PGreenblog

Organic Social Networks, The Yankees & ...Wha? (UPDATE: WE WON OUR 27TH WORLD SERIES!)

Needless to say, being a Yankees fan of the entirely driven and committed sort, I'm biting every nail on my hands off and frankly, if I could reach my feet, would go at those nails too (Ugh.). I do that every time that the Yankees are in the playoffs or World Series particularly, though, I have to admit, I do it to a lesser degree, but to a degree during the 162 game regular season too. Meaning, from April through hopefully early November, I don't need nail clippers.

But this year is very, very different. Aside from being in the World Series for the first time since 2003, which makes it different, Twitter, Facebook, text messaging, push technologies and an iPhone make it different.

I no longer watch the game by myself though I'm the only person in the room (my wife, also a Yankees fan, is up in Newfoundland at the moment with her mom who's recovering from surgery). I'm not even just watching the game with friends of mine who are Yankees fans on Facebook such as fellow Yankees fan David Sims, who is without a doubt one of the all time great writers and columnists in CRM and other IT matters - and one of the funniest. I'm also watching the game with several thousand people who are actively conversing from the stands at Yankee stadium or watching it on TV themselves - all members of either subgroups within social networks communicating via channels or members of organic communities - outcome based communities that have come together for the World Series and the World Series only and who will, for the most part, disappear after the Series ends.

But note something, I said will disappear for the most part, not entirely, which we'll get to

If this were 2003...

If this were 2003, I think probably by now I'd be hating Josh Beckett (wait I still don't like Josh Beckett) for beating us and Jesus Hoyos, a CRM thought leader in Latin America, would be the happiest man on the earth because the Marlins had beaten the Yankees - though to his credit, he'd be happy if the Marlins had beaten anyone at all in the World Series because he's not a Yankees hater, he's a Marlins fan. But how would he be letting me know (if we knew each other - which then, we didn't)? An email maybe - a phone call? And only after the result itself was in and done. To communicate in some real time fashion with even one person was either cumbersome or expensive even then. Or at least more cumbersome and expensive.

But This is 2009....

While the Series isn't quite over when I'm writing this (prior to game 6), here's the picture so far and now.

The kicker is that I'm in Bogota Colombia, as one of the keynotes at CRM conference here, but no worries, broadband is solid and I have a subscription to MLB television on MLB.com which gives me streaming video live for the game. Or, I can watch it - yes watch it - using the MLB iPhone application streaming via Wi-fi that's readily available.Or if for some feverish reason, I'm sick of Tim McCarver and Joe Buck (which is a frequent occurrence) I can listen the audio/radio feed from NY with John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman - our homie broadcasters.

In the meantime, David Sims is getting ready to watch it from New Zealand somehow - TV or streaming maybe. The key Yankees bloggers for the press like Mark Feinsand are already starting to set their tweets out to the Yankees fan faithful to get prepared for the game. The conversations are already beginning on #yankees on Twitter and in the "enemy camp" at #phillies on Twitter.

When the game begins, I'm watching somehow or listening and in the meantime, between communities and sub-communities on Twitter and my Facebook buds, we're rarin' to go. So the night is a viewing experience and a conversation stream that organically evolved that includes my CRM colleagues, my cousins, a good friend who roots for the Phillies and other friends I have who happen to root for the Yankees or the Phillies who I had lost touch with but am now hooked up with primarily on Facebook. Plus there are the myriads of unknown folks gathered either physically at the park or watching on the tube or the web who are connected in total through twitter via their mobile device.

The conversation stream is real time and its intense and responsive to the game itself.

What's remarkable is what organically happened from the beginning of the playoffs. People who I've befriended over the last couple of years and vice versa, or who are mutual followers began yakking about something they are passionate about using not email but social networks and communities to correspond. Which dovetails with the Nielsen data from their Global Network Survey in March 2009. Their finding was that more Internet users correspond via social networks (66.8%) than via email (65.1%). WOW.

The Social Side

But think about this. I'm working on a personal social graph that is outcome based - i.e. built around an event - the World Series - that incorporates my family, sub-communities of CRM influencers; large communities of yankees fans who I only will know for the games - and phillies fans - and fans who are converging because of the World Series only - regardless of who they root for #WorldSeries - using social channels like Twitter and social networks like Facebook. What makes this even more fascinating is due to Facebook Connect, my tweets are carried to Facebook allowing my friends on Facebook who don't tweet much to comment and converse on the content of my tweets.

And this is all organic.

A few months ago, I wrote a blog post on outcome based social networks (OSN) which was an excerpt from the 4th edition of CRM at the Speed of Light. What was most prominent about it was that the OSN was pretty much archived when done. That's likely, hopefully after tonight. But in the course of this amazing playoffs, two things happened. I made some new friends and found a bunch of new people on Twitter who follow me and/or who I follow. I saw how quickly that even existing social networks and communities can morph themselves into new forms with new rich results and conversation - which tells you how important it is to not just understand the business value of the communications revolution that we've seen in the last five years or so, but the social value that's been added when it comes to being able to converse with "people like you" in real time in a few seconds after you decide you want to. Extract what business value and thinking you want from this observation. I've got to get ready with my laptop and iPhone, for the game, sitting at my hotel in Bogota.

Though I wish I could be at Yankee Stadium tonight

Competing in the Social Customer's World - Getting Hotter

When I wrote the margin of utility a few weeks ago, that was only one of a series of posts that I want to present to y'all on "how to engage customers." I think, regardless of what we want to call it, we're all in agreement that since customers are now different - are now social customers - or at least a significant and increasing percentage of the population is - that we have to develop customer engagement strategies in business that help figure out how to collaborate with customers in ways that can provide value to all parties involved.

