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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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Whatever I have said before about “social enterprise” zealots, I need to take back now. They obviously saw something these, which many practitioners, like myself, have difficulties to apply to corporate IT initiatives. The Economist published a very interesting article this week “Disgruntled small investors in Canada flex their muscles” that is well worth reading, which describes how asymmetric relationship between large number of small customers and large institutions can unexpectedly be challenged by use of social networking and other tools of Web 2.0.
Following the example of their children and grandchildren, some small investors formed a group on Facebook, a social-networking site, to trade information, provide mutual support and plot strategy. Brian Hunter, the group administrator, says the site turned out to be an “amazing tool”. People who would never have met in real life, from pig farmers and retired loggers to MBA students and pastors, created a formidable interest group.
Campaigners were able to ensure that investors armed with information attended cross-country meetings held in late March and early April by the backers of the restructuring deal. “We had 300 raging grannies show up in Vancouver,” says Mr Hunter. “[The backers] got their heads handed to them at that meeting.”
The efforts of the campaigners paid off on April 9th, when Canaccord Capital, the investment broker that sold the paper to just over 1,400 of the 1,800 small investors, reversed its previous decision and said it would fully reimburse clients holding C$1m or less as long as the broader deal wins acceptance. Other companies have made similar promises and more are expected to do so before the vote.
If institutions are not capable to learn how to play on a more leveled playing field, the financial consequences can be devastating. That will probably apply to politics as well.
You go Grannies!
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I stumbled into the term in the middle of the 90’s when I found a set of CD’s, with Siebel software and manuals on my desk, along with brief instructions from my boss to implement it immediately. Since then I have been involved with dozens of “CRM” projects utilizing various technologies from Goldmine and Clarify, to Scopus and SugarCRM. A few of these experiences were very rewarding, but most…..
At some point I tried to explain the meaning of CRM to a non-corporate friend in terms she would understand, as a method and platform that can enable an “old time” relationship with customers in our “mass” markets. She lives in a small town in Pays de la Loire and shops in a small, local market where the proprietors know what and when she likes to buy better than she does. She understood the meaning of CRM, but the institutions that invested billions did not.
The institutions largely implemented CRM focusing on managing customers as opposed to building relationships with them, and often failed to transcend the blinders of departmentally-constructed processes/mentality, to become true “peers”. There are some very notable exceptions such as Amazon, 1-800-Contacts, LL Bean among others which have demonstrated an authenticity of interest in having a relationship with their customers, but I have never encountered one in the B2B space and would like to hear about it.
Paul Greenberg, the dean of CRM blogosphere, wrote an excellent post in his blog which you should read IMO, where I found this quote from Bill Band of Forrester Research:
“In this new world, traditional CrM solutions will continue to aggregate customer data, analyze that data, and automate workflow to optimize business processes. But CRM professionals must find innovative ways to engage with emerging “social consumers” enrich the customer experience through community based interactions and architect solutions that are flexible and foster strong intra-organization and customer collaboration.”
It seems that Web 2.0 tools and their proliferation offers an opportunity to re-focus CrM to CRm, to tip the scale for benefit of more authentic relationship not between Institutions, or an Organization and a customer, but between persons, whether they happen to be members of institutional groups or not. However there are two big issues we still need to negotiate to make meaningful progress:
1. change our behavior
2. change the processes, which support our “pre-historic” institutional behavior.
Forward looking organizations started to pay attention to the voices of their customers by “spydering” the blogs etc., but most don’t even treat customer issues brought to them directly with appropriate respect because they perceive these relationship as asynchronous, one to many. However, now there are a few web based platforms, like ResellerRatings.com or Getsatisfaction, promising to aggregate voices of many into a roar that can potentially dwarf squeaking of paid advertising messages broadcast without regard to reality of customer experience. They are still in infancy when it comes to their effectiveness, but the improvement of rating consistency and active connectivity with a product and/or vendor, will make it into a powerful weapon.
They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC), Analects
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