Although German companies score quite well in the critical area of People and Organization, significantly, they score poorly against other European countries in the two other critical elements of customer management. Specifically:

• They score poorly in Customer Management Activity (49 per cent). This is the day-today acquisition of prospects, and subsequent retention and cross selling activity. This needs to be improved. CMA is where thinking is put into practice and actually leads to revenue generation.

• They are relatively weak on Measurement in CRM (54 per cent), this means measuring retention, acquisition, penetration and cost to serve, and linking this to achievement of business objectives. It has a high impact on business performance: what gets measured gets done!

German companies are also relatively weak on process development. The detailed scores suggest they are likely to have processes defined (indeed, they focus on process development), but find it hard to improve processes quickly or to ensure that these processes are employee and customer friendly. As with Swiss companies, German companies make only basic attempts to understand the experience, loyalty and commitment of customers. This is a key area where improvement is required in highly competitive markets.

Overall, these results present a somewhat troubled picture for customer management in Germany, with below-par performance in critical areas of customer management (18 points behind the European average in the top three critical areas). Looking at the process scores suggests an inability to change things quickly. German companies score similarly to the UK in the way they manage customers overall, but the make-up of the scores is different, with the UK scoring better in the areas most closely linked with business performance (+5 points difference).