In order to do that, given that we are at a fairly early stage, there are two pieces that I'm going to concern myself with and hope that you'll work with me on. First, the hardcore how - what are the things that we have to do - the best practices, the processes, the tools, the kinds of strategy, the frameworks, the business models, the methodologies, that can be sculpted so that there will be successful repeatable, but customizable, approaches that businesses can use to engage those customers.

Second, what are the issues of social psychology, of cultural anthropology that give us insight into the way the social customer thinks and lives? What are the foundations of the science of business that we're attempting to realize with Social CRM? How do these insights translated into a well designed strategy for a single company to enhance their ability to create advocates, not just to engage customers for engagement's sake?

Why do we need that?

Traditional CRM has a wide body of practice and highly directed knowledge that has suited the CRM practitioners well so that the dismal failure rates of its early years are now gone and success as a whole or in part is more often than not an outcome for those implementing it. Even though there are plenty of detractors of CRM to this day regardless, it is a $13 billion industry (or so). I have a hard time thinking that businesses are so stupid that they would throw that kind of money after something that consistently fails. They spend those enormous sums of money not just because of the promise of success but also there is a sufficiently proven track record to make it worth the risk.

But since the social customer is in much more command of his or her own fate than in the past - social CRM calls for something considerably more right brained than traditional CRM itself did. It calls for insight into how customers a.k.a. human beings think and how they socially interact and what the importance of those social interactions is in a particular setting i.e. in the case of Social CRM, a business environment.

Which leads me to the nature and purpose of this particular blog entry. This is one of those "science of business" type entries. You decide whether its quack or good.

Competing in The Markets

Much of how we as customers think or we as business people trying to know our customers, act, is based on the expectations we have of some sort of outcome of an interaction or of a series of them. Or, for that matter, expectations built on the memories of interactions past. Its why we always talk of first impressions being so important. Those are the powerful as the memories of the results of prior interactions and, most importantly, how we felt about it. In fact, sometimes the feeling is more granular than the accuracy of the memory. Think about those moments in life when you remember how you felt, but not all the details of the actual event that caused it.

Those expectations come right up against something else that can drive business people wild every day.

Competition.

What came to mind when I said competition? Weeeee-ll, I would guess that if you were a technology vendor, then another technology vendor or group of them came to the forefront. If you were Tide detergent, Cheer might have come to mind. Maybe if you were IBM, Hewlett Packard came jumped out front. Or something else.

But the reality is, while this is certainly some of the competition that you have to deal with, its no longer the bulk of it. There are two other competitive areas that you have to figure on that might be even more devastating, if you don't solve them - and if you do, incredibly rewarding.

First, Competition for Attention

Think of these numbers. There are 3,000 institutional messages a day blasting each and every one of us - this means 1 million per year. They can be TV commercials, snail mail advertising, a flyer stuck in your door, a banner ad on the web, spam in your inbox, or an email that isn't spam but still a message. It can be a video, mp3 file or a text message. It can come via any communication channel you can imagine. The important question is, how many of these do you as a consumer actually read or listen to?

Here's a test question.

Everyone reading this gets snail mail, oui? Thought so. How many of the snail mail ads which you get every day I imagine, do you even open, much less read. I would venture to say less than 10% of it - and many of you 0%. It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with the ads and I would also venture to say some of the ads are on subjects of interest to you, but you're so assaulted by messages each and every day, that you get brain freeze when it comes to even thinking about another way - and its just soooo satisfying to either throw out the ad or if you're concerned with identity theft, shred it; or you are eco-friendly, recycle it. That's why competition for attention is every bit as much a problem as companies that produce what you produce.

But there is another competition, every bit as difficult to deal with and maybe even more so.

Competing Against -- Yourself

If you read the headline, you're probably thinking one of several things right now:

1. Wow. That's deep.
2. Wha?
3. Is this dude smoking crack?
4. What'd you say? I zoned out at the title - the post title.
5. Any other of a myriad of thoughts related to "why in f-'s name should I care at all? and What does that even mean?

Example 1: The Ritz Carleton

Let me 'splain.

Competing against yourself is simply competing against the expectations that your customers have about you because of the quality of your service, the content of your messages, the approach you have, etc.

One of the best ways to understand that is to think about one of the most often quoted mission statements in the world. Think of what the Ritz Carleton promises: "We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen." That has enormous implications for their customers because it sets expectations at a very high level. That means when a customer goes to a Ritz Carleton property, they have an image of what they think being treated like a lady or a gentleman is and what a lady or a gentleman should act like. So they expect service that meets those expectations. But it goes much further. They are expecting an ambiance that fulfills that -- and if you look at any Ritz Carleton property, I would say "elegant" and "stately" are pretty good descriptive terms. But it also sets another standard that goes beyond just the mere expectation. It sets a precedent before it happens (in a metaphorical sense of course) that all Ritz Carleton properties will meet these standards time after time, day after day, moment after moment. A slip up becomes a much more disappointing event than if the high standard wasn't there. It also forces a business at that level to re-examine themselves constantly to meet that standard.

