The goals of customer relationship management (CRM) have never stopped making good business sense. Increased policyholder retention, cross-selling and up-selling, targeted marketing, and reduced customer-service costs are all worthy pursuits. If you focus on superior service, youre going to get to eachand every CRM strategy, says Fred Pantaleano, systems officer at Nationwide Insurance (Columbus, Ohio). But, he adds, We take the buzz out of CRM.

When I talk to insurers, they dont want to talk about CRM; they say its nebulous, high cost, difficult to quantify ROI, says Charles Johnston, vice president and director of insurance information strategies at the META Group. But then they immediately talk about centralized client files, marketing automation and lead management, more efficient sales force service interaction mechanisms. So theyre interested in all the elements of CRM, even if theyre not interested in the buzzword.

Perhaps the reason CRM as a technology acronym has left a sour taste in the mouths of insurers is that, while technology is generally a necessary means to CRM, it is not an end in and of itself. If you buy enterprise CRM software, the natural assumption is that you should plug it in and go. Number one, the package doesnt always handle your business requirements. Number two, the interfaces with your existing products are far more complex than most envision, says Bob Lukas, senior vice president at The Hartford (Hartford, Conn.).