Enduring Relationships produce Exceptional Returns!

So what are InteractCM's key points of difference that lead to the development of stronger deeper relationships and more valuable customer franchises?

Interestingly, most of our underlying Customer Management philosophies and principles are common sense and come from years of experience in diligently applying our trade and noticing the patterns that have emerged over time.

Some of the key principles that have evolved include the following:

The key critical motivator for CEOs and Board members alike. Do you know the True Potential of your customer base?

It is vital to have a very sound understanding of the performance gap, that is specifically quantified at the outset, between what the 'true potential' of an organisation's customer base is, as opposed to what it's currently delivering. This represents the business opportunity.

Contrary to the sales hype of many software vendors, relationships with customers are fundamentally people-based, even in large Business-to-Business (B2B) based organisations. So Customer Management is primarily about the people within our organisations, having relationships and interactions with other people, our customers.

Customer Information itself is at the heart of developing an effective Customer Management Program.

Managing a large number of customer relationships (ie > tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and in some of our larger clients, many millions) is inherently difficult. The lack of a corporate memory about each and every customer is a serious problem.

Maintaining selected key information about customers is an essential foundation which can not only vastly improve Corporate memory, but can also significantly improve the organisation's ability to progressively develop knowledge and understandings.

This knowledge, in turn is the vital ingredient to meeting customer needs and deriving value for both them and the organisation.

Is Customer Information your most important Strategic Asset?

Customer information is an asset of at least equal, if not more strategic importance, than physical, human or capital resources.

Having a sound understanding of how effectively the specific customer management processes operate in your organisation is also of absolutely critical importance. As a CEO or a Board member, can you answer these key questions for example?

What Customer Information do you have? Are all staff aware of the importance and relevance of customer information to relationship development (as opposed to administrative use)? How is it collected? Where it is stored? What is missing or out of date? What is its quality? Do all relevant staff have access to it?

How is customer information turned into Customer Knowledge? Have we defined the key domains of Customer Knowledge? Do we know what Knowledge we have? Do we know what we don't have? What is the state of our knowledge about our customer (all customers, high value customers, high potential value customers)?

How is Customer Knowledge turned into Value for the Organisation and for the Customer? What is the precise process? What is the current performance gap between what we aspire to and what we are currently achieving? Are your key customer-facing staff each executing according to their true potential?

These are just a few key questions which test a CEO's true commitment to the whole Customer Management Process.

Technology enables, people deliver!

Whilst newer generation systems and technologies, including enabling technologies, have vastly improved in functionality, capacity, speed and efficiency, significant problems have emerged with:

	data that is suitable for administrative purposes not being fit for marketing or relationship development purposes
	the sheer scale and numbers associated with integrating back-end legacy systems containing customer data
	the understanding and alignment of senior IT professionals, senior management, strategists, planners and architects in particular with the Customer Management Process
	cultural, organisational, leadership, people and business processes.

Often, these cultural challenges are overlooked in favour of a shiny new technological toy with hollow promises of quick returns, excellent client lists, and competent turnkey implementation. However, the smartest technology, still needs your staff to use and manage it. To do this, they need to be assisted during the implementation of a new system, in terms of managing the system change, the provision of the required training and the establishment of a culture that is congruent with the business drivers.