A disconnect in desperate need of bridging...

Posted by Richard Boardman on August 9, 2009

0 comments | 1436 reads

In his post 'Are we solving the same problem' Seth Godin brilliantly sums up one of the fundamental problems of the CRM industry even though he's not actually writing about IT.

The point he makes is that people are much more comfortable discussing the solution to a problem than the problem itself. If we were to understand the problems better the solutions would be better, but this tends not to be the way of the world.

Applied to the world of CRM, I think CRM vendors are great at talking about their product's functionality, but are considerably more sketchy about the problems their products are actually solving. This would be less of an issue if the purchasers of CRM technology could fill the gap, but not surprisingly perhaps, they often struggle to understand which of their problems CRM can practically solve.

Only when this disconnect is bridged will the true potential of CRM be realized.

Richard Boardman

Richard Boardman has worked in the CRM industry since 1995 and is founder of the independent CRM consultancy, Mareeba CRM Consulting. Based in the United Kingdom, Boardman has been involved in more than 200 CRM system implementations.

About Richard Boardman |
Connect:

Categories:

1436 reads
Print
Email

0 comments »

Post new comment

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Subject:

Comment: *

Input format

Filtered HTML

Allowed HTML tags: <a> <img> <hr> <table> <tr> <td> <th><ul> <ol> <li> </li><blockquote> <colspan> <rowspan><object>
Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Images can be added to this post.

Post

Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Images can be added to this post.

More information about formatting options

Notify me when new comments are posted

All comments

Replies to my comment

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

What code is in the image?: *

Enter the characters shown in the image.

MarketPlace

Global Customer Experience Management (CEM) Certification Program

[May 30-31, Frankfurt; July 25-26, Hong Kong] An internationally recognized program with proven track record of success - being run for 34 times in 13 cities with attendees from 50 countries, the program is developed based on the U.S. patent-pending Branded CEM Method which aims to drive customer loyalty and brand differentiation with quantifiable business results. Limited offer: USD300 early bird discount.

Join us on May 29th in New York City. Stuart Ryder, SVP, Mobile Research Lead for Ipsos IOTX & Roxana Strohmenger, a leading Forrester analyst, will be in attendance to share best practices and new trends in mobile market research.

[June 12, Sir Francis Drake Hotel] Gregson Siu, Vice President, Ariba Business Operations, Ariba and Bob Thompson, CustomerThink, will be in attendance to share best practices, new trends and latest research to help you develop your customer experience program.

Social Networking and sCRM International Congress in Colombia

[June 25-26, Bogota] Thirteen international thought leaders will present, from different perspectives, the trends, the uses, and the magic - as well as the reality - of Social Networking and how it impacts the way customers are doing/will do business.

Driving ROI With VoC

Walker has identified multiple ways to measure ROI – there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. This paper will address each and conclude with some recommendations to help B-to-B practitioners evaluate which ROI approach will work best for their particular business need.