When Will CRM Finally Work Properly?

IBA GroupMark HillaryCompanies such as banks have complained for years that their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system doesn’t really work. The systems are expensive and yet they rarely return what was promised when the sales team demonstrated what could be achieved.But I think that often, the real point of CRM has been lost somewhere between the software company sales pitch, the implementation, and the end user trying to make sense of how the system operates. A recent article in The Financial Brand magazine lists 6 important reasons why you should be reconsidering CRM. The first reason asks these questions: “How will the data in the CRM benefit my customer?” “How can I use this to speed up our process, to benefit my customer?” “What events could be triggered using this data to help my customer?” “Is there info that can be gained from the data that would help me do what is best for my customer.” “How can my sales team best use the data to identify opportunities to help my customer?”I entirely support this view. If the CRM system is not entirely focused on planning how processes and data can benefit the customer then there is no value in the system.I would go further and argue that with the abilities we now have, CRM expectations should be much higher. Think of your mobile phone company as a good example. They probably offer you a monthly tariff on a fixed contract that offers a certain amount of minutes talk-time, texts, and Internet access.But if you use too much Internet time or talk too much the customer usually gets hit with penalties – or very high per minute costs.Yet, why would any company want to do this to a customer? You want to help the customer, not hit them with penalties surely? Why not use the data that you have on how this customer behaves – how many minutes they use on average each month, how much Internet data they use – and offer a special tariff designed just for that individual customer?We have the Big Data expertise to do this and the CRM systems, but there has rarely been a connection between the data and how it can truly help the customer. For companies that want to succeed today, this has to change.