The Social Business Engine (part 3 of n) – Sales

“If you see a fork in the road, take it” Yogi Berra made this statement many years ago. What is  great about this quote is that he was simply giving directions to his house. His house (at the time) was located on a loop at the end of the road leading to it. It did not really matter which way you turned, you ended up at the right place. Many people have joked about the quote, as it can be interpreted many different ways. Here is the relevance in the statement:

Yogi had a destination in mind!

I know that I am preaching to the choir, but when you are faced with a decision – the fork in the road – be sure that you understand the ultimate destination (not just the tactical one). Evolving your current business into a Social business will involve many decisions. Good friend and colleague Esteban Kolsky posted what I jokingly said to him could have been my third post in this series. Please take a look, his words are worth reading. I do not think that I will take as firm of a stance as he did, but as you design your own Social Business and the Engine that drives it, the function of sales needs serious evaluation.

The Destination remains the same – creating buyers and adding value

Notice, I did not say “sales force” or “sales person” I am speaking to the function, not the person. If the destination is to create buyers, and add value does it matter who ’sold the deal’. It is mostly about ‘Trust’. There is the trust in the person who advises the buyer and there is the trust by association when that buyer is introduced to the company with whom they would like to do business with, the exchange of value.

I wrote previously, something Esteban referenced as well:

“As a buyer, people are more likely to trust someone who they feel is an ‘expert’ – oh and someone they know. In the eyes of the buyer, the seller must display professionalism, an understanding of the need, empathy.”

So, who is this person and do they need to be directly associated with the company? That I believe to be at the heart of the issue. Trust now appears to be about two things – trusting an intermediary, who is compensated as well as establishing trust with the company who the buyer would like to transact with. Since the compensation is based solely on the transaction, is a 3rd party really a value add?

Esteban also states the following:

“In this new model, a sales person is the one who brings the right customer to the right transaction, not by secretive manipulation to extract the maximum value possible — but to ensure that both sides receive and even value exchange for the transaction.

They become trusted advisors to the client and to the organization, brokering the relationship.  They change their roles from distrusted information gatekeepers to trusted brokers.”

I do not have strong arguments to counter what Esteban is writing. However, I do not believe that in order to transition from the “information gatekeepers” to active participants in the Social Business the sales function is required to live outside of the company four walls. That said, it might be better for them to be there – the decision is yours, make sure you have the data to help make that decision.

It is possible that sales people could simply change their behavior. The qualifications to meet the needs of the role are the same, if they exist outside, right? This will be an industry, cultural and business size decision. What Esteban describes sounds a lot like partners in the ecosystem. If we solve the convergence of  Enterprise 2.0 and Social CRM (and/or Social Business) this is less of a problem as well. They can be either place – it does not matter.

The exact path is not as important as the destination, I cannot prescribe. I believe that Esteban and I are in agreement that what the buyer really wants is to get past the barriers and walls and directly to the people and information with whom they can understand the true value proposition of whatever it is they are trying to buy.

Bringing this home a bit, regarding the Social Business Engine. As your business becomes more social, it is now more than a simple alignment of sales and marketing. It is an alignment of People and Processes who support these functions, whether they are inside your four walls or not.

To end with another great Yogi Berra quote: “If you don’t know where you are going, you might end up someplace else.“

The Social Business Engine (part 2 of n) – Value

I should have known better than to specify exactly what I would cover in part 2 (Here is Part 1) – but in my own defense, I did mention something about this being a journey. I do promise to circle back to the role of sales really soon – to be very direct, the exact role of the sales person, in a model where we are working to create buyers, not sell (see, I told you) is going to take some more thought.

You never know exactly when you will hear something important

Interspersed between client visits, business dinners and a visit with my Mom, good friends seemed to have found some very interesting articles which really helped to solidify my thoughts in a few areas.  Of course, thrown into the mix is Michael Krigsman’s interview with Paul Greenberg (an excellent, must read/listen). Finally, a great dinner conversation with Josh Weinberger in NYC in which topics on CRM from 1999 through 2010 all seemed fair game.

