How to eat a CRM elephantAnd other tips on what to do when you bite off more than you can chew |
Straight Talk Series — Book No. 2
When this book was published, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) had become the new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Big, expensive consulting projects were popping up everywhere, often with unrealistic goals and poor results. Many companies were being taken for a ride.
Among many other insights, this book introduced the concept of “100-day wins” and the “True North of shareholder value.”
Here's an excerpt:
|
How Man Becomes Ape Has anybody noticed how many truly awful customer relationships are being produced in the name of CRM? While the big chiefs wax eloquent about customer centricity, bizarre things are happening when their companies attempt to achieve it. Annoying phone calls at dinner from telemarketing agents? Hyper-aggressive Customer Service Reps who try harder to up-sell you than to solve your problem? Infuriating 14-level voice response systems that absolutely refuse to let you talk to a human? Why is this happening? Why are so many customers getting harassed rather than helped? More often than not, it's because the people handed the CRM mandate are put under enormous pressure to quickly demonstrate bottom-line impact. So the lofty vision of customer centricity quickly devolves into short-term sales efforts and cost reduction initiatives. And it works. For a while. Until short-term sales techniques and dehumanizing technologies turn once-happy customers into hacked-off customers. Increasing revenue and aligning costs are imperative. But do so in ways that don't monkey with your customers. |
Download the PDF to learn more.
How to Eat a CRM Elephant
(200.18 KB)
