Next-Generation Customer Management

Gwynne Young
Managing Editor, CustomerThink
Member

Posted 21-Jun-2006 02:29 PM
Is it successful CRM when a restaurant surprises you with a glass of champagne? Or when the people at your dentist's office make you feel so at home, you put up with the 30-minute drive for your six-month exams?

Folks, Bob Thompson has heard the word, and it isn't CRM. In his article, The Next Generation of Customer Management? Customer Experience Management for the June 26 Advisor, the founder of CRMGuru.com, tells why he's realizing that traditional CRM doesn't click with him--and probably not you, either, when you're in the role of customer.

Bob likes what he hears about customer experience management, but he's not quite ready to throw out the baby with the bath water. There are elements of CRM that can combine with a focus on customer experience to make your customer feel special. Bob calls the combined tactics "customer management."

So what do you think? Is this the right trend? Is CRM dead? Or should it be just a subset of a more all-encompassing management strategy?

Cathy Allington
Member

Posted 28-Jun-2006 12:45 AM
Wow! No wonder our clients have issues understanding what CRM is all about, when "we", the "experts" still have trouble defining it!!

But Bob raises some very valid points, and points which we the CRM industry still struggle to come to grips with.

CRM is not about Sales Force Automation. It is not about automating processes. It is not about only ever communicating with our customers because we want to sell them something there and then. CRM is about building relationships with customers, building trust—so that people feel comfortable with and/or trust, dealing with you. Obviously you have to start with a good product, such as Bob's reference to Starbucks, but you do also need to manage the experience, such as the free surprise glass of champagne offered by the restaurant.

To me, CRM has always been about trying to emulate what the owners of the corner shop used to do many years ago. "Cathy, how did you find that cheese last week? We have some great new crackers which go really well with that. Would you like to try one?" CRM is about the people we buy from, remembering us. The technology only comes in to make our life easier in doing what businesses use to do naturally. And yes, customer experience management is a part of that—if not all of it.

However, if we keep introducing new terms and acronyms, then the industry at large will never get the hang of it, and will think it is all too hard and too complex.

It isn't—it is simple. CRM is about building relationships with your customers—in whichever way we do that. Customer Management seems to me a much better term which easily describes what CRM is all about, and covers all of the different aspects.
Cathy Allington

www.gyob.net.au