Topic: CRM
CRM? That's Customer Relationship Management to you! Many companies blur the line as to what CRM is or should be, but they all fall short.
Some use CRM to replace or "augment" their help desks. While customer service has never been a widely adopted discipline on the web, adding CRM help desk software doesn't help. [ Ask me about customer service successes. ] When the user mails in a question, they get back a pre-canned message from a FAQ. I've found the odds of this reply actually answering my specific question to be very low.
Customers need help, not blindly emailed answers from a FAQ. A bad answer is worse than no answer at all.
There is one positive aspect to the CRM trend - it has made a lot of companies examine how their customers interact with the company. Many have worked to combine databases (or at least the applications that access these databases) to provide more tightly integrated information to their customers and support staff. [details]
Of course, send me your opinion. If you're thinking about implementing some company-wide CRM initiative, I'd be happy to work with you in designing a system to provide value to your customers and tools for your staff.
- robert.
