A Customer Relationship Management system must be maintained, expanded and integrated constantly to meet the changing needs of your company and to properly track and organize contacts with current and prospective customers.

Sometimes the existing system should be replaced if there is data pollution, field corruption or record duplication, and it's important to act swiftly. CIO.com offers some guideposts to consider when considering an upgrade; they include:

• There is risk to your data.
• Users hate it.
• It's too hard to integrate or extend.
• The system does not support mobility and extended access.
• An adjacent corporate system needs replacement.
• The software code line is outmoded.

Improving or changing a CRM system comes with implementation costs, operational expenses and a potential risk to the data, but sometimes real change is needed and makes good business sense.

For more on CRM:
- check out this CIO.com article

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