Stories by: Sharon McDonnell

Did you hear the one about the salesman who fell 190,000 transactions behind in using his company's customer relationship management (CRM) software? It's no joke - just a symptom of the cultural challenges many companies face internally when they implement a CRM system with the goal of attracting and keeping customers and nurturing customer relationships.

The more you know about a customer - age, gender, what he owns, what he spends and what his preferences are - the more likely it is that you can create and pitch a product or service that will hit a bull's-eye. Identifying and interacting with your customers in ever-smaller groups is a tantalizing prospect - and now easier and more cost effective than ever, thanks to the Web and other technological advances that gather, store and sort customer data.