Fighting fires or building firewalls

Posted by Laurence Buchanan on October 31, 2010

0 comments | 1228 reads

Why is it that we often reward fighting fires rather than building firewalls?
The sales person who pulls in a last-hour, unforecasted deal at the end of Q4 is treated as a hero, whereas the relationship manager who signs another deal on time with a long term customer is dull and boring.
The customer service agent who works all hours to react to customer complaints and has a brilliant ability to calm down angry customers is revered; whereas the agent who suggests making a change in a process because it keeps causing customer’s problems is often ignored.
In the world of social CRM, customers tweet, blog & post angry videos to YouTube because they have something to say and they want to be heard. You cannot possible scale to respond to the volume of social content using traditional channels and processes. So instead of constant fire-fighting, why not listen and fix the problem (or opportunity) at source.
Build firewalls instead of fighting fires.

Republished with author's permission from original post by Laurence Buchanan.

Laurence Buchanan

Disclaimer and disclosure - I work for Capgemini leading CRM and Social CRM business development in the UK and was previously VP, CRM at SAP. However, this is a personal rather than a corporate blog. My opinions reflect my own views rather than necessarily those of my employer. I carry no vested interest in any particular technology. For a full look at my background please feel free to view my Linkedin profile which contains full information on my previous roles.

About Laurence Buchanan |
Connect:

Categories:

Social Business

1228 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.