CRM Does a Heck of a Job

It’s been pointed out in the responses to my recent posts about CRM, that I might not have not given the CRM vendors a fair break.  Because I would never want to offend, for the record I want to make it clear that, in my view, the CRM vendors do a heck of a job, especially when it comes to marketing and differentiating their own products.

To illustrate this point, here’s a little quiz. The following ...product descriptions are taken verbatim from the “about our company” sections of press releases from seven CRM vendors. To take the quiz, simply read the description and fill in the name of the vendor.

_____________ supports the needs, challenges, and dreams of more than 2.7 million small and mid-sized business customers in North America through easy-to-use, scalable and customizable software and services.

_____________ develops award-winning software and solutions used by more than 130,000 companies and over 1.2 million users worldwide to manage a wide variety of business relationships and provide exceptional service.

______________ is a leading provider of Customer Relationship Management solutions for growing businesses… through a world-wide [sic] distribution network, with outlets in North and South America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

_____________ is the market and technology leader in on-demand business services [that] enables customers to manage and share all of their sales, support, marketing and partner information on-demand.

_____________ is a line of financial, customer relationship and supply chain management solutions that helps businesses work more effectively, delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialized services.

______________ is a highly flexible, best-in-class suite of CRM applications that are [sic] easily adapted to model the business practices that make each company unique.

______________ offers innovative software and services with deep business knowledge to accelerate implementation of integrated customer management by the world’s leading service providers.

Clearly, companies capable of such scintillating marketing prose are the go-to guys when it comes to understanding what sales teams really need.