Social revolution in the workplace and the coming of a new CRM approach

Today the companies that sell these computer services or systems are the real winners from this old solution set, dubbed CRM; it usually describes strategies to increase customer acquisition, retention and profitability.

What went wrong?!
 
There are numerous explanations as to why CRM has proven so difficult to get right. The technical challenges alone are considerable.
 
The problems of integrating and analysing customer data both emerged as major barriers to CRM implementation. But the biggest challenge of all is capturing the right customer data in the first place.
 
Customer facing staff also find it difficult to access information because it was trapped in different systems or ‘belonged’ to another department. As a result, integration tools had to be brought in which often increased costs tenfold.
 
So why do we persist in asking our lazy sales staff or telesales people to capture profile information about you and I?
 
“CRM failed because too many people were only paying lip-service to it,” this statement was one of many I found and the key word is lip-service, having spent my earlier years as a sales person, all too often my contacts were my own, my prospects were mine, this was the mindset of a sales person, especially the one who had to keep their sales job as sales targets rose and missed targets often meant their dismissal.
 
So when your company executives want to centralise your contacts, open up your defence, often the term ‘garbage in garbage out’ was true.
 
Agreed this is the extreme, but I remember Siebel arriving and seeing the amount of work that was being asked of us to keep records for the company, often meant not enough time to do the sales. I have known of others who have used Salesforce and other big programs just to end up spending vast sums to make it work.
 
Ah I hear you say, ‘nothing new here then’, but look closely at the mini revolution that just took place under our very noses.
 
Since the Internet became part of our 24 hour daily life and it stopped being controlled by the big web companies such as MSN, AOL or Yahoo, a shift has Rica shaded across the western world via PC’s and mobile devices around the rest of the globe.
 
Startling news, people now talk and communicate every minute via a PC, Netbook or mobile device with each of their friends, they store personal data on social sites and from this comes real life interaction!
 
IF Facebook were a country it would be the worlds 4th largest in the world. Even if we believe this is all about generation Y, it is obviously not because the fastest growing segment on Facebook was 55-65 year old females this year.
 
There are signs that social media is becoming more sensitive to the customer, and smarter at using data to fulfil their immediate needs. But wider challenges face companies trying to make the distinction between their back end systems and the network of ‘Persona’ information now appearing fast on ‘Cloud Services’ inside such communities as Facebook.
 
Social CRM is a new term that is being born out of the lack of success of traditional services or systems; this shift will require bold thinking as well as smart solutions that can easily connect, easily generate information from user generated content and get a view of the real world, ‘word of mouth’ becoming ‘World of mouth’ understanding of all.
 
VBL the largest German Pensions outfit, their online manager of marketing stated that their social site has become one of the most important and most popular information, communication and service platforms for their customers within a very short time, implementing efficient and customer-friendly processes, they are able to develop further social services for the benefit of their customers.”
 
Sounds like someone has twigged that there has to be this link into the new world of social networking for CRM to evolve, but more importantly not lose all those millions of investment in it! Recent studies show that 25% of search results for the Worlds Top brands are links to user generated content, not to the company website or the back office CRM system, where it is a natural environment to capture ‘Persona’ data is in the network created by the individual, be it work or play!
 
Bob Pike
www.majordealteam.co.uk