For example, at one point, the Ritz Carleton mandated that every employee punctuate every interaction with a customer with the phrase "my pleasure." But that's all it was - a phrase that was, they thought something that propagated that elegance. But, customer feedback told them that the customers found it annoying because all interactions didn't need to end with that. While consistent, it was robotic and undermined the expectation of elegance and courtly behavior, rather than supported it. To the credit and intelligence of the Ritz Carleton, that's nothing but an artifact now.

Who is the Ritz Carleton competing against? It can be argued certainly that they are battling other luxury hotel chains like the Taj. But they are also competing against their own standard of excellence - which forces them to consider even the language that their staff uses that they mandated as a problem because of the expectations they set for their potential customers.

Example 2: Target

Target has spent tens of millions of dollar over the past 7-8 years remodeling its image. From a competitor on the low end with K-Mart, to something that they have been trying to rebrand as "inexpensive", "upscale", "cool", "younger", they have worked hard on doing what they have to do to change their ancient image. They've certainly waged TV commercial war with a long history of quirky, charming, musical, colorful commercials that emphasized their variety, upscale products - all for a younger market. The newer commercials emphasize the young moms and their kids and what they can do for the kids or a similar approach to a different segment. They have introduced high end brands with cheaper editions - a set of Riedel glasses - 4 for $34.99 for example (my favorites by the way). If you've never been to Target and just followed their rebranded ads on TV and in newspapers - you'd be impressed with the hipness of it all - and, if you like that sort of thing - you'd go there. But walk into a large sampling of Targets - and while you find the brands that they claim - you find them in ugly, often dirty, stores, with products in disarray on the shelves and staff that are not mean or anything, but, lets just say are not represented well by the commercials. Maybe better by Kristin Wiig on SNL, though.

I have nothing against Target. They are trying. But the gap between the expectation fueled by their ad campaigns and the quality of their stores is exceptionally damaging.

So What Do You Do?

Some of this may be "duh" levels of obvious but I'm going to lay it out anyway.

1. Don't Promise What You Can't Do - That means that if you are developing your customer engagement strategy, make sure that the experience that you're trying to provide the customer with, dovetails with what you promise them. For example, if you're a high volume retail store, don't promise a boutique one-on-one experience at the store. This was the message of one of my clients several years ago. I did a calculation which indicated that if they were insistent on providing a one on one experience, they'd have to hire 4000 more employees to meet the requirement. That stopped that. We retooled the thinking and the mission to a "great store experience." I presume the difference between that and one on one service is obvious. Translating this into this particular post-speak - manage the expectations of your customers That part is still up to you regardless of customer control of the conversation.
2. Make Sure The Ordinary Stays Ordinary - One of the most important aspects of managing expectations is not, as you might surmise, providing the most delightful customer experience, but is instead, making sure that the expected norm stays the expected norm. That means that if I'm making an ordinary inquiry to customer service - not complaining (the bulk of calls to customer service are inquiries, not complaints) that I expect to get it answered easily and in a reasonable time. I don't expect fireworks and kitten fuzzy feelings. I just expect that it will get done with the utmost utility. That means, for example, that the IVR menus that I don't like, will still route me to the right department. It might mean, though this is one frequently found failure of the ordinary, that, if I enter my customer number in once, I don't get asked for it again. I just get the answer (though in this case, its wishful thinking) I'm seeking and go my merry way. The ordinary which I as a customer expect to stay that way, does. A crash and burn here is far worse for a company than a "not all that delightful" experience that I expected to be delightful.
3. Keep the Experience Consistent - While you often hear me say that in marketing authenticity trumps consistency", when it comes to customer experience consistency is everything. But let me distinguish between a bland uniform consistency and consistency based on expectation. If my expectation is that the online experience I am going to have with your business is one thing which I like and on the other hand the in person experience is also likable but different, then I would expect a consistency of my experience based on my expectation. That's a good thing. Tricky but a good thing. Its tricky because what customer A and customer B expect from their respective online and in person experiences might be polar opposites. How do you deal with that? That's not the subject of this post but it is something that can be reckoned with . More germane here, make sure the experience meets the expectations of the customer accordingly. Remember the Target stores. Big FAIL there. Didn't meet the consistency standard - expectations that, in their case, were created by them due to their rebranding.

Meetup? Embarking on a 41,000 mile Tour

Okay. Here's my calendar for the next six weeks if anyone wants to hook up. I have some already planned (meetings, meetups, meat eating) for at least Oracle Open World but I'm cool with hooking up with those who want to. How to go about this will be after the list.

From:

October 6 - 10: Speaking at the Million Dollar Roundtable. I'll be at the Grand Hyatt Resort and Spa in Kauai.

October 12-14 - Speaking and being an analyst/blogger at Oracle OpenWorld. I'll be at the Grand Hyatt Union Square in San Francisco

October 25-28 - Speaking at RightNow User Conference. I'll be at the Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs CO

November 4-6 - Speaking at FMC CRM Conference. I'll be in Bogota Colombia at a hotel as yet unknown.

November 8-12 - I'll be speaking at the CRM Association of the Benelux Nations annual conference. I'll be at a hotel as yet unknown in Amsterdam, Netherlands

November 18-20 - I'll be wearing my analyst/journalist hat at Dreamforce and attending the Center for American Progress New Media Advisory Board meeting. I'll be at an as of yet indeterminate hotel.

December 7-8 - I'll be wearing my analyst/journalist garb at the SAP Business Influencer Conference. I'll be at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, MA.

