Shameless self promotion... and what's in a name?

Despite my recent assertion that my blog is rubbish, I'm delighted to report that the rest of the site is NOT rubbish.

It's really rather good. "Friggin' excellent" in fact. Not my words (or my mother's), but those of the eminent Paul Greenberg no less.

Interestingly, his recommendation also sparked some debate on our use of 'customer management' rather than 'customer relationship management'.

I've been involved in several discussions relating to this recently, partly related to the decision of Customer Management magazine to rebrand as Customer Strategy. Editor Steve Hurst explained the change as acknowledgement that organisations no longer 'manage' their customers in the traditional sense.

Interestingly, the term 'customer relationship management' itself has arguably attracted some unwanted connotations. In particular it is sometimes mistakenly taken to refer primarly to technological issues, at the expense of the critical business processes and important fields such as customer experience management.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Is 'customer management' outmoded? Is 'customer relationship management' tarnished?