CRM is dead as we know it

In this year 2009, we entertain and manage our daily lives via computers linked to the Internet, located where, we do not care, so why do shops, businesses or just our friends need to know more about us?

Since commerce began, it was from supply and demand that made civilisation tick, the human race will always need to trade and in this century or the next the speed at which it all happens will be important. The advent of what I call the ‘Prime time to Grey Time’ scenario becomes important to us all.

Bill Gates had a dream that everyone should have access to a computer; I guess the inventor of the mobile phone had a similar dream, with everyone having access to make a call on the move. But did they think about the time management of having this ability and a meaningful balance to life.

Of course not, it is always about improving the flow of knowledge, the speed of actions, the easiest way to get from A to B, the faster way to buy or sell, but more importantly getting what we need more quickly and what we need correctly delivered!

Prime time is a term used to describe the most active time measured, whether on TV, or at work, socially engaged with Friends or spending time doing something important to you! Grey time on the other hand was wasted, non productive time which although essential as it was the link between Prime and Grey, offered a gap which could be filled and there is the crux of the problem in today’s world!

If I know where you are in your grey time and when you have your grey time, can I not use that computer or mobile device to supply you with activity or inform you of something interesting to you? The fact that in today’s world via location finding services using the likes of Virtual Earth from Microsoft or Google Maps plus linked to either GPS or just the mobile mast nearest to where you’re mobile is, then added this to an internet service or social network and your Grey time becomes the new Prime time!

Customer Relationship Management systems never quite got the Prime Time to Grey Time concept, to much focus on numbers of people, segmentation of their ages, height, looks, male or female even job title and political persuasion!

Numbers in a database finally missed the true needs of understanding the 21st century or are we now going so fast we are already into the next?

Social Networking is a revolution, it has taken on the role of the old play ground, the pub, the club, the sports club, the workingmen’s club, the WI, the newspaper, even the early portals such as MSN, Yahoo or AOL and potentially even the classifieds, so now all you need is membership and you can interact live with millions of people in a structured fast community! It is also becoming a place where you can be informed via a Wiki, Blog Virtual Presence locator, you can transact, be advertised to and worse still be profiled to the point they know exactly who you are, as it was you who built the persona in the first place!

So having established that the Social Network, any of them, performs the best CRM task and probably the most efficient, best return on investment plus the right place to interact with, do you think our traditional suppliers can transition fast enough? Answer probably not, because they built it to be internal, non interactive and definitely not on the web!

This following list was published recently 'as what a CRM system should have for the future', I believe it is not about CRM its about managing the Persona we are building and the much needed understanding of who we really are to a company:-

CRM system of the future needs to be able to:
1. Be accessed from any computer or mobile device. TICK
2. Needs to integrate with real-time data provided through online platforms, for which Facebook and Twitter are only the beginning. TICK
3. Must facilitate online, phone or in-person engagement from within the platform. SO?
4. Needs to be backed with support to manage and update databases to help ensure the most accurate information. DATA needs to be accessed through the persons Persona, data can be live anywhere.

Cloud storage and computing can help address some of these problems, but the greater issue is that businesses need to be focused on the future needs of their CRM system, no the future is already here, they need to have cross access to where the Persona data exists and provide a landing point for this Persona.

The data provided by any CRM system truly makes an impact when it provides relevance between a customer and a business. To ignore important sources of relevant data and to not scale a system for future use, means running the risk of losing touch with customers. CRM is dead as we know it!