Other than filling you in a bit on my comings and goings, what exactly is my point? Your peers, social networks and your CUSTOMERS are always talking. Information, valuable tidbits will appear at any time. While it is nearly impossible to listen to everything, all the time, you should be prepared to act on information when it becomes available. So, as I continue down this path, remember that one of the most difficult tasks is figuring out exactly what your customers want – listen as much as possible. The objective is not only listen to what they say they want, but what they determine to be valuable. This is a subtle difference.

It is about value, it always has been

All Businesses must be in touch with their market, their customers and it is still about product after all. If the value (not yours, the value perceived by the customer) is not there game over. You can have the most finely tuned Social Business in the world, but it will not make up for bad product.  While the world has changed a lot – somethings have not – customers do want value.

This is easier said than done. In a recent Harvard Business Review Blog, Mark Johnson answers the following question “Why would someone want to buy something from you?”  (He answers a few other questions as well). The answer given is:

To answer the … question, you need to construct a customer value proposition (CVP) — not by trying to convince customers of the value of your products but the other way around, by identifying an important job a customer needs to get done and then proposing an offering that fulfills that job better than any alternative the customer can turn to.

I wanted to dig a little deeper, so I went to the 2008 article referenced by Johnson.

The most important attribute of a customer value proposition is its precision: how perfectly it nails the customer job to be done—and nothing else. But such precision is often the most difficult thing to achieve. Companies trying to create the new often neglect to focus on one job; they dilute their efforts by attempting to do lots of things. In doing lots of things, they do nothing really well.

Now comes the hard part

There are two very important points made here, and if you are listening (not to me to your customers) then you will be able to meet the challenge – understand what your customers really want, so you can provide it. For one, stop selling and focus your efforts to create buyers. Do not try to put everything into one product and satisfy everyone at the same time. It is not the company value proposition, nor the product value proposition, it is the customer value proposition.

Michael listed a few “Practical Steps” you can use in working to engage your customers (blog reference above).

Listen to your customers’ voice directly from their actual larynx, rather than to the opinions rolling around in your head. For example, build a customer advisory committee and ask exactly what they want and think.

Participate in their communities to find out who they are, what they want, and learn how they can also provide value to you. A company can engage this way with only one or two smart people. It’s not heavy lifting.

So, there is something new. While it might have been said before, or talked about, somehow it seems new. We have heard that we need to Listen. Then we were told we needed to Engage, one way broadcasting became two way communications. Participation – that is interesting. Is there a difference between Engaging and Participating? Something to think about.

The Social Business Engine (part 1 of n)

Before any of my friends ask, or slap me silly on the back channel, I do not know the value of ‘n’. The reason is simple, this is not a closed loop process, it is a journey, and we are simply going to need to alter the design as we go along. Second point, I am not trying to add another hashtag, or acronym, that is so 2009!

My thoughts are guided by lots of great folks – many of whom are in my scrm blogroll, affectionately known as the Accidental Community. Influence does not stop there, Clint Oram, a good friend, and one of the founders of SugarCRM is a strong influence as well. I always wanted to hit Clint up for an interview, maybe now is my chance. Finally, the most obvious, witnessing the changes in business large and small, public and private, academia included.

What are the components of a Social Business?

Simple really, they are the same components of every business you have read about for the past 20 years, just with the word “social” stuck in front. Maybe that was not very helpful, my point is that while everything seems new, nothing within is really new. (yes, tech changes and all that, but work with me) The difference is that now whatever we do, we do with an audience, who can talk back. We are no longer afforded the luxury of screwing up in private. Thus, the word “social” is, at its core, a daily reminder of this fact. When we all have that burned in sufficiently, the term will disappear. No ‘Social’ Service Communities, just Service Communities, no ‘Social’ Media Monitoring, just Media Monitoring. Eventually, the Social part of CRM may even go away too…But it will not become Social Relationship Management – sorry, not happening.

