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CRM -
Help or Hurt?
This commentary was triggered by reading several
articles on CRM, the current consultant-hyped, systems integrators solution
to allowing companies to ‘get closer’ to their customers, to make the
interaction one-to-one, to provide data to be mined and enhance service
opportunities. But what the articles do not often relate is
how, in the process of installing and instituting CRM measures, the human
interaction that provides so much of the customer retention part of the
equation can get lost.
Programs are set up that sluice clients through
streams of phone options and menus in order to arrive, hopefully, at a
dulcet (and helpful) human voice at the end of the process.
Data displayed on the operators’ screens can tell them the client’s
balances and various interactions with the organization. They even project their lifetime customer value
and give them star ratings to let the customer service reps know how much
latitude to extend the person on the other end of the line. Systems and procedures can help the back office
staff do accounting, special orders, focused discounting, order management,
shipping and delivering, all without ever personally interacting
with the client in question – there are never people at the other end
of the interaction, only account numbers to be billed, seats to be filled,
and metrics to be optimized. The
Fedex delivery person probably knows your customer better
than you do.
What adds real value to people in a world
of increasing complexity, emotional distance (isolation) and an ever-increasing
pace, is the opportunity to interact in a small but real fashion.
Stepping into the deli that you’ve been going to for years and
having the counterman just raise a questioning eyebrow signaling the unasked
question – ‘the usual?’ – provides a small moment of relief from the isolation
that we are surrounded with daily. The grocery store clerk who asks about how
your new car is doing or whether your kid finally managed a hit in his
little league games gives us a sense that we are somehow connected to
our community and to the other people in the world, and not just to organizations,
brands and markets. Some membership-based
clubs have “members tables”, where unaccompanied
members can sit together and chat during a meal, rather than eating alone. Coffee shops subtly encourage human interaction
and development of a sense of “community” by having long tables with stools
for individual seating, where a newcomer can easily strike up a casual
conversation with a stranger.
Human interaction is the reason that some
people still use travel agents. I
know that the airlines take advantage of the fact that many travelers
are price sensitive and so they incent travelers to deal directly with them as opposed to
working with travel agents. But
when I travel on business, I want to deal with someone who already knows
that I need a window seat (and will take a different flight in order to
get one) because of my motion sickness, or who doesn’t need to ask which
hotel I need in Chicago because I’ve been on the same project for the
past three months. When I call the airline, even the highest level
of premier desk – I still get a collection of Missy’s and Catherine’s
and Howard’s and Linda’s. And each
time we have to start over again and I have to explain all my personal
foibles, exposing them to the daily emotional whims of an army of customer
service reps who don’t know me from a hole-in-the-wall.
I’m an **EXP** on their computer screen and that tells them they
better treat me well, but they’re not treating me well because they see
me every week and know that maybe I went through a rough patch a few months
ago or that I’m excited about a new job or that I need this vacation so
much it hurts and I really need this process to be very easy today.
And even worse, I don’t know anything about them—even when I do
find out that Cathy used to live in Southern Cal
and that her brother just moved here or that Howard is also a big Redskins
fan, I never get to talk to Cathy or Howard again.
Those moments become part of the flotsam and jetsam of life, rather
than the small building blocks of community, contact and intimacy that
provide us growth and sustenance in our daily routine.
Integrating the Human Part of the Equation
Wisely led companies take the time to figure
out how to integrate the human into their systems approach. Take for instance, the aforementioned Trader
Joe’s. They have made a conscious
decision to slow down the pace of technology adoption while they test
how to retain the neighborhood feel of their stores that is such an important
component of their brand. They
could have gone straight for the bottom line cost savings – wholesale
change to bar code checkout registers and detached checkers throwing your
food (your sustenance…) in the bag. Instead,
they decided to step back, look at what value they receive from their
checkout interactions, and figure out a way to integrate technology so
as not to lose that value, and, hopefully, to
enhance it.
On the other hand, some companies go so far
down the technology path that they don’t even realize they’ve cut off
their own lifeblood. For many,
a glaring example of this is those technology companies that moved employees
from tech support (where they were truly getting to know the customer
and interact in a helpful, knowledgeable way), into sales and marketing,
where they are rewarded only for closing the sale, not building and maintaining
the long-term personal relationships.
These are companies who did not take the time to identify the critical
human interaction points – not decision points, not sales points,
not complaint points – but those points where the human side of their
company interacted with the human in their customers and subtly enhanced
their brand value.
The pace of our evolution is quickening, and
as part of it we will be continually fighting the trend towards greater
and greater impersonalization in every aspect of our lives. The point of this is not to say that systems
don’t belong in business – hardly a position a former systems analyst,
integration and strategy consultant is likely to take. The point is that companies need to rely on
more than systems (especially primitive, dehumanizing, first-generation
technological systems) in their efforts to increase their business, retain
their customers and provide a human environment for their employees. These are considerations that strategists must
put into the equation when making recommendations on how organizations
business models are translated into practice.
There is much to be gained by permitting, encouraging and enhancing
the opportunities for human interaction.
And there is much to be lost, both for us and for our evolving
society, by continually closing more and more of the doors of our humanity.
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