After all the hype and promise of a brave new world of customer relationship managment has there really been any change to way in which companies do business with all these new systems in place. It seems everywhere I go I hear of the horror storiesfrom workers (agents) who have suddenly had new technology thrust in front of them only to be told that there productivity should increase or they will not be reaching their new performance indicators. While visiting one client, who is a global news organisation, several of the agents told me of the dismay and confusion among the staff associated with their new CRM offering. Existing high valued clients were no longer being routed to people, instead there were getting voice recordings, customer data went missing and most of the staff had to retrain themselves. I know that vendors have a lot to answer for, and that training counts-but really is it all worth it?