But, for now, the word social will stick, not to use it would confuse everyone, not my goal. In order to be successful in the context of a social business, your choices are fewer – no that is a good thing! You know, the ultimate freedom is lack of choice. There is no more trying to hide a product flaw, a price discrepancy, no chance, do not even try – isn’t that a relief?

So, I have trashed the word social, told you that whenever you screw up it is public and added that nothing is new it is just different. I am a ‘glass is half full’ kind of guy, really? If you understand the difference, empower your employees, and align your business to leverage this environment and have some fun along the way you can succeed, and really thrive!

Roles, responsibilities and expectations need to be aligned

Have you ever tried to teach someone (or learned yourself) to drive a stick shift? OK, paint this mental picture – new driver,  stopped on an uphill, a car right behind you and one in front waiting at a red light – sorry, rush hour (of course) – ok, got that picture in your mind? This is how many companies felt about Social in 2008 and 2009. Having my dad start trying to describe how a transmission works, at this point in time, was really not appreciated, followed by the command to focus on the road! This is your CEO telling you that hurry up and “get social”.

The mechanics of this involve the proper alignment, timing and of course giving the engine some gas. Am I talking about a business or a car? Both. We all know the result if things do not go as planned. A crash and burn, in a very public way, with all the neighbors talking. Like I said, screwing up in private is no longer an option. We can play with the metaphor, too much gas, wrong gear, not enough gas….feel free to share. I hope I was able to make my point – The alignment within an organization has always been important – but now that alignment is even more important than ever.

The main reason, because everyone is listening, watching and talking. You need to be ready.

Part 2 of the series will focus specifically on the Sales role within a Social Business. I recommend taking a look at Mark Tamis’s post on the role of Sales, I will build on that, and some of the discussions there.

Is B2B the new B2C

A friend asked an innocent question on Twitter a while back. “Who has a good B2B iPhone app? Anyone?”. In typical fashion, I Tweeted, then thought (the reverse order is usually recommended). My response “The actual phone part, where I dial and talk, best B2B part of the iPhone! ” This is probably not what she had in mind, hope I did not offend; though it did get me thinking. B2B, or B2C, that is the question. What is the difference?

I put my thoughts away for a while, thinking that I was just not getting to where I wanted it to be. Then this post appeared this morning. The context is that some brands express concerns about using Social Media. There was one section which caught my eye, related to the topic at hand:

There is no difference between B2B and B2C - This one drives me crazy.  What is the difference between B2B efforts and B2C efforts?  Nothing other than the target and the message.  We are all consumers at some point in the day unless you are that famous young cult hero thief, Colton Harris, living in the woods.   The person you are trying to influence to buy is a person and a consumer.  The only thing that needs to change in your efforts is your message not the platform.  Again, quality messages lead to quality fans/followers/friends/connections, all of whom can help you to build you(r) Influence Stream.

I commented and suggested that there are few nuances, and that Social Media is a platform, with many channels. Funny, they have the same conversations as we do in CRM – but I digress. Getting past that, there are some great points here, worth exploring. Has the Social Individual, whether it is for business, or personal become the Social Customer – period!

If you put this in the context of one of those selling seminars we have all taken at one time or another, some interesting things pop out. As a buyer, people are more likely to trust someone who they feel is an ‘expert’ – oh and someone they know. In the eyes of the buyer, the seller must display professionalism, an understanding of the need, empathy. Finally, the seller needs to understand what is in it for them, the buyer, personally. OK, am I talking about a personal consumer, or a business consumer? Does it matter?

Even (Especially?) in a Business to Business environment, there is a significant emotional component to the sale. Do not take my word for it, there are many others smarter than me saying so. So, if you combine that with my post – Social Just Is – what do you end up with? People buying from people – people who are like them, have similar values and people they trust. The emotions might be different, but so what?

