Thompson's research revealed that an industry whose products are centred around customer relationships had a failure rate of over 50 percent, according to its end users.
What followed was a shameful litany of disaster stories, as CRM vendors and implementers desperately hunted for a positive spin in a predominantly hostile market place.
Following the simple public relations adage of -get it right, then tell people about it", CRM vendors began making their comeback. And thus was born the CRM anecdote. In the same breath, vendors humbly admitted to past problems, and announced victoriously that they now knew how these problems could be overcome.
Brett Kennedy, Oracle director of E-Business states the claim currently echoed throughout the industry.
-When people were looking at implementing CRM solutions 18 months ago, they were thinking of buying software, rather than focussing on the implementing the strategies which allow CRM to work," Kennedy said.
According to Kennedy, many of the difficulties associated with the earlier implementations of CRM stemmed from a poor understanding of the data required to make the implementations work successfully.
Meanwhile, analysts groups use serious-sounding terminology to describe sales bumps in a product cycle. Kristian Steenstrup, research director with Gartner Group, downplays the long-term effects of CRM's initial boom and bust.
-It is a classical hype cycle, which begins when the emerging technology triggers inflated expectations," Steenstrup said. -These expectations in turn result in a rush to the market before the whole implementation is properly thought out."
However, now that fingers have been burnt, a more cautious customers base is returning to the fold and looking to CRM to provide a range of efficiencies in a slowing market.
The guy's name is "Ffrench"?