Let's hook up one of the following ways:

Twitter: send me a direct message (NOT a public reply or message) at http://www.twitter/pgreenbe

Facebook: send me a message (don't write on the Wall) at http://facebook.com/pgreenbe

Email: drop me a line at paul-greenberg3@comcast.net

Cell: call or text at 703-338-0232. (If you call, please pay attention to time zones in this one. Hawaii is 6 hours behind ET)

Given that I know that you're heavily concentrated in SF when it comes to my stops, just know that I'm nearly booked for Oracle Open World but can hook up for an alcohol-fueled or an alcohol-free chat at some times there. Wide open everywhere else.

I'd LOVE to meet some of you who are only known to me by your handles. Please do me the honor of your time.

Technorati : CRM, CRM 2.0, Social CRM
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Compelling Compilation: Videos That Make the Case for Something

I figured I'd fling a few videos onto this page that make the case for something that touches Social CRM or the customer experience or whatever else I feel like putting up. :-)

#1 First up, a really powerful case for the transformation of communications via social media from John Dodge of PC Pitstop. Its called Socialnomics 09 and it just throws stats at you that makes you think that we're on to something.

#2 Next, a video that make you realize how much impact the use of technology in compelling ways can impact the brand experience with the customer. What Ross Ching did with this video is use the Ken Burns effect (making still shots seem to be moving) in combination with amazingly well done presentation of the lyrics superimposed on the photos/videos and as a result, you get a wow that makes you want to do business with Ross Ching.

Death Cab for Cutie - Little Bribes from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

#3 Finally, Derek Jeter's 2722 hit at Yankee Stadium to surpass Lou Gehrig. The important thing (besides me being the Yankees fan I am) is the crowd's interaction with Jeter. There is a powerful message that gets transmitted here - how the unique confluence of multiple individuals is able to interact as a "hive community" with a single human being. Even though the crowd is a structured but organic social organization it speaks with a single voice and communicates with an individual person in this instance. I'm not sure entirely how to think about this but its powerful when it comes to structuring a customer experience that can affect others. It also means that a "company like me" is a possible concept. It also means that the Yankees are by far the best organization in baseball and the fans are awesome! :-)

Technorati : CRM, Social CRM, Video, social Media
Del.icio.us : CRM, Social CRM, Video, social Media

The Margin of Utility: Keeping the Ordinary Expectation...Ordinary

Now that the book is done, and I've used my sledgehammer to drive my stake in the ground on Social CRM, and the CRM Evolution 2009 conference is over - the best thing I ever attended - I need to stretch my mental muscles with you guys. I'm going to throw out a concept that might be a crock or might add to the thinking around the social psychology of SCRM, at least at an intellectual level if not a practical one. But I need lots of feedback.

The hospitality industry has been on my mind a lot in recent weeks because over the last several months I've done a lot of traveling and it won't let up at all for the rest of the year. That means, airplanes, cell phones, restaurants and hotels if you want to put all the pieces of my trip into one place. That's obviously nothing more than the standard road warrior's trip. What always varies for each traveler is the perception of the quality of each of the entities, which of course are judged according to the expectations and values of the traveler. For example, what kind of service did you get from the airlines you flew. That's of course based on what class you booked, what your frequent flyer status is - though that seems to matter less and less - what flight conditions you had in the air, which airport you flew from, what the airline amenities are to begin with, what kind of airplane you were on, and how long you were flying among other things. How you judge each and all of those things is based on your past experiences with that airline, your past experiences with other airlines, what you've read about the airline both directly and in comparison with the other airlines and what you've observed about them other ways too. Each of these components has an effect on your flying experience. Even the experience you are having live with the airline affects what you think of it. For example, I was on Lufthansa as a Star Alliance partner of United on my way back from Mumbai in January and I had an eight hour ride to Frankfort as the first leg. The airplane seats were horrible and uncomfortably hard in economy class. But I had a great seat companion, a musician and composer who does fusion music with India and contemporary styles. In fact, we've remained friendly with a hookup on Facebook. It made the trip much more pleasant than it would have been if my companion was the stolid, silent type. But that was chance. The seats in coach were all uncomfortably hard it seemed so anyplace I sat would be uncomfortable unless I had had an equally hard butt. The United leg to Frankfort wasn't much better. On the whole, though, I think we all know what I'm thinking about my carrier of (inert) choice - United - these days.

While airlines are not the subject of this, you get the idea. The factors that go into making up the experience are tied to both the value chain of the company that I'm dealing with and the decisions they make on what kind of products, services, tools and experiences they want to provide me with and my personal value chain which consists of my judgments, expectations and emotional matrix, as well as my past relevant experiences which can impact my expectations.

Let me illustrate one other case to begin to paint the picture I'm going to produce a bit more clearly.

Lets Go Yankees

Three weeks ago, my wife, my brother and my cousin-almost-brother, and I went to the new Yankee Stadium to a Yankees - Rangers game. This was just after the CRM Magazine conference had ended (same day). The stadium was stunning, the evening wonderful and the Yankees won 9-2. The tickets had been procured via my Major League Baseball MasterCard points. The four tickets would have cost $1500.00 otherwise. The seats were spectacular and behind home plate. Jack Nicholson, Paul McCartney and Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live fame were 10 rows in front of us. A great experience all in all.

The next day, my wife and I realized that there was a day game for the Yankees with the Rangers so on a whim we went back. Beautiful day, but this time, it wasn't points that procured the tickets - it was money, dollars, dinero, moolah. It was also a steep $750.00 for two friggin' tickets but we figured, you only live once and we were in a position to afford it so we went ahead.

