Paul Greenberg who blogs on CRM at ZDNet and is author of CRM at the Speed of Light (great read) has been instrumental in sharing knowledge on the rapidly changing and evolving world of CRM. CRM is a business strategy designed to optimise profitability, revenue and customer satisfaction. As social channels have developed so too has the complexity of dealing with the associated volumes of conversations around brands and products. Consumers now have power to voice their opinions openly.
Organisations are now rapidly trying to integrate information into their CRM systems (many of which are old legacy systems such as SAP/Siebel). Kate Leggett provides some practical views on this and the need for organisations to take control. So what is the main debate about?
Many people are frustrated with the many current practices of CRM that fail to deliver a good customer experience. Many can relate to long waits on phone lines, multiple interactive voice response lines, lack of consistency with information...and the list goes on. Despite masses of investment in Siebel/SAP and Business Process Mapping organisations seem to have removed not complimented the customer experience. The drive to reduce costs not enhance the customer experience was the main driver behind many CRM initiatives and outsourcing programmes.
The main problem is that CRM platforms measure customer interactions solely upon product purchase history and preferences. These measures are product centric and historical and don't consider or take into account experience or forward looking trends & preferences.
Is CRM as simple as this sometimes (watch the video)?
Enter the Social Customer?
One of the classic cases of bad customer service and the use of social media was the management by United Airlines of Dave Carroll's guitar which was badly handled both in terms of customer service and PR. The power of the social customer to influence and amplify their voice is here. But let's not forget that companies should tread a careful line between service and rewarding those that shout loudest. While traditional is still available, many organizations are often responding to customers faster when the complaint comes in via a social media site.
As a result, are we teaching customers to use social media as their customer service escalation path? Are we instilling bad behaviours of immediacy? Whether we like it or not real time is approaching just as a generation have changed to the timeliness and expectation associated with different communication methods: from letters to faxes to emails (initially by PC and then the move to mobile) and now Twitter. We are moving to closer to real-time.
Paul Greenberg defines social CRM (SCRM) as: "the company's programmatic response to the customer's control of the conversation." Its about the company taking hold of the reins of the conversation, not the other way round.
Brian Solis: SCRM affects the whole organization and is transformational. According to Solis, 'the ability to identify active communities of relevance', tracing influential people and channels, and the dissection of all phases of the process of decision making, all in real-time, are crucial aspects of social media marketing.
Involving these ‘influencers’ and communities, and the linking of CRM to interactive marketing actions are some of the core elements of an integrated, social CRM. As Brian intimates we are moving to an experience economy.
So What is Customer Experience Management (CEM) ?
Customer experience is one of the great challenges for innovation. It is interactions between an organization and a Customer. Of course this involves the customer relationship management, however this is only one element of the service delivery. It is the blend of an organization’s performance, the thoughts and feelings that customers have. As the customer moves from through the touch-points of its association with the organisation - it is the experience.
But where is this heading?
The struggle that organisations face is not purely at the operational level of integrating systems, processes and adopting these tools. The fundamental shift is on how organisations transform their structures, cultures and values to reflect a more customer focused approach to evolve to this new focus on customer experience. This is also a necessity to adapt and be agile in rapidly changing environment. Organisations will need to focus on the perspective of their customers and empower their employees to deliver it well; they need to become a social business. Happy customers become advocates and bring along their friends.
What of the future?
Brands and organisations are having to face a point where the consumer and organisation are converging in the relative role of 'real time' experiences. Supplying goods and services will be associated with facilitating unique consumer experiences on demand and these may be off-line and on-line or augmented These experiences may be facilitated by a brand community or a new experience environment to interact with and co-create value. Since experiences are not easily replicated or copied these will be the value and uniqueness where brands will battle for consumer attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment