CRM software is expensive. CRM software demands a learning curve. CRM software requires a team of technicians, both for installation and for operation.
CRM software can be a useful tool, especially for big firms whose staffs would be over-fattened had they the chore of handling each communication.
CRM software, generally, doesn’t work. Oh, the software is big and beautiful and costly. CRM staffs are big and costly and not so beautiful.
Now, before the CRM boosters jump all over me for attacking their icon, I’ll explain why it doesn’t work: It’s because the companies using it have, generally, turned it into a one-size-fits-all suit. And we, in this most one-to-one of all professions, know, with ample scar tissue: When one size fits all, it fits nobody.
What’s wrong is that technology has set a torrid pace, and human psychology has been left in the dust. So CRM software works–in reverse: A customer or client sends a communication, and that communication gets Stock Answer B-37–although Stock Answer B-6 would have been a) more pertinent, b) more comprehensible, and c) less infuriating.
Customer relationship management too often seems to warrant the truncated executive designation “customer management.” Where is the relationship in this bulk approach to customer retention? Where is a human brain, making a conscious decision behind the implementation NOT of the big, beautiful, complex program in general but of this circumstance? You say business is too big to make that possible? Not to worry: Soon your business won’t be that big.
Corporate executives are aware there’s no Mr. Goodwrench handling this tool. More than a year ago, a Bain & Co. survey of senior executives placed CRM in the bottom three of 25 popular “tools” evaluated for customer satisfaction.
Gartner and Meta Group indicated failure rates of 55% to 70%; but in fairness, a competing study suggested that only 35% of CRM applications can be considered failures. Gee, what an endorsement: a failure rate of 35%!
CRM’s problems are typical of today’s unfocused management style. Who’s watching this department of the store? The IT manager? It’s within the realm of his or her technical experience but not psychological experience. A middle-management underling? This is supposed to be actual management, not bookkeeping. A genuine sales executive? Ah! That accounts for the success minority. So much for the benefit of technological dominance.
We all are aware that a company with 50,000 customers and an equal number of prospects can’t afford the manpower to handle each one independently. That’s why CRM software is supposed to exist–and why it so often fails. A simple equation: When the reply obviously is machine-made, the software and its use both fail.
A personal episode triggered this diatribe. As some readers of Direct know, I host a panel at several annual DMA conferences. I chanced upon a catalog I regarded as excellent — Cooking.com. Why not invite an executive from that company to be on the panel and enjoy the cachet and adulation a speaker’s ribbon bestows? So I called the only phone number Cooking.com listed. “We can’t give out any numbers or extensions,” the operator told me. “The only way to reach the executive offices is to send an e-mail to support@cooking.com.”
That’s what I did, in what for me was an unusually warm and fuzzy invitation. Having no name to address, I had to generalize, but the first sentence of my e-mail was, “I like the copy in your catalog.” To be sure whoever read the e-mail recognized it as an invitation, I explained the reason for the communication. The result? A classic Negative-CRM reply:
Dear Cooking.com Guest,
Thank you for contacting Guest Assistance. The following is an automated acknowledgment of your email.
We will respond to your email shortly. You may also call us toll free at (800) 663-8810. For callers outside of the US and Canada, please call (310) 450-3270. Our Guest Assistance hours are Monday-Friday 7:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. PST, and Saturday & Sunday 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. PST.
Two more boilerplate sentences continued the total unawareness of what I had written. But the next communication, about an hour later, was as classic a bit of bad manners as I’ve ever read:
Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for your interest.
Your email was forwarded to the Marketing department. If the Marketing department is interested in further information about your company’s services, you will be contacted.
Well guess what, Cooking Fans: I’m no longer interested. Just as well, too, because that was the last word from this automaton-driven machine indicating, clearly, that if my message never did reach a live body, that body and whatever was atop it embraced the icy reply.
An easy litmus test for any business communication is: If you were the recipient of a message instead of being the sender, would you feel positive about it? I guess whoever constructed this bit of Consumer Relationship Mismanagement might answer yes, because he, she or it would be positively annoyed.
I’ve singled out this one because I have the hard evidence. It isn’t a theory or a survey or a research project or a sales pitch for software. But how many similar episodes have you encountered? How many times have you, as buyer or seller (whether bid-niss or consumer), sent a direct communication, only to get an answer that states clearly: “We neither know nor care who you are. Our automated system, which regards you and your ilk with the kind of contempt outsiders deserve, is being unusually kind by bothering to reply at all. Now either go away or send us some money.”
My choice? Easy. I’ll go away.
HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS is the principal of Lewis Enterprises in Fort Lauderdale, FL. He consults with and writes direct response copy for clients worldwide. Among his 26 books are “Marketing Mayhem” and “Effective E-mail Marketing.”
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