Be Increasingly Accessible or Increasingly Irrelevant
Speaking at a conference in Switzerland in September of 2000, Doc Searls commented that “The most important market place in the history of civilization is designed to value the man on the street. The individual human being.” See the speech here.
In our approach to Social CRM, are we thinking of customers as individual human beings. Are we showing them how much we value them or are we using social technology to treat them like targets? It may be important to determine this early because whilst talking to human beings is normal, talking to targets is just plain weird.
The ‘R’ in social CRM stands for relationships just like it does in CRM. Without conversations, meaningful relationships are difficult to nurture. The lack of conversation dehumanizes transactions and turns business into a sterile and mechanical dance. Despite the fact that sterile transactions can be ideal in some situations, they are poor for customer facing organizations. In Africa, we still tell stories at the local market and build relationships with makers and traders. Although we have had big shopping malls, fixed prices and big international brands for over 75 years, they haven’t made our local market and its culture redundant. And they won’t any time soon.
In describing the difference between the internet and the intranet, Christopher Locke made an observation that remains a fact of life today, so many years later.
“There are two new conversations going on today, both vibrant and exciting; both mediated by Internet technologies but having little to do with technology otherwise. Unfortunately, there’s also a metaphorical firewall separating these conversations, and that wall is the traditional, conservative, fearful corporation.” Christopher Locke – Cluetrain Manifesto 2000 A.D.
The fearful corporation found a cloak to cover its fear. One that was designed to help it succeed while preserving itself from the contaminating ‘socialness’ of the world outside. That cloak was sometimes called CRM. Sometimes it was ERP. The point was to talk to the customers about transactions and nothing else. Do not involve them in internal conversations or involve yourself in theirs. Customers are targets, so treat them accordingly.
The result was that businesses were left out of the conversations happening about them on the Internet. And they remained oblivious to the conversations happening about them and their product on their very own intranets. CRM/ERP/fancy-name-technology wasn’t about conversations. It was about transactions and leads and prospects and orders and inventory and meetings. At least they way it was implemented by many. The truth is CRM is not a technology first but a philosophy, a business attitude even. It’s about relationships, conversations and keeping everything in context for the good of the customer and the business. The technology and the other bits and bobs allow the philosophy/approach/attitude to scale and remain somewhat replicable without breaking the bank.
Take off the cloak, transform the firewall, have no fear. On this side of the new normal, businesses should allow the customer to walk in and influence the service/product and participate in the internal conversation. The stifling inability to access the business and be heard first results in the rise of coping mechanisms and then alternatives to the status quo [read competition]. Once an alternative is in play, the firewalled business begins to breathe its last, deprived off business’ most important nutrient, feedback. Feedback from customers and feedback from staff on what customers are saying.
It’s simple really. Be increasingly accessible as an organization or increasingly irrelevant as customers find others more willing to the let them in and treat them like valuable human beings.
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