A new study paints customer relationship management as sort of a corporate stepchild: It's there, but it's not necessarily loved, according to a study by Bain & Co.

Among marketing executives worldwide, 78% picked CRM as one of 25 incentive or marketing tools they deployed. In the three years since Bain began including CRM in its survey, it's jumped from the ninth most-frequently cited tool to fourth.

But widespread use doesn't necessarily equal universal satisfaction. Among the tools evaluated, CRM systems pulled an average 3.81 rating on a five-point satisfaction scale.

Admittedly, user satisfaction has been steadily increasing. In 2000, it placed 22nd among the 25 tools. In the most recent survey it moved up to 13th.

And what's surpassing it? The mean satisfaction score among all tools was 3.85. CRM was outscored by strategic planning, customer segmentation, customer surveys, benchmarking, pay-for-performance systems and economic value-added analysis, among others.

The good news is that although marketers weren't fully satisfied with their CRM efforts, they're loath to toss them away. Among all the tools evaluated, CRM boasted the second-lowest abandonment rate. Only 3% of those using it said they gave up on CRM during 2002, a rate matched by strategic planning and exceeded only by customer segmentation.

When the Boston-based management consulting firm began tracking CRM, its defection rate was 18%. In contrast, the tools most often cited as being abandoned were high cash outlay options such as stock buybacks, merger integration teams and corporate venturing, which encompasses entrepreneurial investment.

Why has CRM, with a below-average level of satisfaction, jumped from the 35% of marketers that indicated using it in 2000 to its current level? And why are marketers hanging in with their programs?

There are three main reasons, according to Barbara Bilodeau, Bain's manager for research and data analysis.

The first is the economy. It's always been more expensive to prospect than to retain existing customers. In a downturn, prospecting stands out as a luxury.

Second, Bain has broadened CRM's definition since it first asked the question. Though it once referred specifically to SAP-style applications, it now encompasses most marketing structures that involve interaction with existing customers.

Finally, the software behind CRM programs has become easier to use. Both providers and purchasers have realized the value of generating reports on the desktop, freeing programmers to focus on more sophisticated analysis while allowing managers to see results relevant to their needs.

“Companies are realizing they have to be customer-centric,” Bilodeau said. “They are trying to figure out the best way of doing that. They're still struggling, but they know there will be a payoff in the long run.”

Bain's study revealed a large gap in satisfaction based on how enthusiastically a company embraced CRM. Among firms that implemented major efforts, CRM scored 4.16, significantly higher than the 3.52 for those organizations that created limited efforts.

There were regional differences as well. Both North and South America trailed Europe and Asia in their embrace of CRM, although the study noted that companies based in Asia and Europe used the greatest number of management tools.

While strategic planning and benchmarking were selected as top tools regardless of region, CRM — which ranked second in use across Europe and fifth in Asia — was the 10th most-popular technique in North America and 11th in South America.

These results at least partly mirror satisfaction rates in each region. North American firms were least likely to be satisfied with their CRM efforts, while European and Asian companies were somewhat more enthusiastic. But South American respondents were the biggest boosters.

One explanation for this discrepancy is that while CRM itself was not ranked as highly, South American marketers were more likely to use customer segmentation techniques than those in North America.

Bain's study, “Management Tools and Trends 2003,” is based on 708 completed surveys from managers around the world. Besides CRM, the tools measured included internal and external business practices, such as customer surveys, downsizing, economic value-added analysis and pay-for-performance.