Again, great seats, crowded stadium, this time a beautiful day, rather than an evening. The ballpark is spectacular and a fan friendly, high tech coliseum that carries the feel of the old Yankee Stadium and all the tradition that's important to Yankees fans - which is probably why despite the incredibly high price for tickets they still get 45,000 people per game - day or night.

This time, the game stunk. The Yankees were lackluster, they were cuffed around and they lost 7-2. Now if I were dealing with the quality of the product alone - in this case the game itself - the money was disastrously spent - who wants to spend $750.00 to see the team they are passionate about lose? But, in reality, the totality of the experience which included the interactions between the other fans and us, the beauty of the day, the ambiance of the park, the feeling in the air so to speak, made it $750 well spent. The product wasn't worth it; the experience was worth it.

But that brings me to the question.

Now to the Meat of the Thing: The Margin of Utility

If we're in agreement that the components of a customer experience consist of products, services, experiences and tools, then when does the product's utility begin to predominate over the totality of the experience and all of the other components? When does utility predominate so greatly that it controls what the result of the experience is going to be?

I'll try to clarify and then explain, but understand this is only somewhat thought through so far. I need some help in deciding how it how this impacts Social CRM or even if it applies or is it just a quack idea. Even more germane, if it applies, how does it affect the planning of a hotel or any company that has the customer experience as a paramount piece of its strategy?

OK. I'll carry on with the rest of the story and the discussion.

The Visual Scenario

I did a lot of traveling in the first quarter that culminated in March 2009 in a trip to Chicago and New York. Both were for speaking engagements. I didn't choose the hotels that I stayed at or the class of travel I flew - though I did choose the airline. But that's no biggie. The hotels are what I want to talk about.

In Chicago I stayed at the Allegro Hotel, a converted old hotel in the downtown on the slightly west side. In NY it was the Hudson Hotel on 53rd between 8th and 9th, right at Columbus Circle.

We're going to need visuals on this one. So let's get going with some pix of each of the hotels.

The Allegro

The Lobby of The Allegro

A Room at the Allegro

A Bathroom at the Allegro

Now for the Hudson

The Lobby at the Hudson

A Room at the Hudson

The Phillip Starck designed Bar at the Hudson

Desk Space at the Hudson (note the Bathroom through the Curtain)

The Pix Explained

If you look at the images of both hotels, there are several things that stand out:

1. The lobbies and bars etc. are très chic - very contemporary, almost deco. In fact, the Hudson Hotel is designed entirely by Philippe Starck, the master of contemporary architectural creativity.
2. The rooms are incredibly small. If you look at the Desk Space Hudson image and peer through the curtain, you can see the bathroom behind the gauze. An interesting architectural choice, n'est ce pas?
3. 1. To further elaborate on the room's smallness. The TV you see is in a corner between the desk and bathroom curtain and the bed. What you don't see is that there is almost no space between the walls and the bed. Now, if I said the wall and the bed, no biggie, because, you would think, that just means they made a decision to have one side of the bed up against the wall. But actually, I said walls. For now, I'll leave that to your imagination. Later, I'll explain.
4. The drinks at the bar at the Hudson are incredibly expensive. Well, you can't tell that by looking at the image of the bar exactly, but you can imagine what it costs to maintain a Phillippe Starck designed bar. I had a "finally, we're meeting in person" meeting with James Wong of Avidian and four drinks cast over $85.00. That is correct, sir.

The Euro Retro Styling

The arrangement at the hotel is actually a trend, if not a style, of hotel. There is no particular name to it except I've heard Euro/Retro once or twice. However, the idea is very popular. It consists of:

1. Small rooms that are relatively inexpensive - usually in a city like Chicago in the $100 or so range and in NY around $200 or so. Less than half the pre-recession prices of most decent hotels.
2. The smallness is truly small. Everything - all the so called individual rooms are compacted into what I would call a divided studio apartment style. Bathrooms about a foot from the rest of the rooms - which consists of a bedroom with a bed, a dresser of some sort, a mini-style desk and a TV.
3. The external hotel areas - like the bars and the lobbies are trendy, chic, stylish and clearly well appointed (as I mentioned above).
4. The rooms themselves are given high end accessories so that, for example, the showerheads might be Sparkman shower heads or Hans Grohe bathroom fixtures - all expensive and all work well.
5. The idea of the high end accessories and the trendy lobbies and bars is to offset the real estate savings that the small rooms provide - by allowing more rooms per floor for example with the customer being gaga over calling the elevators "lifts" and seeing Hans Grohe fixtures presumably, preserving the luxurious experience for the customer while living in something that feels a bit like a FedEx box.

The Margin of Utility

So what's my problem? Here it is. At the Allegro, this worked all in all. The bed in the small room left sufficient space to not feel cramped too much and the appointments and accessories and the look and feel of the hotel as a whole kind of worked to make it an interesting experience - despite the lack of space.

However, at the Hudson Hotel, there was so little room between the walls and the bed I could almost hit the wall just by rolling over in the bed. I actually didn't have room to put anything like a suitcase on the floor if it was near the bed because there was no room to put it down.

Now, if I were to take the rest of the experience at the Hudson and simply eliminate the failed utility of the room - i.e. the main product - it was a truly chic, trendy, utterly cool, though a bit insincere (elevators called "lifts" a.k.a. Eurofake) experience that would be awesome if I weren't staying there. But the simple fact that I couldn't roll over without banging my head on the wall, so to speak and that I could see the well appointed fixtures of the bathroom through a curtain at my desk which was pretty much up against the foot of the bed - made the room a big "FAIL!" for me.

