The biggest problem emerging in most studies is very poor ROI. And some of the companies cannot even evaluate that. The other problem is that employees do not commit themselves to actively manage customers. Emphases on word actively
First of all it is the mind set in companies to “set themselves in customers’ boots” Most CRM approaches are just an other way of technically manipulate customer base. We have to admit: there are very sophisticated ways of doing this.
There is a clear need to start thinking how to lead customer relationships- not just to manage them with sophisticated “exel” exercises. Leading customer relationships means that customers are part of organization and need active attention. So first we need to think what are we going to do in leadership.
For many companies this is a change process: a change process from product and production oriented approach to customer relationship oriented approach. We could call it customership-oriented. And it is not same as customer centric approach.
We think that mind-ware we need is to integrate both customer view and company view. Customer evaluates how strong the relationship is: how easily customer will switch to other supplier.
Company view is customer relationship value. How valuable this relationship is for us. And it is not only customer relationship profitability but also other dimensions like reference value, learning value and maybe some others.
By integrating these views we will get customer’s position in our map. Then we can start defining what are our customer relationship strategies and customer care processes. Please see the illustration below.
Our mind ware will produce a mind set (culture) in companies where employees will commit themselves in two ways: commitment to employer and commitment to customers. With very concrete action plans.
It is clear this requires a lot of work. Most companies do not even recognise their most valuable customers. And they do not know how their customers think about the relationship strength. That is a good starting point.
Very concretely: CRM is not an IT project. In most cases efficient IT systems are needed, but not before Leading Customer Relationships mind-ware is successfully installed.