I was inspired to write this post when I saw at the grocery store a can of lemon juice that said “contains no chemicals”, then I wondered: Isn’t lemon juice just citric acid with other bunch of chemicals? Even a freshly squeezed lemon is just a mix of chemicals that make what it is. Now, what does this have to do with CRM? Well, it immediately reminded me of a company marketing CRM as “no software, no hardware”! They certainly do not sell a bunch of notebooks, telephone books and pens that they call CRM, it is just a tricky marketing strategy for their product (which I fully admire and respect). But of course CRM is software and it should be sold as such. Whether the software is on the cloud or in your premises is a different story.
Perhaps I am being too up-tight, but sometimes I feel marketing blurs the line between advertising a product for what it is and tweaking words to give a deceptive impression, I imagine someone might buy that lemon juice thinking that it is healthier than the competitors.