OK – so that is a bit of sales, not really touching on CRM. One of the best posts recently on the topic of Social ‘this and that’ (CRM, Business, Media) is by Esteban Kolsky. I am not sure if Esteban intended this or not, but a wonderful part of the post is what is not there; is it meant for a Business to Business audience or a Business to Consumer audience? He does not specify – because he does not need to specify. The lines are blurred.

So, such is life in the age of things move really really fast. As I was preparing to simply post this, a mostly stream of consciousness set of connected thoughts, Graham Hill, a person I have the utmost respect for posted a comment on my Posterous Blog Feel free to take a look (last comment), but my take is that the relationship side of B2B versus B2C is most definitely not the same. Will have to explore that one later.

Back to a quick conclusion: Sure, your strategy needs to consider what you actually sell. Assess what channel makes the most sense, I know that. But the end-game is the same in the decision on strategy.  What are your thoughts? Where else has the consumer market had a significant impact on business purchases and how is Social ‘this and that’ a part of it?

What I have discovered because of Twitter

That is the title, I am sticking to it, but I do not really like it. The title should be “Who I have discovered because of Twitter”. A slight bit of ‘who I am’ might be in order, to make my point. I tend to take a more pragmatic, with a dash of logic, approach to most things. Even my kids are acutely aware of this point… Recently, my oldest (18) noted to the youngest (9), during a father daughter ‘conversation’: “Watch out Emma, dad just went logical on you, you have no chance”.

Twitter is anything but logical or pragmatic, defining exactly what it is depends upon who you are and what you do. Many have noted that personal acceptance of Twitter (as useful) may take a while, and may be a little steep (and  you may not get there). Considering the value I place on my time (work life balance and all that), I look back and I am a little surprised I made it through…

Since Venessa Miemis started the trend topic, I figured I would quote her, to start (a Tweet): “imagine twitter as the collective ideas & knowledge of everyone on planet. trick is to build ur network so u can access it” So, with that as my backdrop, I prefer to talk about ‘Who’, not ‘What’, there is a chance that ‘How’ will enter the conversation as well. The members of the network have had a greater impact on how I use the application. It is possible that an interesting outcome might be what I have discovered, but that is for you to decide.

The list (of who) is not huge, but the broad spectrum (background, location, interests) of cool people is impressive. The type and level of engagement runs from people I already knew, but I learned a whole lot of new stuff about them, to people I had never met, and I doubt I would have! I have been fortunate enough to turn 140 characters into dinners, drinks, social breakfasts, blogs, comments, business, questions, answers, collaboration. It sounds a bit like community, as @ekolsky notes in his post

Twitter is a community.  Shocking, I know.  There are no forums or ideas or structure (well, you could try hashtags — it worked very well for the #SCRM Accidental Community), but it is a community.  I wrote about this a couple of times.  The main difference, and the great part about it, is that each person gets to build and mold their own community

From a geographic perspective, I have met dozens of people who live in my own backyard (Burlington, VT) to regions far an wide.  I have been lucky enough to begin collaboration projects with great minds from Virginia to California, and London to Bangalore (noting Amsterdam and Paris fit in there somehow).  Which by the way, leads me to my favorite Twitter description, Mark Tamis @MarkTamis – A “Parisian Dutchman with Enterprise 2.0 and BPM background. Management Facilitator. Excited by potential of Social CRM as an organisational change agent!”

To further help the point hit home, I was hit by a little bit of writers block, and noted to Esteban last evening (through Skype, the next ‘what have you discovered’ post) “I promised myself I was no longer going to write about Twitter”. I went on further and said, “I am unhappy with what I have written. I may or may not post on the topic – I am going to stick to Social CRM” – Yep, an excuse. Unable to get a good nights sleep, I awoke to find that both Esteban and Wim Rampen (@wimrampen) – one of the great minds who I have been lucky enough to become friends and learn a great deal from – wrote his post (excellent Wim) earlier than me there are points which warrant repeating here, no need to reinvent the wheel.

