Kost’ Koniev (twitter: @skfd) messaged me today, saying “You should rewrite the manifest. Right now it’s crazy business-speak. You fell into the trap of abstraction, but the message is good”.
He very kindly came up with a few suggested amendments, and I welcome an approach to use plain English.
What do you think?
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a business strategy. Not software. Not a technology.
- CRM is not a technology. CRM is not software.
- CRM seeks to increase our revenue and customer’s satisfaction.
- Engaging in CRM means that the way we work is going to change.
- Customer interaction is driven by their platform and channel preferences. Not our technological stack or business process devised by executives.
- Customer-facing staff satisfaction is important.
- CRM’s focus is gathering everything we know about customer. And presenting it succinctly, but fully to Customer-facing staff.
- CRM’s focus is consistent communication with customers. Customer should enjoy that we know his name and remember why he called last time.
- CRM should have Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Changes to CRM process should be evaluated based on KPIs.
- Customers do not care about the intricacies of our internal processes. Back-office processes should not impact customers’ experience.
- Deploying a CRM system will NOT, by itself, improve sales and drive customer retention. Any CRM solution we have is simply an enabler to achieve known business goals; improved processes and policies will deliver the results.
- CRM software can help drive process consistency across the organisation; we welcome a consistent approach. And whilst CRM software can help us manage, using it just as a management tool is not customer relationship management.
- Changes to the way we interact with customers is ongoing. CRM is a journey and not a destination.
Thank you, Kost’.
