In today’s world, customers want to manage their relationship with the small business (and not be managed).

Most of the CRM tools today (including the ones you’ve listed) are based on the same old concepts (keeping a database of customers and interactions with them). None of them really help foster the customer relationship and let the customer dictate how they want to do business with you.

I agree – so, tell us more – how does one foster customer relationships and let the customer dictate (not sure about that word) how they want to do business with you.

There was some talk about creating “CMR” systems (Customer Managed Relationships) vs. CRM.

Some quick thoughts on this:

1. Customers should more easily have access to the information they need about your offering. This includes being able to talk to other customers. This can be done via blogs (written by more than the CEO or marketing person), forums, etc. Customers shouldn’t have to talk to sales people as their primary vehicle for learning about the offering.

2. Most CRM systems today are designed for salespeople (not the customer). In fact, it is still unclear to me how a CRM system (like Salesforce.com) actually helps manage the relationship. The way I have seen it used is a database to track customers and generate reports for the VP of sales.

So, as a customer, here is what I would want want from a CMR system:

1. The ability to learn what I need to about the company and offering at my own pace.

2. The ability to ask questions and “engage” various types of people (not just the sales people). This would include employees, customers, etc. One simple way to do this is via blog comments.

3. I want the ability to “stay connected” with the company in ways that are convenient for me. This could be a newsletter, blog, etc.

Great comments – I guess that goes a little back to my original thought. Only a very customer focused organization and culture could pull of the CMR you talk about. Although I bet there are examples of companies doing it now, even if they don’t call it such.

Great post. I think it’s all too common for business owners to throw software (and money) at a problem without getting at the real root cause. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way several times.

Step one in any software manual should read:

“Look yourself in the mirror and figure out why you purchased this software in the first place. Fix that problem first. Then come back and learn how to use our system.”

Incidentally, I use Zoho CRM and am quite happy with it. But as you’ve stated so well, that’s really not the main point.

Tony

2) My existing company… I purchased a CRM system when it was just me selling (we now have 4 users on the system). I bought the system from a reseller because I knew the reseller could help me create a sales system around the CRM program. In other words, we took our “loose” culture and system and modified/improved it around the CRM system.

So I think the bottom line is, if implemented properly, CRM can help you develop a system (and culture) and stick with it.