CRM and Simplicity: What Do Our Customers Really Want?

Have you stopped to think about what it is that our customers really want? Aside from wanting a great product or service at a great price, customers want a positive customer experience. What exactly constitutes an overall positive experience for our customers? I truly believe that simplicity should be the word of the day when we are engaged in CRM. It goes beyond the ease of placing orders; how easy is it for customers to contact us or interact with our company?

It is worth the effort to find out how our customers prefer to contact us and how they prefer to be contacted. Some customers prefer the whole e-commerce realm, while others may not mind e-mail, but much prefer using the phone. Whatever their preference, part of a positive customer experience is helping to make whatever choice of contact as simple as possible. Instead of the main phone number for your company, why not give your customers your direct line? Customers will appreciate direct access to you rather than going through the maze of electronic options found in so many companies today.

Another key to simplicity is to ensure that your company website is current and easy to navigate. If a customer's first impression of our company is an outdated and user-unfriendly website, we may lose the sale before we even realize it.

Finally, for a really simple CRM guideline, ask your customers how you are doing. Find out from your customers what they think of your company, and ask them for ways their experience can be improved. The simple question of "How Are We Doing?" will go a long way in solidifying your customer relationships and showing the customer that they really matter and their opinions are highly valued.

The simple approach to CRM will indeed yield invaluable benefits for your customers and the organization.

"A vocabulary of truth and simplicity will be of service throughout your life." – Winston Churchill

Common sense and Other Sales Tactics

When you think about it, at the core of our customer relationships, it is really all about common sense. We need to approach our customers in the way we would like to be approached. Let's face it; we never really turn down an opportunity to talk about ourselves, and our customers are no exception. We need to be willing to really listen and encourage our customers to talk. Discussing their company's history, their industry, corporate climate, and plans for the future will all help us to learn about their needs and how we can provide value to them and their business.

Common sense also dictates that we treat our customers as we wish to be treated. That goes without saying, but perhaps the most important common sense approach we need to keep in mind is to be ourselves. The business world is ripe with catch phrases these days, and I think it is very important to not turn into a walking lexicon of business-ese. How often do we actually use the terms "paradigm shift" or "take it to the next level" in our normal conversations? We need to just be ourselves; be authentic, and I am betting our customers will be much more apt to feel more at ease and be willing to discuss their situation.

According to Webster's dictionary, common sense is "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts". Sound, wise in handling practical matters, and simple. Those are vital keys we need to keep in mind whenever we interact with our customers.

"Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done." C.E. Stowe 

If You Assume, You May Lose

One of the biggest lessons to be learned in the world of customer service, is never assume anything. I believe that is an even more valuable lesson in the world of Social CRM, since our interactions via the World Wide Web can be so easily misinterpreted. And those interactions can include our lack of response when it comes to a customer voicing a concern or making suggestions. Sadly, I have heard CSR's resign themselves to the fact that if a customer is really upset about a product or service, they will simply try to do a better job for the customer next time they place an order.

I have to ask, what if there is no next time? What if that customer is so ticked off they never contact us again and place another order? As marketers, we must be willing to follow up with any customer who voices a concern or is unhappy for any reason. We simply cannot assume "they will get over it" or even that the customer will return to place more orders.

At the same time, we also must be careful not to assume that just because a customer is upset, this automatically means they never want to speak to us again. A customer may rifle off an e-mail or Facebook post in hasty anger, and then regret it later. Or they may be genuinely upset, and our willingness to reach out to them may mean the difference between keeping that valuable customer or losing them to a competitor.

A CSR recently received a very angry e-mail from a customer who was upset about the company's lack of credible information regarding when their order was going to be shipped. The customer all but accused the company of lying about this information, and went on to inform the CSR that they would be recommending that their procurement group look at other sources for their requirements, since they could not live with this level of poor service. This e-mail was shared with the CSR's manager as well as the logistics manager of the company. This was one very upset customer who also represented a large account for this company.

An investigation into what happened to this particular order revealed several areas of failure, chief among them being the lack of follow up by several people who assumed the order was being handled and who passed along invalid information to the customer. The CSR contacted the customer, was truthful with the customer regarding what happened, and outlined the steps that were taken to avoid this in the future. In addition, the CSR offered free shipping and a discount on the order. The customer e-mailed the CSR back, thanking them for the follow up, and then noted that this experience was so out of character for this company, that the customer had thought there must have been some sort of problem out of the ordinary that caused this unpleasant chain of events. The customer went from threatening to pull their business to sharing accolades about their prior customer service experience.

What if the CSR had assumed the customer would simply get over it? Or that the customer was so upset they would not even want to talk to the CSR? This may have had a totally different outcome, had it not been for the CSR reaching out and being truthful with the customer. The CSR called this customer, and did not rely on more e-mails being traded back and forth, which may have caused an even greater rift in this customer relationship. Assumptions in this case, may have resulted in a lost account and the negative press that goes along with such a loss.