That's where the margin of utility comes in. My purpose for being at the hotel wasn't to go to the bar, though it was utterly cool and trendy (apparently a hot ticket place to even get into on Friday night according to my cousin), it was to stay at the hotel in a room that I was going to sleep in.

So the primary purpose of this was the use of the product - i.e. the product's utility to me. But its poor applicability, unlike the Allegro which wasn't as well appointed but the room was simply more (though not greatly) functional - just enough actually, made the Hudson a bad experience.

So my questions to you are the following.

How do you think about this when you are developing your Social CRM strategy? Do you break out the likely effect of the products, services, experiences and tools on the overall experience? Do you weigh the likely impact of each "functional area" and look at how the ordinary is going to affect the overall experience.

Keep in mind, the sleeping on the bed is the most ordinary of the functions that are associated with the overall hotel experience. When the ordinary fails, the impact is greater on the results of the experience than when the extraordinary or luxurious fails. Because there is no expectation of even possible failure when it comes to the ordinary.

For example, if I make a phone call to a company to find out an address, I expect, that I can get that address in a minute or two. I'm not having a problem with that company. I'm simply inquiring into something. If it takes 20 minutes or I get the wrong address or no address - in other words, if an ordinary action that's associated with an expectation of a simple success - not an extraordinary experience - fails, it will have a far greater impact than if something that is far more extraordinary fails or if I'm calling with a complaint - which means there is already a failure.

There is HUGE merit in providing a good customer experience by simply keeping the ordinary, ordinary.

The Hudson Hotel failed at that, and crossed the boundary by providing me with a dysfunctional product for an ordinary expectation. The Allegro stayed at the margin and with less luxurious accommodations, kept the ordinary ordinary - meeting a standard that I'm calling the margin of utility.

Does any of this make sense? Again, this is an incomplete line of thinking. I need help, feedback, someone to tell me I'm an a-hole idiot because it's a bad idea, not because they like the Hudson Hotel. (see the defenders of the Redskins lawsuits against their own season ticket holders or some of the United defenders for exactly what I have ZERO interest in hearing).

In Sum

1. The margin of utility is that part of the customer experience which involves the functional reason for the customer's interest in the company. It could be what a product does or what a service provides. It has little to do with the ambiance or additional accoutrements that go into the totality of the experience. But it has a huge impact on the experience - or does it? Tell me.
2. Keeping the ordinary entirely ordinary is the foundation of one kind of a customer experience and the failure to do that despite the success of the other components usually will mean that the experience as a whole will be a frustrating failure to the customer. No one cares about feeling luxurious if they can't go to the bathroom - metaphorically speaking of course.

Tell me what you think. Help me here. Please.

Technorati : CRM, customer experience, hospitality
Del.icio.us : CRM, customer experience, hospitality

NetSuite is Really Funny

This is just a short post because I just found this really clever and funny even though it goes against my "why can't we all be friends" nature.

I received this email and press release from Mei Li, SVP of Corporate Communications at NetSuite and one of my favorite people in this universe, this morning.

Here's the intro paragraph that preceded the press release which pretty much explains it all:

Hi Paul,

Today NetSuite announced a new program -- the first of its kind -- offering direct incentives to help businesses turn off and turn in their antiquated on-premise software and hardware, pare back their electricity use, and switch to an efficient, cutting-edge, on-demand business management software suite.

With NetSuite Cash for Clunkers, new NetSuite customers in the U.S. who shut down on-premise servers and/or trade in their on-premise enterprise software by October 31, 2009 will receive $500 off of every $5,000 invested in NetSuite. Similiar incentives apply in the U.K., Canada, and Australia. See below for more details.

How could you not love this? This is really funny. Even though I don't think that on premise applications are necessarily clunkers; c'mon, you have to admit, this is a really clever campaign. The actual deal isn't too bad either- trade in your on premise "stuff" and you get $500 off of every $5000 invested in NetSuite. They have similar incentives which curiously only seem to extend to the English speaking world though I doubt they call it "Cash for Clunkers" in the U.K or Australia.

NetSuite is a very good product that oddly is far less flashy than their leadership or marketing or creative work. They are aggressive - in my eyes, to a fault. They are refreshing and personable as a company and produce a really good product that they have every right to be proud of. They are Enterprise-Software-On-Demand (ESOD. I made that acronym up...I think). They enjoy life to a large extent. They are also prosperous. Do they neglect the Social CRM side? Yes they do, and they shouldn't. But what they do produce is genuinely one of the best products on the market that I deal with. But damn if this campaign just isn't outright clever.

That's all I want to say.

Technorati : CRM, NetSuite
Del.icio.us : CRM, NetSuite

Miscellaneous Comments of Interest & Practice

Just a few things ranging from an observation on a survey, an event you should go to, to whassup with my next few months and blog posts, so that you can either meet up with me if you want to - I'd LOVE you to - or help me, guide me, direct me on the blog posts before I write them.

