Well, this is the traditional “Hello World!” post that every blogger has ever written, so I may as well follow tradition and write my own. CRM Bytes is a blog dedicated to exploring the concept of Customer Relationships, and applying technology to aid in gaining and retaining customers. CRM is traditionally thought of as a series of applications (Sales, Marketing, Support, etc.) that allow companies to track their customers and their customer’s activities, for the purpose of organizing sales leads, tracking marketing campaigns and return on investment, and organizing customer support so as to better service customers. There have been a variety of software applications that have been created over the last decade to try to meet that objective. Yet at the end of the day, all of those software applications miss the point and do not fully realize the need that they set out to fulfill. CRM is about more than just software tool sets; it is, rather, a way of thinking and interacting with customers that allow a company to know its customer and its customer to know the company, all with the objective of driving increased sales by improving the customer experience.
All of this does not mean that software and technology do not play a part. The right CRM software solutions can be used to help propel a business to success in marketing products and services to its customers, not just once, but many times over. Software alone is not enough however, and no single software package is so all-encompassing so as to fulfill the CRM need for any medium to large company. In order for a company to achieve the goal of CRM, it takes a mindset and a direction, along with a whole host of technology solutions.
As CRM Bytes begins its life, CRM is on the verge of a CRM 2.0 revolution. Much like the Web 2.0 revolution, CRM 2.0 focuses on leveraging social networking technology along with traditional CRM processes to create a customer experience as well as customer management. I take it a step further and argue that CRM must take advantage of all technology that is out there, and the key to the successful CRM systems of the next decade will be those that leverage social networking, mobile technology, streaming video, unified communications, as well as all of the evolutionary new technologies that are being introduced even now.
As a technology product manager who has had a decade of experience in CRM implementations, communications, software design, as well as analyzing and implementing business processes, I plan to explore both the current news and trends in CRM, as well as look forward to using technology to solve the problems faced by the corporate enterprise in interacting with customers. Business is all about retaining customers, and a succesful business must succeed at CRM in order to thrive in the years ahead.
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