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| "Here is that pie lard Mrs. Douglas. I'm sure your pie will be delicious." |
It is a beautiful sunny day in the summer of 1962. Your
grandmother is having guests over and decides to serve a roast chicken and bake
a savoury pumpkin pie. She takes her handbag and makes her way to the local
Rudy’s Grocery located just a couple of blocks from her home. The grocer greets
her warmly. The grocer knows that your grandmother has several small children
and stays at home with them while your grandfather goes to work. He is aware of their product needs, buying
patterns, even keeps mind of your family’s fiscal state. Today he has prepared
several tubs of lard for her, the brand that she loves because it makes the
flakiest pie crust. This is one of the earliest examples of customer
relationship management.
Customer relationship Management or CRM is all about amalgamating
business practices and the marketing mix in order to create meaningful, long-term
professional relationships. With so much progress in the CRM field it’s
exciting to envision what the future will hold. http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Columns-Departments/Reality-Check/CRM-The-Past-and-the-Future-42412.aspx
From CRM to sCRM:
The Evolution continues
Social CRM has become a dominating player in the CRM world,
and is sure to continue its’ momentum. Twitter is the fastest growing portal
for sCRM, but Facebook and Pinterest hold a strong presence in the market. Sales
teams have learned that in order to survive they must use Social CRM (sCRM) to
discover customer’s needs and interests. These marketers/sales professionals
must keep in mind that a Facebook page or Twitter feed is not a one-way channel
for a sales pitch, and are missing sCRM opportunities by not replying to
troubleshooting requests, or criticisms.
The future of SCRM will require additional efforts from businesses/marketers
to provide the definitive personalized experience. From a technological standpoint we are seeing
programs, apps and shareable material to create personalized material. The future
of Social CRM will require a unification of these components. Gone are the days
of a customer’s importance being transactional, now relationships with others
in the social media word are a key gauge of value.
Generation ‘C’:
The Next Target
Generation C are young adults who have evolved
out of the social media sensation. Generation C thrive on perpetual
connectivity to and the social status achieved through the sharing or
co-creating of relevant/trendy material. Businesses will have to be innovative
in order to capture these consumers attention. The Gen C consumer is also
driven by a tribe mentality –and depends highly on peer approval. In the future marketers will have to modify
their CRM/sCRM programs to adapt to these attention hungry,tech-savvy
consumer.http://jobsearchtech.about.com/od/techindustrybasics/a/Generation_C.htm
As we see the power shift to the
consumer we will undoubtedly see marketers developing stronger and more
creative tactics to produce a stronger impact. The future of CRM and sCRM holds
unlimited possibilities – business leaders heed my warning: Adapt or decline
into obscurity.
Bibliography
http://damangmedia.com/5-benefits-customer-relationship-management/
http://www.salesforce.com/sales-cloud/features/?d=70130000000sC6k&internal=true#accounts
Image from Google
Image Search, all rights reserved – Getty Images
Video taken from Youtube.com
– Sourced by salesforce.comMercedes Simon
001134778
I liked the analogy of the basic form of CRM in the example of the grandmother visiting the small local grocer who knew everything about her shopping habits. Great example.
ReplyDeleteThanks Marianne. I thought it was a great depiction of how basic levels of customer service naturally evolved into CRM. We still see that type of basic CRM today, although it is becoming more technologically based.
Deletei learned alot about crm., but always in books, but your blog gives a clear informaion aout crm,the video you use is really interesting.
ReplyDeleteAs always pal, really informative and really well written. It was interesting to see the evolution of CRM and then to see how it's continuing to change today, and just how important it is in the world of business. Good job.
ReplyDeleteGreat Job Mercedes,
ReplyDeleteQuite a lot to digest, I found your blog to be very informative, and full of so much I didn't even know, even after reading two blogs on CRM. I like the transition from how CRM was (grandmother in grocery store) to the future of social media. I also never knew about the 'Generation C' and found that bit to be quite fascinating. As this course goes on and on, I am grasping even further how much marketing is being emphasized online. Being a bit of an old one in the class, I remember working at Zellers and the CRM was mainly taken by the customer service desk in the form of a retail firing line. Consumers come in, complain, and are compensated with a new product, or a refund. Depending on the issue sometimes a courtesy letter in the mail was sent, but quite often nothing past a phone call to follow up. Now with the popular growth of social media, your outline of how its being used, especially for the youth, was amazing.
Hats off as always Mercedes, great job
ReplyDeleteHey Mercedes
Your blog had a lot of great information on CRM. I really liked the video you've posted. It gives a great description and understanding on what CRM is all about. You described CRM exceptionally well and definatly know a lot more about CRM than I did prior to reading your blog. You did a great job at describing how CRM is evolving to sCRM
Really great job!
Hey Mercedes,
ReplyDeleteGreat job, a lot of information to gather and very informative. Learned a lot about CRM that i didn't know prior. "Generation C" was a very interesting thing to grasp probably the thing that i thought was the most interesting, people who have already evolved out of the social media sensation. Overall very well done and learned a lot that i had not none previously reading other blogs.
Hello Mercedes
ReplyDeletefantastic job, the amount of big words you use is beyond me. very informative about CRM. I knew pretty much nothing going into this so now i am able to say ive learned about CRM and hows its evolving. Great job
Elliott
Hello Mercedes
ReplyDeleteYour post is quite well done, I enjoyed your comment "As we see the power shift to the consumer we will undoubtedly see marketers developing stronger and more creative tactics to produce a stronger impact. The future of CRM and sCRM holds unlimited possibilities – business leaders heed my warning: Adapt or decline into obscurity." I agree that companies need to adapt or they will disappear.
Very great word choices
David
Hello Mercedes,
ReplyDeleteBefore this blog I knew very little about CRM but after reading and going over your entry thoroughly, I have definitely gained a better understanding of the topic. Very well researched!
Andrew
I had no idea what "generation C" was, learning about that was a very interesting part of your blog post. To see the direction that the business world is heading to it only makes sense that CRM would head that way too.
ReplyDeleteNice post Mercedes.
Hello Mercedes,
ReplyDeleteA great post! I loved that I learned so much about CRM that I didn't know before; things such as, Generation C. I found the information presented was very interesting. The analogy about the grandmother in the grocery store and social media, really helped me understand the concept a lot better. Thank you!
Kellen Cummings
Hello Mercedes,
ReplyDeleteYou used a great example to explain CRM . It shows that small details of an employee remembering someone's name, especially a certain order or preferred products goes a long way. It keeps customer loyalty which ultimately is a deciding factor on helping company keep longevity.
interesting post.
ReplyDeletethere are vast opportunities that CRM still has not yet discovered. i think it will just get better.
Great job Mercedes,
ReplyDeleteThat was a very good example to help us understand CRM. It conveys alot of the small factors that takes place in ensuring their consumers are happy and pleased with the service they have received. Lots of great information as well.
Good job!
Brad
Wow. This is one of the best posts I’ve read. It’s engaging and informative. Impressive. I never thought of SCRM and Gen C CRM before. Interesting to see how they’re going to move on from SCRM. Maybe google glasses will be one.
ReplyDeleteWell written post, I believe that there is many ways that CRM will grow as the internet and social networking blows up as well. This will be interesting to see what happens.
ReplyDelete-Joe
Great Information towards the evolution of CRM and then to see how it's continuing to change in todays society. Great Visuals that related to the Topic.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Mercedes! I particularly liked your feature image, you have great examples of CRM. Clearly social CRM is becoming a must with major companies and even small businesses where customer service issues are being dealt with through Facebook and Twitter.
ReplyDeleteHuy