premises firms provided a comprehensive FAQ, and that six vendors got ratings of “poor.” Moreover, CRM vendors scored low in the “attitude” category, essentially a few accessibility criteria. Specifically, the CRM industry managed a 5.6 on Customer Respect’s ten point scale. The overall average was 5.7. Emphasized, too, was the mark given the CRMers in the “communications” category: 4.2. This was a particular black eye for the CRM industry, making it the lowest scoring area for the sector and “one of the lowest results of any industry.” CRG notes salesforce.com for its strong performance in the category. Alongside the note stating the nine of fourteen CRM companies surveyed scored “poor” in communications, the report notes that eighty-three percent of online customers in the Net Impact study rated the ability to initiate one-on-one dialog with the website as important. Indeed, this number goes well beyond black eye level.

Customer Respect Group president Terry Golesworthy is quoted within as stating that “CRM vendors were surprisingly poor communicating with the web visitor, something that goes against the message they communicate,” a thought occurring to many upon reading the report, no doubt. More statistics in communications hurt as well: twenty-seven percent of email inquiries were ignored by CRM vendors; zero percent of companies consistently responded with helpful responses to online questions within a day; thirty-one percent of email inquiries were acknowledged with an auto response, functionality “almost certainly provided in all CRM systems”; and approximately fifty percent of inquiries received a response within a day. Said Golesworthy, “The fact that 27 percent of email questions were ignored completely is an amazing statistic for the industry; a cynic might suggest that internal CRM systems are poor.” Usability marks were passing for on-premises vendors with a 6.7, but on-demand vendors got a low 5.9. Maximer and RightNow got kudos for usability, achieving the rating of “excellent.”

Citing a recent Net Impact customer survey, 82 percent of online users said they would either leave or limit usage of a website that was hard to use, whether it was hard to navigate, slow to load or difficult to read. Clearly some company heads are a bit shaken right about now. Trust between the customer and vendor is called “vital” in the report. CRG noted the discrepancy between their two subcategories within the industry; on-premises vendors scored a 6.8, while on-demand vendors got a meager 5.6. SAP earned the acknowledgement of most trustworthy site. According the CRG press material, on-demand vendors did especially well, with five of the seven garnering the “excellent” rating while no on-premise company achieved the rating. In the Net Impact Study, 80 percent of online users said that being able to trust a site was extremely important to them before providing personal information or managing an account online.

Specific results were mixed here, with eleven of fourteen – including all seven on-premises vendors “routinely” – found to be reusing information for ongoing marketing without express consent. On the plus side, thirteen of fourteen were characterized as “clear about how security was handled and used secure pages consistently.” The individual sub-indices broke down as follows: the highest scoring in simplicity, Maximizer (8.8 against an industry average of 6.8) was tops. In attitude, it was RightNow (6.8, 5.2). In responsiveness, SalesForce.com was first (7.5, 4.2), and the company got gold in transparency as well (7.8, 6.5).In principles, it was SAP (8.3, 5.2). And in Privacy, SAP was tops (7.6, 5.6). The top ten on CRG’s CRI ratings table are: salesforce.com with a composite 6.7; RightNow Technologies at 6.6; SAP at 6.4; Maximizer Software at 6.2; Oracle and SalesNet at 6.1 per; FrontRange Solutions at 5.9; Pivotal at 5.7; NetSuite at 5.5; Microsoft at 5.2; AmDocs at 5.1; Siebel / Oracle at 4.9; Sage at 4.7; and lowly Sugar bringing up the rear at 4.5. A score of less than five, says the report, is indication of a company “needing improvement.”

ESResearch Group CEO / founder Dave Stein commented that online customer relations were “crucial,” going on to say that was is most required is to respond quickly to maximize future customer relations to their fullest potential and to “streamline their customers’ future purchase decisions into their company’s favor.” The results of the report will be available at www.ESResearch.com.