Until now measurement of CRM performance in B2B has been largely determined from a supplier perspective, predominantly revenue oriented: that is, reflecting not what is valued by the customer but rather what is important to the supplier. Despite this, customer satisfaction was measured in B2B companies long before CRM became the buzzword in B2B. Particularly in key account management, the value of customer relationships and loyalty have been long recognized, although it had been very ad hoc until recent years. In most cases, B2B CRM was personalized: account managers had to manage relationships effectively in order to achieve their targets. Today we are seeing that awareness and responsibility at an enterprise level.

The main metrics for key account managers until now have been:

• quarter-end revenue;

• year-end revenue;

• customer satisfaction (mainly based on transactions: whether the goods were delivered on time, and so on).

We are seeing a move towards more appropriate relationship oriented measurement, measuring for example how many senior executives have been contacted in a given time period. Inevitably, revenue metrics (which are supplier oriented) will remain, although they will become more relevant to the customer as risk-reward and profit sharing arrangements become more pervasive. That is to say, the metrics will reflect supplier and customer shareholder value.

The 360-degree feedback approach, in which customers give feedback to their suppliers about the quality of the latter's staff, has been adopted in many global organizations, and appears to be a step in the right direction in terms of understanding the CRM performance of key individuals. The problem here is measurement: few supplier organizations are willing to reward their representatives for anything other than revenue. What is needed is a key set of human relationship metrics for CRM in B2B. In the meantime, a common approach is to ask customers at the beginning of a time period what they value and then measure CRM performance against this. Indeed this is IBM's approach on a project-by-project basis with the pre-consulting engagement 'conditions of satisfaction' assessment, in which IBM asks its customers what five things it needs to do to achieve customer satisfaction on the project.