Is your company experienced enough ?

2 minute read time.


The April 23rd seminar with Management Today was very interesting - in a number of ways.

Firstly, it was a fabulous venue for a briefing - One Alfred Place in Bloomsbury, filled with sofas & deep armchairs - was a stunning contemporary setting for our 35 guests.

Secondly, the assembled crowd contributed to a fascinating three hours.

We were there to discuss whether staying close & connected is the key to fighting off the worst of these recessionary times. Chaired by Management Today's Matthew Gwyner, I was joined on the panel by Caroline Plumb, CEO of Fresh Minds and Stefan Stern, Management Writer (Financial Times & Management Today, among others).

With the conversation centering around the "new world" of social media, my 10 minute opener argued that new communication platforms such as Twitter, Facebook et al. cannot be ignored. If you want to manage your reputation & guide advocacy in the public ether, you simply must be using the tools and leveraging these platforms. Unsurprisingly, my piece concluded that you must have the right CRM tools & strategy in place, so that those people charged with communicating via these platforms have access to relevant customer data - both for understanding & tracking the information.

The open forum discussion that followed talked of external collaborative networks often being smarter than just people within an organisation. Which really struck a chord with me - I believe CRM practices are essential to deliver good best customer experience. We all know what's it like when you ring a call centre, go through elaborate identification routines, only to be passed off to another person and have to run through the whole routine again. It's tedious and seeds the beginnings of a poor customer experience.

Layering in CRM systems (to share data) and principles (e.g. how to perform "soft handovers" ) really make the difference in a customer's experience. It also empowers people to work together - collaborating internally - despite different departments goals, data sets and KPIs. Organisations are increasingly competing on knowledge-based differentiators (beyond product features). So, the wide range of business & technical disciplines that form the human capital inside these organisations are more likely to work together if they appreciate the fundamentals of work delivered. Having the systems & processes in place makes it easier to empower people to deliver the experience required.