People in Service
I’ve been bitching about use of CRM technology to destroy CRM promise on a number of occasions. It is great to learn about people of Enterprise, seemingly stepping out of established CRM shadow and using social media technologies instead to provide real service to real customers.
The marketers, most enterprising members of business community, are usually first to try any new shtick to push their wares. However bi-directional nature of social media made a lot of large companies to feel vulnerable.
Many businesses are reluctant to participate in social media because they fear negative comments. Guess what? Those comments are happening with or without your involvement. You can ignore them, or you can use them as an opportunity to engage in a dialog. Customers aren’t looking to pick a fight, they’re looking for acknowledgment that their complaints have been heard and are being considered, or addressed.
Ann Handley writes about positive examples of such technology being used by people who care, as oppose to mandated by employer. I’ve had a lot of problems with Comcast’s Customer Service, and blogged about it, but here is what Ann says:
Comcast is a company often referenced in lists of businesses that are successfully incorporating social media. Their Twitter handle is “Comcastcares,” but the account bio lets us know that Frank Eliason and his team are the real Comcast people managing the account. Frank not only provides his followers with a list of links and email addresses to reach Comcast, but gives them links to his personal bio, his personal blog, and his family’s website. One click and you’ve established a personal relationship with a company rep who seems open, honest, and eager to help. For his trouble, Frank has aggregated nearly 13,000 followers for Comcastcares, just about the same number of Twitterers that he follows.
I in fact was eventually helped by a Comcast employee to resolve my problem, who contacted me on his personal time after seeing my complains on Getsatisfaction.com. Unfortunately it was too late, by that time I’ve had enough and left for competition.
Perhaps it is the time to retire “CRM” moniker from software marketing lingo, and start applying it to Strategy only, to avoid the confusion, since you cannot buy strategy, but can waste money for software. The true gift of Web 2.0 (whatever you think it is) is enabling the people who want to be empowered to assume power, to execute without blessing and constrains of corporate elite.
A blog about experiences, curiosity and the never-ending search for ways to do better things better
[...] it as a failure. I have written about the fact that CRM has never failed as a technology, but as a strategy, implementation, adoption, and as the result in delivering promised ROI. At the heart of it CRM [...]