Social CRM is a journey, not a destination

There has been a tremendous amount great conversation during the past couple weeks, regarding Social CRM. What it is as well as what it is not. I am not sure we have reached any conclusions yet, but we have all become smarter for the insights of a great many individuals. Interestingly, I am usually a bit opinionated, but I sat on the sidelines, just observing – for the most part.

As my title suggests, I do believe that we are all (customers, businesses, implementors and vendors) on a journey.  As a group, we are working (struggling) to compartmentalize, as that seems to be human nature. We are treating the landscape as binary, you either have it, or your don’t.  You will get there, or you will not. The economy is evolving, business is evolving, customers needs are evolving, so as all the components go through this evolution, yet, we are suggesting this needs to be a revolution, why? Very few of us subscribe to waterfall development methodology, therefore, we should be able to iterate through this as well, no?

The difference, among my peers, who are having the conversation, do not seem to be as much about where we are going (ok, first chance for a comment), rather how we get there. We all want very similar things. As Graham reminded us all today, in quoting Peter Drucker on his post (which is a must read). The end game is already defined for us.

When I sent a tweet out similar to my title, Graham  responded “Indeed. Social CRM is a journey with a drunken man staggering around without a map at the moment.” Prem suggested something akin to Brownian motion or random walk (which brings back horrible memories of my graduate work with stochastic processes) I am not sure quite sure it is that bad, but maybe it is …. I like to build metaphor’s, and 4 out of 5 times they make sense to someone other than myself, but I will give it a shot anyway.

If SocialCRM is the destination, then what is the vehicle to get us there? Is it strategy, or technology? Answer: It is both. It is the proper introduction and combination of technology, in support of the evolving processes, created by the empowered customer. Like the business trips we all take – trains, planes and automobiles – each client requires a slightly different itinerary. Exactly, each client requires a slightly different approach.

So, a slightly different take from John, regarding ‘will it be built’. The landscape is not static, the journey will most certainly require mid-course corrections. So, we will build it. The question might be, will it ever be ‘done’?

Anyone have a map?

Advertisement