notes and views on crm, social media, and the human side of information technology

Live from Amsterdam

Thinking out-of-the-box when you are asked to think out-of-the-box isn’t easy. In fact, you are almost guaranteed to stay in that box - I think the same fear comes into play as in those “brainstorming” sessions where the facilitator asks, Who’s got an original idea? Damn hard to be original / out-of-boxish on command.

Which was the task we got this morning for the roundtables. Not many new ideas left for CRM, I suppose. At least not for CRM 1.0; if you’ve got all the data you need about your customers, know more about their behavior than even they are aware of, launch all the right campaigns, etc.; the next step really is to move into the 2.0 world of giving your customers that 360 degree view of you, your company, to take that relationship to the next level. Or some such.

That said, I have been very pleased with the conversations I’ve been hearing here in Amsterdam on IIR’s CRM & Retention conference. Many smart people here; the reason we’re not seeing more telco involvement in the 2.0-ish way of engaging customers has got more to do with process (organization, rules, etc.) than people.

My presentation went reasonably well, though I’ve got many lessons to learn ahead of me, that much I can tell you. Spoke about what I preach here: opening up companies from within to give their customers a reason to care, to pay attention, to go beyond pragmatic and towards establishing a meaning. And forgot to warn them about blogging consultants; but they don’t seem to need that. I’ll post my materials in some form, probably as a wiki, later for you to get a better picture.

PS the weather wasn’t that bad in the end - fortunately :-)

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March 5, 2008 | Filed Under CRM 

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