..it has been Social Networking in the fourth dimension. It has brought me new friends, connections, thoughts, insights and ideas in a pace I could not have thought possible as little as one year ago.

You could say that I cheated a bit and borrowed from some like minded folks who, by virtue of living 5 or 6 timezones earlier allowed me the luxury of taking a peek at what they wrote first. Uh er, wait, Esteban live 3 timezones behind me, oh well, he does not sleep anyway. Based on some other types of interactions, I may put a motion on the table to rename the “Accidental Community” to the “Sleepless Community”. But, I digress… The key point is that Twitter has allowed me to expand my horizons, learn, collaborate and engage. Is that a ‘What’ or a ‘Who’ I guess I am not really sure.

I feel a bit guilty in not sharing more specifics on the many many folks who have influenced my thinking as of late. I suppose the list is longer than I thought, a good thing.

Have a Twitter story to share? Please do so on our own blog or in the comments . Don’t forget to tweet the link and tag it #MonTwit

Do the pundits practice what they preach?

I am not a Social Media Guru nor an expert in Social Engagement. That said, I do spend a fair amount of time working through the issues related to these topics, as they relate to Customer Relationship Management. In a sense, I am a customer of the many folks who are more knowledgeable in Social Media, and Engagement. Learning, so I can bridge the gap. I guess you could say I am an unsatisfied customer. So, I figured I would put the shoe on the other foot, and blog about it!

I find it curious that the very people who are constantly talking to us, telling us to engage are not practicing what they preach. This is of course not true of everyone, and I would be remiss in not pointing out those who have day jobs, many many followers yet somehow manage to engage. The ones I am not happy with, seem rather full of themselves, using Twitter as a bullhorn, not a conversation tool (“look at me, read my blog”). I am not talking about the spammers, nor the ‘follow me and make $10M’ folks. I am talking about the ones who talk about engagement, yet forget to practice it.

It Can Be Done!

My favorite answer to the fabled “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Is: “To prove to squirrels and skunks it can be done” So, with that in mind,  I would prefer to share those that are truly impressive and engaging, first, to prove to the others that – It can be done!

Anne Handley – @MarketingProfs – I met Anne once (face-to-face, the old fashioned way), at a Tweetup in little ole Burlington, Vermont – Very gracious, smart and a offers a whole lot of value, in her own writing and those that she suggests. Every once in a while I will reply to Anne, ask a quick question – Anne responds, engages, asks me what I think. Wow, impressive – really! with 50k people following I am honestly impressed.

Jeremiah Owyang – @jowyang – I have never had the pleasure of meeting Jeremiah. But he puts out some really great content. Oh, and he responds, willing to admit when he is not 100% correct (he is usually close though!). He engages and practices what he preaches, open and transparent – again impressive.  He responds to comments on his blog posts as well, all this takes time, but Jeremiah engages – again, over 50k.

There are certainly others, lots for sure. Please feel free to point out the ones who you think do it right – please, they deserve it! I have debated whether or not to call people out by name who are not as engaging, actually, not even close to engaging.

In the end, it is far more important to recognize those whom I believe do it right, than to call out those that do not. Those that do not, you are starting to act a little like spammers. Before you say “it is hard I have 25k follows I cannot respond”, take a look at the two examples above. You might recognize yourself here, then I have done some good, Until then, you have lost serious Whuffie in my book…

Funny thing is this was started by a Tweet, which I responded to and never heard back on, oh well. Am I wrong? Let me know your thoughts.

Social Just is…

Simply put, it is in our DNA to be social. We like sharing, engaging and having fun, cocktail parties, backyard Bar-B-ques, name your favorite. When something good happens, we want to tell the world, when something bad, we need a shoulder to lean on. We want to be heard, on our terms, in our voice. However, Social does not equate to group, it is more than that.

