CRM News: Strategy

CRM Conference to Showcase the Retail Experience
May 14, 2012

CRM Conference is being held May 29 to 31 at the Chicago Hyatt Regency. This annual event offers a unique agenda for retailers, said Devon Wylie, CEO of CRMC. "It's specifically focused on case studies from topnotch multinational retailers. With this approach, attendees can get actionable learnings they can take home with them."

When Your Business Goofs, CRM Can Be Your Best Friend
May 10, 2012

There are three things certain in life. We all know the two cited by Benjamin Franklin, but there's a third certainty that we all face regularly and have to cope with constantly. That's the certainty that we'll make mistakes. Everyone makes them; if it hasn't happened to your business, you haven't been in business long.

3 CRM Traits Shared by Good People and Great Companies
May 03, 2012

I just wrote a note to a friend of mine thanking him for his participation at a conference I recently helped organize. It was a thank you note, and he's a CRM industry influencer; I won't divulge names, because it's not important to my point, nor do I want to seen like too much of a suck-up. In any event, I was grateful for his participation in the show -- not just for his session, but for his behavior at this and every other CRM event he goes to.

Penetrating the Vast, Untapped Reaches of the CRM Market
April 26, 2012

CRM is not a small market. Nor is it a niche sequestered away in a corner of the larger CRM market. CRM is a $13.045 billion industry in 2012, and it will grow to $16.694 billion in 2015, according to Gartner. No matter how you look at things, that's a lot of money. With a projected growth of nearly 30 percent in three years, it would be easy to assume that CRM has achieved significant penetration.

Customization on the Cutting Edge
April 20, 2012

Every day, I meet retailers who are eager to learn how they can add a co-creation, customization, or personalization feature (collectively "Customization" with a capital 'C') to their existing offerings. They often start the conversation off with an overview of their current products and quickly move to a discussion about which of them cater to the "customization" demographic.

Social, Mobile and Collaboration: 3 Tips for Getting on the Road
April 19, 2012

"You can't get there from here." That's the classic gag about New Englanders giving road directions -- that somehow, the route that needs to be taken is so convoluted and confusing that there's no way to negotiate between two points on the surface of the Earth. Logically, we know that's not true. You can get anywhere from anywhere these days -- especially if you can rely on transportation that doesn't need to stick to the roads.

Sussing Out Your Customers' Relationship Styles
April 12, 2012

At last year's Dreamforce event, the word "koan" was used quite a bit, thanks to CEO Marc Benioff's Buddhist proclivities. The word means "a paradox that is to be meditated upon," typically used to train novice monks to abandon dependence on reason to achieve enlightenment. Most of the applications of "koan" at Dreamforce didn't apply to paradoxes, nor is it wise to abandon reason when dealing with any CRM vendor in the hope of finding enlightenment.

Unforgiven: Customers Need to Show Some Common Sense Too
March 15, 2012

In the UK, supermarket chain Tesco is being pounded right now in social media channels because it's refusing to honor an erroneous online advertisement offering new iPads for about $65. The offer went viral, and now the backlash is viral, too. How Tesco responds will tell the tale. I'd recommend a sincere apology, a few well-phrased jokes poking fun at itself -- and an offer to make it up to those who still want to buy an iPad from them.

CallCopy Scores With Columbus Blue Jackets
March 09, 2012

The Columbus Blue Jackets are a team in the National Hockey League, which means their revenue stream thrives -- or dies -- on how well they can sell tickets. The team has an extensive and sophisticated sales operation that fields nearly 300 calls per day. However, the team wanted tech support for its operations -- specifically a new call-recording technology that was flexible and customizable enough to back up its own sales methodology and ongoing training requirement.

Feature Ignorance: Fast Track to a Wasted CRM Investment
March 08, 2012

A friend of mine bought a car that is, to be honest, a lot more than he really needs. It has all the bells and whistles, wrapped in a lovely paint job and a plush leather interior. Yet every time I ride in it, I discover something that he's overlooked. Yes, Randy -- this would be where you plug in your iPod. Did you know you had a second glove compartment? This button's how you lock all the doors at once.

One Customer Relationship Style Does Not Fit All
March 01, 2012

In this era of social media, the Dunbar Number has been the subject of considerable debate. For those of you who don't run in evolutionary anthropology circles, the Dunbar Number is a concept created by Robin Dunbar, the director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University. Dunbar's theory is that there are only so many meaningful relationships we can manage.

Growing Into Social CRM
February 16, 2012

The volume of oversized clothing I received as a kid from aunts, grandparents and family friends was astounding. Over time, I did actually grow into those clothes. Social CRM, for a lot of businesses, is like those gifts: It may not be a perfect fit immediately, but given time and the evolution of your business, you're likely to grow into it.

Customer Focus Is an All-Hands Exercise
February 10, 2012

Last week, after dropping off my Prius at the dealership for routine service -- as I've done regularly since I bought the car in 2007 -- I ambled over to the shuttle stop for a ride home. "Where you headed?" barked the driver, never raising his head from his newspaper. When I let him know where I was going, he immediately recognized me and his demeanor changed entirely.

5 Ways to Sell Salespeople on CRM
January 26, 2012

The way the concept of CRM is defined during the sales process can sow the seeds of its ultimate failure. Because the decision makers are often sales managers rather than actual salespeople, the pitch is usually made that CRM makes it easier for the managers to manage their sales staff. Which is true. But what's in it for the sales staff?

What's Good for Social Business Is Good for Social CRM
January 19, 2012

I'm ensconced at the Swan and Dolphin Hotels at Walt Disney World in Orlando this week for IBM's concurrent Lotusphere/IBM Connect shows, and all the announcements here paint the picture of a company and a partner ecosystem that is going all-in on collaboration. Big Blue's fuddy-duddy reputation is being completely overhauled, it seems.

If Customers Will Pay, Why Aren't We Selling?
January 12, 2012

Do customers suffer from a split personality? I say this not because of encounters with clearly rattled fellow shoppers during the holiday season. I say it because of the numbers that consistently come out when customers are surveyed -- and the other numbers that seem to be in the forefront of most buyers' minds.

Social CRM and the Speed of Change
December 15, 2011

Social media is often held up as the wind sock to gauge how fast the winds of change are blowing. When Google+ gained 25 million users in just six weeks, it was used as evidence that people had become willing to shift the channels and methods they used to communicate at the drop of a hat in our new, technologically accelerated age.

Consistency and the Customer Experience: Wise or Foolish?
December 08, 2011

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote famously in his essay "Self-Reliance" that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." These days, many people drop the "foolish" out of the statement and thus completely pervert the saying's meaning, creating a justification to bash the idea of consistency.