Would you come for advise to a doctor who cannot pronounce Health Care? I wouldn’t and it is mystifying why companies would want to pay for CRM research report from AMR - “The Customer Management Market Sizing Report, 2007-2012″ if it’s analysts do not understand that CRM stands for Relationship Management - not Customer Management. Even Wikipedia does not recognize such a thing. I would guess because there is no such thing. You can attempt to manage customers, but it will not be a very long attempt or very successful one because there will be no customers any more to manage.

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A few weeks ago, during InsideCRM webinar on Top 10 Things To Know about CRM, one of the attendants came with the question - is there a reason for CRM in a very small company, one person company? The answer I gave then (”primary value of CRM to one person company is in Contact management”) indicates that I am not very quick thinker, and that I tend to focus too much on Sales pillar of CRM strategy because it is much more challenging to implement profitably. However what I lack in speed…

This question came into light again when I read this in Seth Godin’s blog

If your small company can’t deliver a better experience (in areas people care about) than a big one, why on Earth should someone do business with you? I’m not saying you must have faster service, a bigger website, lower prices and twenty-four hour a day phone support. I’m saying that for some of your customers, you have to be monstrously, demonstrably, better.

There is surely no need to break informational “silos” at a one person company, when a person has informational “silos” problem it is more of a clinical challenge that a business one. However the flawless Customer communications, fulfillment, billing and support processes are a very real and formidable challenge even when you have very few customers. Properly used CRM application can help you do just that through use of simple practices of documenting ALL your Customer communication instances and the promises/commitments you have made during these communications. The next step is to create and automate simple workflows to translate these communications into Calendar entries with ticklers to remind you when the time comes to act on your promises. Commonly most people find these things to be too tedious and time consuming to practice, but of course most people do not succeed in small business.

It is unfortunate that so many CRM initiatives, large and small, are focused on achieving some efficiency instead of effectiveness of doing right things by your Customer.

I am a big fan of Seth Godin’s Blog. The brilliant post, which inspired me to write this, is named The magic of low hanging fruit.

It’s way more profitable to encourage each of your existing customers to spend $3 than it is to get a stranger to spend $300. It’s also more effective to get the 80% of your customer service people that are average to be a little better than it is to get the amazing ones to be better still.

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I had a new experience today being a guest speaker on InsideCRM webinar of the same title as this post. Chris Bucholtz was extremely nice to me, first inviting me to participate in their “Ask the Expert” panel, and now to share my CRM implementation thoughts. I am very grateful to Chris, to Erica Hsu who kept this undertaking on an even keel, to Leo Manson, my co-presenter from Microsoft, and the rest of InsideCRM folks who contributed to this event.

The webinar can be viewed by clicking on this link. If anybody is interested in the copy of Powerpoint slides and or notes, please email to me at gyankelovich@evolutionofbpr.com, and I will be happy to send a copy to you.

I have been reading lately a lot about “social software” and its impact on businesses large and small. It appears to me, and I am definitely not an expert, that the term’s definitions, which are many, boils down to three product groups:

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