The Social Individual

We have been doing this for a very long time. Up until very recently, we only did this face to face, one on one and in small groups. We then we scattered; moved away from friends, moved away from family and it was/is a bit traumatic. We worked to fill the void, we needed the social part. We wrote letters, then we used the phone; good not great. Then the Internet happened,  email, chat, AOL, we were stuck behind our computers, 9600 baud and still struggling, getting closer… Then Web 2.0 happened, along with increased bandwidth, FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter and everything became clear, or did it?

We are substituting technology for proximity. However, there is simply nothing like being there, sorry, it just is. A handshake, eye contact, body language and tone cannot be replaced, no matter how hard we try. It all begs the question, how close can technology get us?  Answer: It is a asymptotic relationship, we will progress, but there is a ceiling and we will never get there (Not until you can say, “beam me up Scotty”). To some, the direction we are headed is not quite correct.

Enter the Social Customer

Individually-empowered customers are the ultimate greenfield for business and culture. Starting with the social keeps us from working on empowering individuals natively. That most of the social action is in silos and pipes of hot and/or giant companies slows things down even more. They may look impressive now, but they are a drag on the future.  Doc Searls

Somehow in the Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 transition we moved from one on one interactions to a focus on many to many. Parts of the switch are good, but some need to work themselves out. Friend and colleague, Graham Hill, makes the following statement (In his Manifesto for Social Business).

No.1 From Individual Customers…to Networks of Customers

The emphasis for business today is still on managing customers as individuals. But we have evolved as social animals with highly developed and highly influential social networks. For example, research by Christakis & Fowler suggests that we are highly influenced by three degrees of influence – friends, friends’ friends and friends’ friends’ friends. It’s not about ‘influencers’ per se, but the social networks in which influence happens. If we are to be successful in Social Business we must recognise the power of customers’ social networks to shape customers’ behaviour.

At first, these statements, made by very smart individuals, seem to contradict each other. But, read deeper, there is something more valuable here, from my perspective. While we struggle to manage the individual customer (we may or may not succeed), we must recognize the customer as an individual and empower them in everything we do, from strategy to design and then finally in execution – fostering the individual within the crowd, that sounds hard.

How can you empower the Social Customer?

The first step is to assemble your team – first empower yourself!. I am a big fan of Friendsourcing; Crowdsourcing focused on people you know and trust. I highly recommend this approach. In other words, this is complicated stuff, and no one person has all the answers, sorry, it just is… Friendsourcing can be accomplished either by leveraging your own personal network (friends) or by reputation (friends of friends). We are in fast moving, fast changing times, and sometimes it is just too easy to believe the hype about that shiny new object. My peers should certainly expect this to appear here, ‘there is no one size fits all answer to these questions’. You can only answer the crucial questions: ‘How’, ‘What’, ‘Where’ and ‘When’, with a combination of a deep understanding of your business, your value proposition, dedication to your customers and a better knowledge of your industry than anyone else. Fill-in the gaps appropriately, with people you trust.

I am leveraging people I trust, all the time. For example Esteban Kolsky is busy writing a 5 part series on the Roadmap to SCRM (Social CRM), which I highly recommend. Like Graham, Esteban is a friend and a trusted advisor. The following is taken from part 4 of his series.

Remember when you read those “social media experts” and “social gurus” telling you to just try it? that if you start listening you will be ahead of the game?  I know you know this already, but they are way wrong.  Way wrong.  Just listening without a purpose can hurt more than it can help.  Biggest problem is that once you are committed to a channel (listening) it is very easy to get in, but extremely hard to get out.  You can lose reputation, trust, customers, and business if you pull out of a channel because you never took the time to figure out if it was the right one for you.

The key message here is to be cautious, all too often the “gurus” and “experts” pretend to be King, as did the the one-eyed man in the land of the blind. Challenge the gurus with the Social Media strategies, not just to challenge, but to ask them how they did it. How many times have they done it, if they have done it. These experts need to have a solid grounding in Marketing, and Media (not necessarily ‘Social’) first.

