CRM (customer relationship management) means different things to different people.  So it’s appropriate that Paul Greenberg starts out with a chapter proposing several different definitions for the term, all offered by different CRM “gurus” and vendors.  Although many of the definitions mention the all-encompassing philosophy of customer relationship management, what Greenberg focuses on for most of the book are CRM software solutions and the vendors that provide them.

CRM at the Speed of Light: Capturing and Keeping Customers in Internet Real Time provides an encyclopedic overview of the CRM software solution industry.  Greenberg describes the different components that might comprise a CRM solution, including sales force automation, enterprise marketing automation, analytics/personalization and partnership relationship management (PRM).  He then goes into great detail on the “players and the products” for each CRM software component.  In many cases, of course, vendors have packaged most – if not all – of the various components into a single CRM suite.

Greenberg doesn’t just provide top-level overviews of the vendors and products.  He gets down into the details of what is offered, even to the point of describing what is offered at the user level.  Greenberg is “user-focused” with regard to CRM, and places great weight on usability in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each solution.  He views users as the most important stakeholders in determining the success or failure of a CRM implementation.

Chapter 14, which describes Greenberg’s CRM “sandbox playmates,” is perhaps the most interesting chapter in the book.  He starts out by describing “user-focused criteria” for assessing various vendors and solutions, then proceeds to describe the nine “sandbox playmates” that he has selected.  For each company, he describes the strategy, products, culture and future.  His comments on the strategy and culture are especially relevant, since when you buy a CRM solution you are buying the company as well.

Also interesting is Chapter 5, which discusses why your company might need a CRM software solution in the first place.  Greenberg describes customer lifecycle management and how CRM solutions allow companies to better manage ALL transactions and interactions with customers, from the first contact with a customer through post-sale support.  One of the primary benefits of better customer lifecycle management is a higher customer lifetime value (CLV), a measure that can and should be calculated and confirmed (post-implementation) for every potential CRM investment.  Greenberg even provides an appendix showing an example of how CLV can be calculated.  He then provides tips for “convincing the stakeholders” why they might want to invest in a CRM solution.

While the book is very strong from the perspective of helping companies choose whether to invest in CRM solutions and which products to invest in, the book is weak on implementation recommendations.  Quite frankly, most CRM failures are NOT due to the products selected, but rather to planning and implementation gone awry.  Greenberg does provide an 18-page chapter on the topic, but relative to the other 468 pages in the book, it constitutes a rather small proportion of his focus.

That criticism aside, I highly recommend this book to those who want a detailed understanding of the available CRM software offerings and are looking for a guidebook to help them select CRM solutions and vendors.