Customer retention specialist, E P Consulting, this week launched a new Internet-based product which attempts to reliably measure the payback of customer relationship investments.

The Customer Relationship Quality Audit (available for licenced use on the Internet at www.customer-relationship-quality.com) analyses a company's position and provides information about how its customers think in an effort to improve customer retention rates.

The product was launched as part of the A Journey to Uniqueness seminar in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. Developed by Dr Pierre Chenet of E P Consulting, he warned that global companies already forecast to spend $21 billion (€21.8 billion) on customer relationship management (CRM) by 2001 may be about to waste resources if they do not rethink their approach to CRM.

In a four-year research study of 600 Irish firms Dr Chenet found that only 21 per cent of satisfied customers intend maintaining their relationship with a particular firm.