SAP LinkedIn Poll Corroborates (More or Less) the findings of ZDNet Poll

SAP just completed an informal MyVenturePad sponsored poll on LinkedIn entitled Who Do You Trust Most When Making a Business Software Decision? This, as you might know, resembles (slightly) the poll that I did a few months ago on ZDNet where I asked the question "Which Enterprise Analyst Firm Do You Trust the Most? What they found somewhat surprisingly and somewhat not is that the most trusted "sources" for making business software decisions are the technology evaluation sites - I think they mean the ones that have algorithms as opposed to review sites and a very close second independent analysts and bloggers etc. - e.g. folks like me, Brent Leary, Denis Pombriant, Michael Krigsman, Esteban Kolsky, Jesus Hoyos in LATAM, etc. Back in the pack were the analyst firms who lagged by a good 10 percent from the other two categories. I'm not sure that proves anything all in all that scientific, but it is at least an interesting indicator on how trust has shifted. My poll found somewhat similarly though "I don't trust any of 'em" was number two in the poll. Ventana Research was the winner of the poll though from what I can gather from a bit of a probe there was encouragement from the Ventana team to their customers to participate. To their credit, despite the slight gaming of the system, their customers felt committed enough to respond in enough volume for Ventana to win - which says a lot about how they treat their customers. So I don't entirely discount what they did because clearly their customers responded and I didn't see anyone else's respond that way.

Another thing that the SAP poll points to is that if you follow through on the idea that independent analysts are trusted more than the large firms, what you also realize is that individual analysts at the large firms are trusted more than the companies themselves. For example, the trust in Bill Band, Natalie Petouhoff and Ray Wang at Forrester is non-pareil - and rightfully so. They are amazingly good -and they do what's right for the customer plus great research. Similarly for the always astonishing and brilliant Michael Maoz, and Ed Thompson and Scott Nelson at Gartner and Mike Fauscette at IDC. There are many others who I didn't name who can be and are individually trusted at each firm and at other firms. But there is a declining trust in the way that the larger analyst firms handle their relationships with their customers. They are saved by the individuals who work for them, not by corporate practices - which is a problem. No names. Just an observation - one with lots of anecdotal evidence and some survey corroboration. But this fits into the results of the SAP poll. It shows the nature of how trust has changed. Trust is now with peers, with individuals more and corporations less. Which creates a serious conundrum for those individual companies.

An Event You Should Make Point of Attending

There is one that I have both self-aggrandizing and good reason to recommend that you spend some of your recession-damaged dollars and attend:

August 24-26, 2009 - New York - Marquis Marriott - CRM Evolution 2009 - As always, this one is perhaps the major CRM conference of the year sponsored and run by Infotoday which is the parent of the highly respected, iconoclastic, award-winning magazine CRM Magazine. My self-aggrandizing reason for this one is that I'm both chairing it and keynoting it (along with a joint session of the simultaneous Infotoday-run SpeechTek conference). But more than me, there is a surplus of heavy hitting presentations at this one. Its almost ideal with the combination of major league analysts like Denis Pombriant, Brent Leary, Ray Wang, Natalie Petouhoff, Bill Band, Mike Fauscette and a myriad of others. It has world-class, award winning business leaders like Bruce Culbert speaking. Government mavens like Casey Coleman, the CIO of the GSA, and Bob Greenberg who leads the 2.0 move in the world of homeland security through the Virtual USA program, and is my brother too! We've got social CRM practitioner rock stars like Frank Eliason of Comcast and....welll actually the list keeps going. It some 30 plus speakers. If you show up as a paid attendee you get a Blackberry of your choice for free. Storm, Bold, whatever. You pick it. Also, I'm giving away a free week of consulting (40 hours) to someone who will be drawn from the audience. So if you can stand me, come on over.

Get what you need to register here.

PG Meetups - The Rest of the Calendar

This is the rest of my calendar so far. If you happen to be at the event or in the area, feel free to get ahold of me via this blog or via Twitter at @pgreenbe or email at paul-greenberg3@comcast.net or even, gasp, via my cell - 703-338-0232 - you can call or text me. We can hook up.

August 24-26 - CRM Evolution 2009, Marriott Marquis Hotel, NY (see above for details)

September 9-11 Sword Ciboodle Customer Forum, Union League Club, Chicago (moderator, speaker)

September 12 - The Social Software Strategy and Interaction Design Conference (S3xD) - Washington D.C. (speaker/trainer)

September 14-16 - Gartner CRM Summit, Westin Kierland Resort, Scottsdale AZ at Sage Hospitality Suite for 2 hours night of 9/15 and wandering around the conference - find me through Sage folks - and cell etc. (speaker, kibbitzer)

October 6-10 - Millionaire's Club Top of the Table event - Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa, Kauai Hawaii (not sure we could do a meetup unless you happen to be Kauai that time) (speaker)

October 11-14 - Oracle OpenWorld, Moscone Center, San Francisco (speaker, analyst)

November 4-7 - CRM Summit led by Rafael Rodriguez, Bogota Colombia (speaker, no details yet)

November 10-14 - CRM Association Benelux Nations, Amsterdam, Netherlands (speaker, no details yet)

November 17-20 - Dreamforce 09, Moscone Center, San Francisco (analyst, journalist)

I think that's it for the next few months that I can think of. If someone I'm supposed to be hooking up with or speaking with out of DC isn't on this list, let me know. I'm prone to senior moments every now and then so I might be having one. In any case, if you're in any of these locations, let me know and we'll take try to have a drink...or two....or....something.

Concepts To Watch For

Here's a list of some of what I'm going to be writing about on PGreenblog, not ZDNet. Feel free to weigh in on any of them even prior to me writing about them. Or suggest other topics. I'm hungry.

