I had two pre-conceived ideas going into the conference: that we'd get a lot of theory and that we would hear CRM was the dog's bollocks. Pleasantly wrong on both counts. Most of the speakers - apart from the odd vendor - opened by saying that CRM was really nothing new. One went as far as to say they'd stopped anyone using the term in their organisation and that they referred instead to 'customer care'.
I applauded their view of the customer being the key stakeholder - external and internal. So, their own people were an integral part of the programme.
Makes you feel all warm inside? Hold that thought.
Another speaker explained how his company had approached CRM and how they'd changed their way of dealing with the external customer via an IVR booking system.
Given their particular business is completely dependent on how quickly they can handle calls, it was a necessity for them. It was a great case study and demonstrated that they had made 20 per cent savings per annum - around $400,000 - on manpower costs. Bearing in mind the other speaker's point on internal stakeholders I was interested in how they had improved their staff's handling of the public.
Well, it appeared to be based on the US three-strike rule. One mistake and they got a 'demerit', two and they got another, three and they were out. Perhaps I had missed the part on retraining and improving their soft skills first. Stick without the carrot?
On dealing with the customer, we heard examples of targeting every 'n'th customer and carrying out telephone research on how claims were handled, through to in-depth focus groups measuring customer satisfaction indices.
All great, but did they promote the resulting changes to their customers?
We do a customer relationship programme in Malaysia for a global client.
Part of the programme is that our base gets double the regular points given on purchases at a well-known record shop. As the contract was up for renewal, we were arguing internally about keeping or changing the deal. So, we emailed the base. Within 48 hours we got our answer - discounts rather than points. We negotiated the contract based on that but, more importantly, we wrote to all the members and told them why we were changing it - because of them.
After two days I was left with the feeling that the companies who have successfully implemented CRM (or customer care) did not just 'listen, learn and respond', but made effective changes and then told their stakeholders.
And as one of the speakers said 'you don't need a vendor to tell you that'.