As the initial wild enthusiasm for customer relationship management (CRM) begins to plateau, and companies become increasingly skeptical of inflated claims for success, it’s time to take a hard look at how CRM projects should be measured. What is “successful” CRM, anyway? How will you know it when you see it? When will your millions of dollars in CRM investments pay off?

Steve Diorio, president of IMT Strategies, recently interviewed CRM heads at 50 companies and was astounded at how few of them had any metrics in mind at all. “Ninety percent of them had no ROI model in place,” he notes. “They just took a leap of faith that they needed CRM.”

For companies already involved in CRM, you might say the barn door on success measures is open, and the horses are long gone. The right time to ask these questions is at the beginning of a CRM project. In fact, the best approach to defining the right metrics is to identify the benefits your company seeks from CRM. Out of those benefits will naturally flow the appropriate strategic and tactical measures to keep you on track.

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