One of my pet peeves is hearing people talk about “getting a CRM”. As if they were going out to get a pizza or something.
It reminds me of the mid- to late-1990′s, when far too many companies (with more than a little help from the software vendors) viewed Customer Relationship Management systems as all that was necessary to achieve customer nirvana. As we all know now, of course, there is much more to CRM than technology, and widespread adoption of unrealistic expectations led to widespread disappointment with CRM, to the point that “CRM” became a dirty word for a while.
I have written and spoken many times about what goes into “doing CRM right”; while I won’t rehash the topic in this blog, I will state that the increasing numbers of companies I hear today talking about “getting a CRM” makes me fear we are headed right back down that same perilous path of looking at technology as the driver, rather than the enabler, of success. It brings back vague memories of my history professors rambling on about somebody being doomed to repeat something or other. . .
A few years ago, I used to put a slide in my CRM consulting pitches entitled “What is CRM?”, in which I suggested that CRM is a set of customer-centric strategies, processes, culture, and metrics, supported by enabling technology. Those slides then led into a few more about why CRM fails or succeeds, and what differentiates one from the other. Some of my colleagues urged me to discontinue the use of those slides on the basis that “everyone knows what CRM is these days”, and “clients don’t want to hear that CRM can fail”. Of course, I had those slides in the deck for a reason — because I have been around this business long enough to have realized the importance of this “basic blocking & tackling” stuff. You can’t just install a piece of software and expect it to solve all of your problems.
Against my better judgement, however, I eventually bowed to peer pressure and pulled those slides from my presentations. But no longer — those slides are coming back! At least until people stop wanting to get their pepperoni CRM delivered in 30 minutes or less. . .
So why bring this up today? Because there is a movement afoot to “redefine CRM” in light of the increasing use of social media by both customers and companies alike. However, I would posit that if one holds a definition of CRM similar to that which I have expressed above, social media and changing customer buying and support desires fit nicely within that paradigm, and one need not redefine CRM to support the integration of social media. I will explore this more in my next blog.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments here, or on our Facebook discussion board!
Thanks!
Eric Heine, Vice President
Integra Technology Consulting
781-890-0070
eheine at integratc dot com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/IntegraTC
Tags: Consulting, CRM, culture, Customer Relationship Management, customers, Eric Heine, Integra, metrics, Oracle, Pegasystems, process, RightNow, Salesforce.com, SCRM, Siebel, strategy, Systems Integration, technology
September 17, 2009 at 10:29 pm |
Eric,
I appreciate your post, and taking the time. If you take a look at the members of the ‘Accidental Community’ or the #scrm discussion on twitter, you will find a lot of folks who absolutely agree with you. There are vendors participating as well (Full disclosure I work for SugarCRM), who may or may not agree.
My point is simple, there are lots of folks who fully and 100% subscribe to the People, Process and Technology, in that order, with roughly a 40, 40, 20 percent, respectively, time/money investment strategy in CRM.
That said, there is a change a foot, which is causing companies to rethink their own strategies – which does include technology. Traditional CRM simply does not allow for enough transparency or customer input and conversation. Again, technology may, or may not be the answer, but a refinement in thinking certainly is required.
(I intentionally did not put lots of links in the response, feel free to visit my blog and see the people who I believe are helping to define the next generation crm)
Mitch
@mjayliebs
http://mjayliebs.wordpress.com
September 18, 2009 at 4:16 am |
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