The
same dynamics that drive today’s Web 2.0 – spectacular viral marketing
coups, hugely prolific social networking, and pervasive user-generated
co-creation – will work their effect on the processes of CRM, and those who “get it”, as always will flourish. So claims Vladimir Dimitroff at Ecademy, asking if it’s time for CRM 2.0.
Dimitroff compares the old CRM with the wanting-to-be-born CRM. Some of the forces impinging on Customer Relationship Management are:
- The Customer: finally recognized as a unique (solitary) individual, but now evolved into an interconnected individual.
- The
Relationship: famously one to one, now becoming many to many. Also, the
loyalty once measured by share of market is changing into promiscuity
now measured by share of customer.
- The Management: customer segmentation gives way to dynamic micro-segmentation, and direct marketing yields to viral marketing.
Not surprisingly, says Dimitroff, ecommerce companies are among the leaders repurposing CRM to the new centricity.
All
of this is Customer Service 101 really. The customer is changing. All
of this must affect the software, demanding greater flexibility and
customizability.
CRM models always
intended to drive a continuing and evolving customer-centricity in the
enterprise, but enterprise commitment to that focus softened during the
decade that CRM has been around.
And today, enterprises still aren’t mining their data as well as they could, claims CRM Daily: Don’t Shortchange the Value in Data.
The reasons aren’t technological so much as lack of leadership will:
the customer has still not become a compelling priority for the
enterprise.
SMBedge agrees in Building Blocks of CRM:
Many enterprises believe that implementing CRM
technologies makes them a customer-centric organization. They forget,
ignore or deliberately avoid the necessary changes to the enterprise
itself. True CRM means that individuals, teams and the whole enterprise must become more focused on the needs and wants of the customer.
Certainly we think it’s true that the greatest
method of offering customer service is by listening. The Help Desk is a
wonderful place to listen to the true desires of your customers. And
today’s return by enterprises towards offering valuable Support, we
believe, is part of this sea change in customer centricity.
We
think we actually work with many teams who do “get it”: IT and business
managers increasingly integrate our applications with their existing CRM
deployments, and customize our software to better mine and refine the
data in their legacy database. Early days maybe, but much rapid change
below the radar.
