Last week I blogged that Customer Relationship Management is not dead - despite some recent claims to the contrary from a few of my colleagues. But while I am quick to defend the honor of CRM against all naysayers and nincompoops, I'm also one of the first to admit that CRM isn't quite perfect either -- at least not yet. So, what's still missing, and where does CRM have some room for improvement? Perhaps we should look to our local coffehouse for the answer.
Early one Monday morning while waiting for my customary triple-shot of caffeinated, low-fat, mocha goodness (half-asleep with a string of drool on my chin) I marveled at how effortlessly my favorite coffee chain combines world-class customer service with an almost-obnoxious operational efficiency. It's not even six a.m. yet, but my barista is moving at full speed with a smile glued to her face like an Olympic ice-dancing champion. Perhaps it is the intoxicating smell of freshly brewed Java, but I allow my groggy, un-caffeinated mind to quickly ponder what would happen if the CRM industry tried to compete in the retail coffee business? What would happen, for example, if CRM practitioners made Venti triple-mocha lattes?
Well, first of all, I suppose we would ditch those paper cups and plastic lids - which work just fine - and introduce the world's most technologically-engineered (cloud-based) coffee-cup platforms. The titanium-alloy lids would have built-in thermal detection and reporting systems which would display the temperature in Kelvin. The cups would contain variable fluid-volume sensors that would send workflow notifications to our managers and Twitter followers whenever our cups were low. Both the cup and lid would come unassembled in several pieces that could be configured in at least a dozen different industry flavors. And we would need to take our cups to a third-party systems integrator who would charge us ten bucks to install a spout so that we could drink our coffee - which by now would be cold. To solve this dilemma, companies would offer an optional temperature-maintenance service, where for a yearly fee they would provide a dedicated team of off-shore support staff to remotely reheat our coffee within three working days. Or, alternatively, we could license our coffee "on demand" from a cloud; each time we wanted to take a sip we would need to hold our cups up toward the skies waiting for the clouds to rain hot coffee. Sounds promising, I wonder if the venture capital folks...
Abruptly, my early-morning day dream was interrupted when my barista handed me my extra-hot-low-foam-Venti-triple-mocha-skim-latte. Clearly, I concluded, CRM practitioners would not succeed in the retail consumer coffee market. Coffee junkies want their fix, and they want it quick. Coffee addicts have no patience for things like project failures, service outages, bugs, long implementations, high integration costs, or expensive third-party add-ons. People are serious about coffee, and there is absolutely no margin of error. Without a steady, fast-flowing supply of caffeine, most businesses in the world would come to a stand still. Imagine what would happen if everyone was as unforgiving-ly serious about CRM as we are about coffee?
In defense of CRM, coffee has been around for at least 500 years (if not more), while the CRM industry has only been around for about 10 years. The first few cups of coffee ever attempted probably didn't taste that great either - burnt and bitter I bet, with bits of dirt and debris. But gradually people learned from their mistakes and quality of a cup of brew improved. And so is the story with CRM. The first few CRM implementations probably weren't pretty. And even though we've made great strides, we still find the occasional dead bug or bit of tree bark in our CRM mugs. But we're definitely on the right track - as evidenced by the current migration away from operational CRM, to analytical and social CRM.
So, what's the lesson to be learned from all of this talk about coffee? The lesson is that if the CRM industry really wants to become as beloved and ubiquitous as the morning cup of brew, we need to understand that it's not about technology, software, platforms, cloud computing, or whatever. It's certainly not about marketing, hype, and buzzwords. And no - in case you're wondering - it's not about peddling a semi-addictive stimulant either. Rather, it's all about is providing people with something of value in a friendly, timely, and professional manner. If we do that right, and do it consistently, we might one day never have to answer another question about the health of CRM. Let's try and leave medical opinions to doctors and triple-mocha-lattes to baristas. Enjoy your CRM; sip and savor.
John Burton works at SAP as a director of product management in the CRM area, responsible for SAP's call center/contact center offering. In his free time he enjoys blogging and drinking coffee.