The current hype cycle that is Social (Media and by extension Networking) is very much about creating that feeling of closeness (emotions) and changing behaviors, between your organization and your customers. Make no mistake, while there is some hype, there is a new bar, and expectations have been set and reset.

Your customers are building their trust networks, I have my trusted advisors, who are yours? No need to make the journey solo, after all, we are all Social, we just are….

Is it all just too easy?

I was fortunate this past week to be able to attend a Cloud conference put on by the 451 Group, down in Boston. While I have fine tuned my focus during the past year, less on the infrastructure side, and more on the business application side, this was time well spent. I believe that from a maturation – ability to offer measurable business value – perspective, Cloud, Open Source, Social and Enterprise 2.0 are growing up together.  Sometimes they act more like siblings during a long car ride, suffering from “Are we there yet” and “Look at me, look at me”.

Even given my slightly different focus, I do try to stay true to the brief description I have on Twitter, “I am passionate about the intersection of people, process and technology”. Luckily, SugarCRM, where I currently hang my hat, sits right in the middle of that that triple witching point:

• People/Ecosystem – Customers, Employees and Partners,
• Process – Who speaks, When they say,  How to engage, What channel,
• Technology – Open Source, Clouds, SaaS, Social (Yes, Social is technology)

Just because you can, does it mean you should?

Ok, now to the point – my theory is that the technology has made it is just too easy to do make bad choices – a crazy, maybe, silly statement, but tell me I am wrong – I dare you. There is a place and a time for the Nike moment – “Just do it” and then there is the ‘take time and think about what you are about to do’. What is the correct balance? Just because you can, does it mean you should? Some are probably saying that about this blog at the moment.

Back in the day (sorry, I love that phrase, my 18yo pulls it on me all the time), when you wanted to get something done, you had to do the ole ‘budget justification’, think through it, present to senior team members – Yes, ask for money, too! Part of this was also a required “Check with IT, I am not sure what you want to do is part of the standard”. This last one was especially hard for the Open Source applications.  Combine a pent up demand, economic pressures, getting tired of the perception of IT blocking progress with SaaS, Cloud and Online Social Media channels – and it is a perfect storm and excuse to just IGNORE the IT dept.

So, before anyone beats me up too much, this is not what I am suggesting, just saying what happens, what I have seen happen and the end result. I have seen many companies take the route of using SaaS – Take a Look at Phil Wainewright’s Blog He talks to Conformity – An interesting company who has the business model to help clean up this mess, but I am not going to deep here, just a reference to justify this post.

My key point is that it all just to dam easy. The ease of spending $20 to get a server in the cloud – yes, I said $20, standing up a system, setting up a blog, putting together a YouTube account, FaceBook group, Newsletter, Forums, Chat, Twitter. Awesome, let’s hope all the choices are successful, lots of people, lots of prospects, lots of eyeballs – Maybe some customers too. That would be great, right? Way too many times, I have heard the statement – “Hey that would be a great problem to have” – Really? Unless of course it is your problem to solve. Remember, once you are on a channel it is much harder to leave.

I do have to ‘tip-toe’ a bit, after all I do work for SugarCRM. A company that does make it very easy to get started, and take advantage of a structured CRM application. I am all for making things easy, but job one is success!  I also believe this is much more prevalent with respect to Social Media applications – too many people saying “Just do it”.  Is anything really free, no, as people and time are the most expensive part of running a business.

I am suggesting that a little bit of planning – just a little – is time well spent – Just sayin’

Why do people think Twitter is a good Customer Service platform?

Because Twitter helps customers solve problems and they can vent – there a simple answer. But, the current approach will not scale!

I believe the following statement to be true:

The need to broadcast a problem to the world would not be necessary if the customer had confidence that their issue would  be solved timely and to their satisfaction.

There are lots of and lots of good reasons to broadcast, this post is not about all those good reasons: Co-Creation, Innovation, Community, Collaboration, to name a few. This post is also not about Service Communities like Lithium and Helpstream, Parature and others. While not about them, they might be part of the solution.

