Customer Management in 2003

It's that time of year, when we look forward to a fresh start; consider mistakes and resolve not to repeat them; and contemplate the ways in which we'd like to improve the world.

I'd spend a few minutes considering what I'd like to see 2003 deliver in the domain of CM customer management, a happier and more rounded way, I believe, of naming what we've all come to know as CRM.

(Looking back on Christmas, by the way: with the sheer number of people Santa had to look after, numbering in the billions, imagine what a CM challenge THAT represented: gathering data uniquely and once only; giving Everyone exactly what they want, determined by need and/or value; up selling to them year on year as they grow through the value chain. And consider the challenge of getting all the addresses right, year in and year out, a task that defeats postal services around the world!)

1. This year I'd like to see a change of attitude. Customer service in this country has not improved significantly in a down market, although logically this is the way it should have gone. Rather, in my experience, it has declined. Major contributory factors here are management's general lack of insight into the importance of customers, and the philosophical, almost fatalistic approach consumers have to indifferent service.

2. An end to all the hype (or at least some of it!). All new technology waves go through what Gartner refers to as a Hype Curve; well, more than almost any other technology wave, CM has been through a major hype curve, and, as is always to be expected, huge despondency has followed inevitable disappointment. CM is not magic; it's no silver bullet and it is not a panacea. It is a way of corporate life, and to think it can be conducted as a discrete, isolated activity, or imply enabled through a contact centre, is to miss the overall premise of CM. To summarise, in one sentence: as long as business equates CM with contact centres, and as long as contact centres
are measured in the brevity of calls and the sheer number which can be processed at the lowest cost, they will fail to support the overall goals of CM.

3. Organisations which remember their customers and their interactions and transactions. While technology might not be a panacea, it has made it easily possible for companies to create a corporate memory: to track and remember their customers and learn about them. Relational databases are freely available and very widely deployed; analytical tools are no longer the showstoppers they once were, allowing companies to segment their customer sets so as to make sense of their learnings, and use these learnings to inform outbound activities and campaigns. All that's required of companies is to acquire the will and intent to take the first step and start developing the appropriate infrastructure. Maybe then we can get to a situation where banks won't ask you to fill in a new form when you order a 10th product; hotels won't ask you to fill in an arrival form every time you check in; and all car rental companies will have your details recorded and on hand so you don't have to stand in long queues and fill in reams of forms every time you need a car.

4. Companies which understand that they are required to grow and not erode value in their dealings with customers. All indications based on our local and international research are that companies are destroying customer value and investing in failure, despite trebling their spend on CM over the last three years. There are many reasons for this; we at Knowledge Factory will be exploring these in depth over the next 12 months, an exhilarating voyage of discovery that we believe will unlock some of the secrets for customer management.

5. Boards which pay more than lip service to customer value-enhancing initiatives. The cycle is predictable: when times are good and cash is relatively easy, the board is inclined to approve CM projects. But, as times get tougher - as they are now - boards are inclined to withdraw support and budget. But how else do you build customer equity?

It's probably - almost certainly - too much to expect that 2003 will fulfil all of these in the next 12 months. But one can wish, and hope that companies which are customer-facing - and which ones aren't? - will begin changing the way in which they engage with and fulfil the requirements of their customers. Apart from anything else, it can surely not have escaped the attention of the boardroom that companies which are truly customer-centric have far healthier bottom lines than those which don't!