Indeed, if you assume, you may lose.

"Assumptions are the termites of relationships." Henry Winkler

Social Media and the Customer Experience

The use of social media as part of the marketing strategy should not be all about the corporation. We need to view social media as the perfect venue in which to create and focus on excellence in the customer experience. This is going to be the best advertising our companies will ever engage in, and our ability to focus on the customer, and to respond to them within the realm of social media will make or break us. Customers will remember the experience long after they have forgotten about the product, and our ability to create an engaging on-line community focused on our customers, will be the key to CRM.

We must resist the temptation to make our social media avenues one-way streets and all about us. We need to have a strategy for inviting responses from our customers AND for responding to them. Perhaps it is this second part of the social media equation that is most important. Ignoring customers concerns, or even worse, deleting negative comments from our social media venues is a recipe for disaster. Talk about a domino effect! We should view our social media interactions with our customers and potential customers in the same way as our in-person encounters. Creating environments within our social media sites which are inviting to customers and truly convey that the customer is first, will make for a winning marketing strategy.

Look for ways to be innovative and centered on the overall customer experience with both your products as well as your social media sites.

Create two-way streets with the customer at the center of the conversations. Create a collaborative environment.

Sincerely embrace any negative feedback as a great opportunity to acknowledge the customer's importance  to your business. Your customers will thank you for it.

"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." Bill Gates

Customer Loyalty: People or Products

What exactly are our customers loyal to? Products or people? As marketers, are we more concerned with building customer loyalty to our products and increasing product loyalty or are we building our marketing plans around the customer (people)? Of course we want people to buy our products or services, but if the focus of our plan is the product and not people, we may be missing a key ingredient in the CRM equation.

Think about your own best customer service experience. What made it stand out in your mind: was it really about the epic product you bought or was it the outstanding personal interaction between you as the customer and the sales person?

I recently purchased a wi-fi mobile hot spot device from a wireless phone service provider. After researching various wireless carriers, and narrowing down my choice to 2 companies that provided just what I was looking for at very comparable rates, I spoke with sales people from both companies. In each case, the sales people were very knowledgeable, and able to answer all my questions, and had plans and products that met all my needs. But one company seemed more people oriented, while the other was more product focused. I went back at a later time to visit the more people-focused company, and they even remembered my name, where I worked, and my basic wi-fi Internet needs. They got my business. What I remember was the experience, and when I talk to others about this company, I am sharing that experience with them; I am not talking to others about the product.

Take a look at your marketing and business plans. Are they all about the people (customers) or all about the products? To convert followers to customers and then to keep customers, our social media and other marketing plans must be all about the customer, not our products.

• Make it easy for customers to contact us. 
• Make our social media sites user-friendly, uncluttered, and visually appealing. 
• Develop a strong customer-focused mission statement and make sure it is displayed prominently on your websites, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social media venues. 

Make sure you and everyone you work with truly walks the customer-focused talk.

Data Mining in the Social Media World

Have you thought about the huge data mining landscape we have before us within the world of social media? While it may not be the "final frontier", the use of the various social media venues we now have at our disposal can yield very targeted and specific data mining results.

Take Twitter, for example. You can easily see the latest items of interest that are trending, either from a world view or a domestic view. Even more revealing, are those tweets about specific products or companies; one can easily gauge the interests of the Twitter community and map out the trends to get a feel for what works and what doesn't in terms of the ability to create buzz and promote your product awareness. It is a diamond in the rough for a marketer.

And don't forget about all those Facebook postings about who-went-where-and-ate-what-for-lunch. You get the idea. All these seemingly useless and mindless posts about every facet of someone's life can be viewed as a target rich data minefield, when viewed through the eyes of a marketer. Learn to spot trends and analyze those trends; chances are you will start to develop a keen eye for what your target segment looks like, and how to create more awareness for your brand.

Indeed, social media is a real data mining adventure. Start to look at social media as a very hands on and cost effective way to get the data you need to identify your target market, and develop and promote your product. You will start to see some very immediate results.

So put on your miner's hat, fire up your favorite social media account, and start to look for those all important nuggets of information that will get you pointed in the right direction.

"Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing, that we see too late the one that is open." Alexander Graham Bell

Social CRM: Where Social Media and Customers Meet

Social media is here to stay. Love it or hate it, social media can be a powerful tool in the marketing tool basket. But how do we leverage all this social media-ness, and still engage our customers? Is it even possible? The key is still creating and maintaining those relationships, whether through social media or live, in person meetings. It is still all about the customer, and social media can enhance the customer experience and invite the customer to be a collaborator.

So don't just create a Facebook page or a LinkedIn profile and hope they will come. You have to create those moments and utilize the power of the Internet and social media to keep the customer engaged.

If you build it right, they will come.