The Gap - No, Not The Store

"Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for." -- Peter Drucker

How many times have you heard or said, "It's not about the features. It's all about the benefits." This is especially true of CRM, Customer Relationship Mnaagement, but in a different way than you might think.

Too often, CRM is defined as a piece of technology for managing the customer experience. At least, that's what a lot of people say it is, including all those programmer guys who sold it to other programmer/IT guys in the big corporations a few years ago. They said it would change the way the big corporations did business and the IT guys who brought it to their big corporations would be hailed as heroes. Millions of dollars! Months, years of implementation. All for naught! Nobody used it or knw how to use it or cared about using it.

In the end, CRM is an acronym for simply a piece of technology that helps organize and manage data...uh, don't run away...the information you've gatheredd about your customers, prospects, leads.

But, the real Customer Relationship Management is that person-to-person interaction that creates a unique connection or bond between individuals that can flourish into larger relationships between companies.

For me, in the end, the quality that customers get and that keeps them loyal customers is all about the relationship. Not the product/s or service/s that are sold and delivered. As we are all too well aware, very similar products and services are offered by multiple vendors. But, the Customer Relationship, properly Managed, is unique and that's what they are really paying for.

More later!