The Failure of Outlook as a CRM System

I expect there may be a few more objections to this premise from some who have successfully used Outlook as their CRM for years. To that end, I would say that it's also true that people have successfully used their car keys as box cutters, but it's less than ideal. Truly, what it boils down to is the fact that the box cutter was all the way in the garage and your keys were already in your pocket.

For a one-off job, this is acceptable. But in your business, we're not talking about a one-off job. We're talking about the lifeblood of a small business: your contacts and your relationship with those contacts. You wouldn't think it too wise to walk into a warehouse where all the workers have their keys out cutting box after box, would you? I didn't think so. So, without further adieux: the failure of Outlook as a CRM...

1. Easily corrupted PST files. Currently, I can no longer access the address book function in my Outlook because after 5 years of emails the storage file known as a PST where all messages, contacts, and settings are stored became corrupted. I was able to recover emails thanks to a slick $30 program, but contacts are gone.
2. Limited search capabilities. I could title this point, "reliance on manual grouping" because the basic point is that in order to build collections of contacts that have some commonality, you have to manually create distribution groups. This plagues business people so terribly that when they finally migrate to a true CRM system like AddressTwo, users often struggle to grasp the idea of queriable data as a means for building target groups.
3. Lack of history record. Sure, you can see any email history (in fact, to a fault... do you really need to see all email history when what you really want to know is, "have I quoted them once before or not.") but there is in fact no way to easily track date-stamped activities such as calls, appointments, etc.
4. The plague of standalone software. If you have a sophisticated network using Microsoft's cost-prohibitive server solutions, then you can finally take control as manager and see what your employees are up to, share calendars, pass data back and forth, etc. But if not, the discontinuity of data can become very aggravating as your company grows to that intermediate size where you cannot justify purchasing and implementing Exchange, but you can't stand that each user is a veritable data island unto themselves.
5. The singular focus on email. CRM should help you automate multiple aspects of your sales and marketing. Try giving an Outlook CSV file to your printer for a direct mail campaign and you'll likely end up paying for clean-up, or having to spend time cleaning it up yourself.

The bottom line is that Outlook was an email tool that then added an address book... and then bolted on a calendar... and then stuck in a notes tool. Before you know it you're driving 59,60,61... automobile (for all you Johnny Cash fans out there). It's great for what it does. In fact, I still use it for email and for my daily calendar. But CRM... c'mon, take control of your data and market smarter!