Global CRM

Global CRM

I've been involved recently with developing curricular material both for CRM and CEM (Customer Experience Management) training. It's a fascinating exercise.

First, people like me (aka CONSULTANTS) have a bad rap: we offer superficial advice and we leave the scene before the real work gets done. We'll that's not always true, but generally the executives I deal with take a jaundiced view of consultants (not of me, of course!).

But to create curricular material requires that one focus on what is proven and what is really practiced. This means I've been devoting a lot of time determining the state of the art of marketing, operational and strategic thinking -- and behaviors -- coming out of global companies.

This is not a stretch for me, particularly, since I try my best to keep up with this stuff anyway.

But it does force me to ORGANIZE this information so it can be quickly understood and, ideally, adopted.

And this is where it's interesting.

Because, in training as in life, adopting what you learn is plain hard. I just finished a series of articles for CRM Today that featured my interview with EuroRSCG's strategy planner Jerome Guilbert. One of the points hidden in the interview is that his customer strategies only partly penetrate his client's operations and thinking. Here he is, one of the smartest guys in the customer strategy business, and big companies don't really "get" what he's telling them.

Even if they understand it, they're not ready to act on it.

And that's what happens with curricular material. How can you present the latest research and "best practices" and hope to get the audience to both understand it and act on it?

I've been using a lot of case studies lately. That's been terrific. I found them especially helpful in my seminars recently in Malaysia. But case studies are compelling stories -- with points that emerge in discussion -- and they can only go so far in helping someone actually convert the knowledge into action in his/her specific case.

It's tough.

But here's what I've concluded, after doing dozens of modules of this type: I'm training thinkers, not necessarily doers. The key first step in CRM -- and CEM -- is recognizing the value of customers. It's too glib to say they're "important". How do you measure their value? How do you create more? How do you describe customers' needs? How do you monitor them? All these "hows" must be preceded by this simple realization. Everything nowadays starts with customer insight.

If I can get that across, I've accomplished something.

Of course, the devil's in the details.

Which is where consultants come in, I guess. :)