Using Twitter for support masks a larger issue. Therefore I believe the following also to be true:

If your customers are trying to get your attention on Twitter to solve a specific ‘me only’ problem, your processes are either horribly inefficient, broken or you have product issues.

Twitter is not SocialCRM. Twitter is immediate gratification meets CRM

There are lots of companies who are taking the opportunity to try and make things right, by watching for issues on Twitter and helping those in need. Unfortunately, this also promotes bad behavior, let me paint a mental picture:

In order to get your cable box fixed you needed to go down to the local service provider office. It just so happens that you have your 5 yo daughter in tow. The drive is 20 minutes, you figure the line should not be too bad – ooops, wrong, you need to stand in line for an hour or more. While in line, after 1/2 hour the person who just came in the door starts to yell really loudly about poor service.

In the real world, we all know what would happen (or what should happen anyway). The person yelling would be asked to quiet down, or leave. This would be done nicely of course, but that is what would happen. Right? How do you suppose it would go over if after the second ‘rant’, the best technician in the company walked over and opened up a new station at the counter, and called that individual over, fixed their problem, then left? <rhetorical>

But, this is exactly what happens on Twitter, day in and day out. No scenario or metaphor can perfectly represent the Twitter scenario in real world. Are Twitter users playing the system or cheating the system? Or simply taking advantage?  I am aware of the United video (this fits into the broken category), as well as some really great uses of help and support, like Best Buy.

The Reality

Companies who are responding well are putting the best and brightest Customer Support people in the  role of Marketing and Support, and calling them Support. They have a direct line to anyone who can help solve your problem.  This will work for a while, maybe even a year or two – but then everyone will have the secret number – and we will yell and scream, but still be stuck in the queue. Support communities may very well help here – but not for all industries, company sizes or geographies.

The key is turning the data into information and turning the information into insights, then the insights into action. When this really gets mature 3-5 years, we will be able to predict – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As the Twitter user population grows as well as Facebook and others, the call center and help desk models will simply not be able to scale. Organizations use predictive models to determine staffing and there only so many ‘A’ players (the ones the vendors are using to filter and watch Twitter).

Take the opportunity to learn and figure out what is broken or wrong, and fix it. In order to learn, you need to put processes in place to learn. Am I wrong?

Sales is much more than just sales people

There was an interesting thread on Twitter this morning, and it has become difficult to push the conversation to where it needs to go in 140 characters.  This is not a naming debate, by any stretch – this is probably better described as a process debate – among friends and peers (in other words, play nice!)

The conversation started with:

@PaulBuchtmann #sCRM can help #sales by building trust and loyalty with customers. Not help if UR focus is short term or “transaction” based (posted by Dr. Harish Kotadia)

@hkotadia Be interestered in see how U can achieve this given my survey results show less that 1 in 50 #sales people use the tools (response by Paul Buchtmann)

.@PaulBuchtmann: @hkotadia Sales is much more than just sales people. Unless they are cold calling, the leads come from everywhere (My comment)

@mjayliebs Got to weigh in on #sales #marketing #scrm. Leads are marketing domain, sales is closing (simple, yes, true, mostly) (John Moore – @johnfmoore – comment)

Then John Moore and I started a separate thread, which became more detailed and hard to convey the true thoughts in 140 characters. So, just as Leads transition from Marketing to Sales, we are transitioning from Twitter to a Blog. Interesting metaphor in and of itself. John pointed me to a post he wrote a few months ago, a fair reminder

Core to the issue that more and more vendors are putting the ownership of the process to obtain customers in Marketing’s capable hands (duh, it has always been there). But, who owns the relationship with the prospective customer? Is there a cold hand-off, a warm hand-off? What is the sales persons role? When do they take ownership of the relationship?After all, people like doing business with people they trust, so this is the sales person, right? What are the dependencies?

So, inviting an open debate, so that I am able to learn with everyone, please add your comments below.