by Jim Rembach - Sr. Vice President, Customer Relationship Metrics
Recently a client returned from her first call center conference and trade show
questioning the value of the trip. Before her trip she was very excited about learning
more about this the solutions that will allow her to provide better service to her
customers and build loyalty. Upon her return I asked her if it was a good experience
and she replied, “the customer was missing.” This was a puzzling reply
that prompted me to ask, “I don’t understand what you mean.” She
said she was hoping to identify solutions and techniques that would help her company
enhance the customer experience and make it easier for customers to do business with
them. To her dismay she found no solutions or technique that offered that. Everybody
was focused on internal efficiencies and lowering costs.
What are we evolving to? Vendors are smart when it comes to marketing and they will
promote their solutions based on the questions and concerns of their clients. Therefore,
this observation from a newbe is very scary. It tells me that we have become so focused
on return on investment (ROI) that we are forgetting how we get paid. Ultimately we
all get paid because a customer has been satisfied and chooses to do business with
us. Think about it. It doesn’t matter if you are a non-profit or a for profit
company you need money to survive. What happens to a church if they do not create an
environment where people want to come worship, it closes.
CRM or Customer Relationship Management is not a product. It’s a philosophy
or strategy where you attempt create a situation where people want to continue to do
business with you, and more often.
So what does this mean? It means that the short-term focus of ROI has clouded the
long-term relationship building customer-focused strategy that we all need to stay in
business. How has this happened? It’s because ROI is easier to calculate than a
customer’s lifetime value or worth. Senior Managers get so caught up in budgets
that they only focus on the line items. Have you ever seen a budget with customer
value on it? Maybe, it’s time we did.
