Atlanta Media Bloggers

Collaborative CRM

For someone that has never blogged before, I sure have a lot to say! Chris B gave me some assurance and confidence by inviting me into the waters; into unchartered territories. African-Americans have been stereotyped as not being good swimmers. Thanks to Chris B & Sherry H, I guess I am proving the critics wrong!

But this post is not about race relations or stereotypes. This post is about one of several topics I have a lot of passion for - CRM. You can classify me as a CRM Enthusiast. It is not about the technology or what is commonly referred to as "Operational CRM" and it is not about the deeper insights that an organization can gain about it's consumer market which is commonly referred to as "Analytical CRM." True CRM is about an organization effectively engaging its consumer base in relevant, real-time and personalized dialog across the enterprise and across multiple touch points with the intent to create and deliver value for the consumer not just for an organization's bottom line.

In my opinion, I think this was the promise that CRM intended to deliver over a decade ago however very few companies are actually living up to this promise much less creating customer-centric strategies to deliver on this promise.

Dialog, Relationships and Emotional Bonds

I was recently sent an article entitled "The Rise of Corporate Blogs" and the last paragraph of the article is what motivated me to post my "official" first blog. David Schatsky, president of JupiterKagan, stated that organizations that utilize corporate blogs can generate a buzz around their products and services while eliciting feedback and collaboration from product evangelists. He went on to say that by engaging prospective in active dialog, companies can showcase their expertise and domain knowledge, creating a forum for communication of their [an organization] strategies and vision.

Isn't this what true CRM is all about?! You better believe it is! One of the main reasons why there was so much failure in CRM implementation in the mid-to-late nineties and into the early 2000 is because organizations never considered their customers as a scarce resource. CRM became synonymous with the technology like Siebel (now Oracle) and as a result CRM became a three little dirty word in the minds (and mouths) of executives and practitioners alike because CRM, devoid of a relentless focus on the customer, never achieved the Return on Investment (ROI) that many of the solution providers promised. There are some organizations that are still recovering from early CRM investments and there are many organizations that will not adopt CRM as a result of the early failures.

Blogs or "blogging" is one way to create dialog, relationships and influence customer emotions and should be considered as part of a CRM strategy. The economy that we live in today is where the customer experience; the emotional experience is now the competitive and comparative differentiator for organizations. Influencing customer emotions is the most often missed tool in ensuring that an organization has a customer for life; a customer advocate or evangelist if you will.

The key to share of wallet is customer authenticity - if an organization proactively engages customers in product/service creation or shares with customers and prospects initiatives that an organization are considering and gives customers or prospects to weigh in on those initiatives, organizations has created a dialog with their consumer base thereby establishing a relationship which is critical to influencing emotions.

I think for some organizations they have a decision to make when it comes to emerging media channels like blogs and the potential impact blogs can have with its consumer base. Organizations can act like ostriches and put their heads in the sand pretending that technology (blogs) has now changed the way consumers buy OR embrace this new and unchartered territory and figure out ways to integrate blogs and other emerging media channels as part of their marketing, sales and service value proposition.

My name is Art Hall and I am a Blogger!

I Never Blogged Before

Chris,

I gladly accept your invitation to be apart of the Atlanta Media Bloggers. I am sure you know Sherry Heyl. I blame her for this! (Sherry - I am going to get you! Do you hear/read the words that are coming out of my mouth and skinny fingers?!)

I never blogged before but I guess I will start now.

Art Hall