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

Will the credit crunch help CRM?

Recessions mean an end to some but also a new beginning for many. CRM is associated with the optimistic seller culture; the company builds an infrastructure so that it can get to customers quicker and be more relevant to them. At a first glance, then, it would appear that a down economy would bring down times for CRM - fewer buyers with smaller budgets means cost cutting, baby - fire those IT consultants.

With less marcomm and IT dollars, companies have another opportunity to look at the flip side of CRM. It’s the side that is considerably cheaper to experiment with: I used to call it “CRM 2.0″ before “2.0″ lost its edge and, indeed, any meaning at all. Also called “Social CRM”, it’s a diverse set of tools designed to bring the customer inside the organization - on his terms, though.

Don’t look at Facebook, you. “Friending” a thousand prospects can only bring you this far, and unless you are in a specific niche, information from your “friends” profiles won’t mean much for your sales cycle. There are meaningful applications there, such as the Lending Tree, but no ground was breaken on Facebook for the majority of industries - Telcos, Energy, or any other Big Business™.

No, look at tools that don’t rely on eyeballs and ads and instead of building the same old walled gardens leverage the power of the individual in the networked, globalized, web-and-mobile enabled culture that we’re in.

One of the hints I will give you today is a project called Mine!, driven by Adriana Lukas. Loosely associated with the VRM conspiracy, it’s aiming at giving individuals the tool to share whatever information they choose with whomever they choose via XML feeds. On a practical note that could mean, for example:

  • dumping registration forms of any kind - the company, when given access, will process the required data from the feed,
  • no more guesswork about what your customer needs - just subscribe to what they decide to publish, and you will know exactly

The caveat: the customer controls the Terms of Service. Up until now there was no negotiation between B and C. That can change: not because “the customer” has suddenly amassed great power and can dictate his terms (try that on your mobile operator), but because it can make great business sense. Both in cost reductions and new opportunities that will come with an insight into explicitly stated customer needs.

Note that these initiatives aren’t driven by a BigCo of any kind. They are counter-cultural. I think most companies will sit this one out, again, until these tools have too many legs to ignore.

I think it’s an opportunity to look at your existing CRM investment and think about how you would fit a million customer voices in it should they start blasting at you one day. These voices are already out there, on blogs and social networks and such, but don’t have a structured form yet. That’s changing.

October 23, 2008 | Filed Under CRM 

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