Viper Strategic

Enhancing Customer Relationships

Author: Neil Wilkins

Neil learnt his marketing with the likes of Orange, NatWest, BP Castrol and Ordnance Survey and now helps individuals and businesses to communicate more effectively. He trains and mentors marketers on professional Chartered Institute of Marketing qualifications through to post-graduate level.

Social networking has as many foes as it does advocates but one thing is for sure. It's not going to go away.

One of the key reasons for this is that it changes the well proven business concept of CRM into a more active, dynamic and results driven world of ECR.

Back in the day CRM was technology driven, allowing marketers and decision makers access to a wealth of computer-based customer and prospect data that could fill their lives with statistics and profiling, some of which could prove useful.

These days, with the explosion of social media filling everyone's world with the chatter of business and consumer conversation the capturing of relevant, engaging and valuable customer information and then using it to fine tune the communication of ones brands, products and services moves us into a position of being able to truly enhance customer relationships.

No longer is the message controlled by the organisation in the hope that people will listen and if they do, then we can claim we are doing CRM. Today it's about engaging with people on their terms, at their level, in language they understand and to provide the value they demand. This is where social networking takes us because if we listen we can hear those things that our customers and prospects are saying that allow us to then play back our own messages in that same language. Listening through social networking is what ECR is all about.

So the next time someone says to you they can help you with your customer relationship management, just give them a knowing nod and tell them that actually what you are now doing is enhancing customer relationships.

- Posted on Wednesday 17 Mar 2010 at 01:44 by Neil Wilkins

Tags: crm (1), ecr (1), social networking (13)