1. Competing against yourself - How expectations power customer behavior (THIS ONE COMING VERY SOON!)
2. The Margin of Utility - When practicality trumps look and feel
3. What makes an expert or consultant less skilled than a practitioner? Damned if I know. A rant.
4. The transformation from the public-private partnership to the cooperative community in the public sector
5. Music and Entertainment - Pop Culture and how it impacts the customer experience - the role of coolness and stylin'.
6. Emotional verticals - what they mean for Social CRM

Okay, I'm done for now. I'm already writing the Competing Against Yourself posting. Can't wait to get your feedback on this one. It is just so f-ing interesting out there right now!!!

See ya later.

Put TechRadar on Your Radar Screen

Bill Band, the head of the CRM practice at Forrester and one of the most senior industry analysts who "gets" it, just finished and released an incredibly comprehensive study called, (take a breath its a long one), " TechRadar for BP&A (that's Business Process and Applications, for the non-cognoscenti) Professionals: The Extended CRM Application Ecosystem, Q3 2009 ." I usually get to say, when there is something this long, the title is longer than the actual report, but in this case...it isn't.

Bill wrote an important piece here, people. Its a first look at an extended CRM ecosystem - one that goes beyond - well beyond - the traditional pillars of CRM - sales, marketing and customer service to a number of other areas. Not only that, it refines the traditional pillars to some extent too - thus building exactly what Bill says here - a CRM ecosystem that is considerably more encompassing than the traditional version of CRM.

Of course, I'm looking at it to see if it dovetails with my perception of the contemporary CRM universe and I'm happy to say it does - for the most part - but not entirely.

What It Is

Arguably, this ist the first attempt that I've seen to organize and identify the extended CRM technology ecosystem that now is needed to serve customers in ways that can actually derive mutually beneficial value. What I mean by that stiff concept is that this is the universe of technology that can be applied so that on the one hand, the individual productivity of the customer-facing and back office is improved and on the other hand, it is the first take on the tools that are basically outreach to the customer so that the customers themselves are engaged with the company. Here's the categories that he identifies:

• Configure, Price & Quote
• Contact Center Infrastructure
• Contract Lifecycle Management
• Customer Business Intelligence
• Customer Community Platforms
• Customer Data Management
• Customer Forums
• Customer Service and Support
• eCommerce
• Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment
• Enterprise Feedback Management
• Enterprise Marketing Management
• Field Service Management
• IVR/Speech Portals
• Order Management
• Partner Relationship Management
• Product Lifecycle Management
• Revenue & Pricing Management
• Salesforce Automation

Here's what it looks like in the organized, extended CRM ecosystem according to Monsieur Band (and thanks to Bill Band for permission to show this figure):

Nicely done. Very nicely done for the most part.

What makes this a critical study is that it is the first attempt that I know of to actually organize the extensive pieces of the CRM systemic technology puzzle that Social CRM calls for. What Bill also does in this document is look at the maturity model for each tech segment, identifies some key vendors in each segment and the evolutionary possibilities for each segment. He also values each segment as low, medium, high for a business. Keep in mind this is not at all the same as the CRM Magazine Social CRM Maturity Model (diagram here and kickoff article here) or my Collaborative Value Chain. This is a granular look at the applications and vendors and areas that need to be considered and the value of each of the areas. Both mine and CRM Magazine's are strategic and bigger picture. Ours are the whole pie - blueberry sounds good to me right now - with a really nice cuppa coffee. Ummmm. Goooood. Really good. Uh. Whoops. Sorry. Anyway, ours are the whole pie, Bill's is a deep dish slice.

I need to stress this. This is primarily the operational side of Social CRM. While there are certainly overlaps into the collaborative, customer engagement piece, it is not the complete view of everything, nor was it meant to be. It is the new, shiny CRM corporate technology map, and easily the best of its kind to date.

Before I get into some of Bill's conclusions, I want to note a few things.

My Thoughts So Far

There are some notable omissions that make this not quite perfect. The most egregious - and this one is particularly important - is that there is no social media monitoring technology included in this 46 page report. Not even a mention. Consequently, because it was missed, there is no text analysis, speech analysis and their big ol' subset, attitudinal or sentiment analytics discussed. While business intelligence is exceptionally well covered, because the conversation is not being monitored, there is no apparent need for analyzing the unstructured data that the conversations provide. What needs to be included to make this extended ecosystem complete are the pieces of technology that provide the capability to monitor customer conversations, engage the customer in a conversation (which is somewhat covered by the inclusion of customer community platforms, customer forums and enterprise feedback management tools.) and capture the unstructured, emotional and attitudinal data (text, speech and sentiment analysis). These technology "categories" are a non-negotiable necessity, I'm sure was nothing more than an oversight since Bill is one of the analysts who understands Social CRM extremely well and has written two other very important reports on it. You can check them out here and here. He calls it CRM 2.0, which is what I used to call it back in the day too. Sigh.

What also is less of an issue but nonetheless has to be taken into account is the changing nature of the pillars of CRM - sales, marketing and customer service. In his discussions for example of customer service and support, while he doesn't discussion web self service or community based customer service, he does indicate that kind of customer service in the community platforms discussion. In marketing he talks a lot about Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM) which are the large enterprise super-management marketing applications, but companies like Eloqua at the enterprise level, Marketo and Infusionsoft at the mid to small business level - all marketing automation suites don't get their props because of the particularly narrow focus around marketing. In sales, he does a remarkable job of covering the SFA of today, but the changing nature of SFA has spun off a whole new area - sales effectiveness which, by the way, is pretty much what Oracle Social CRM's sales applications are actually with a notable exception. Sales effectiveness is a category that is rich enough at this point to merit inclusion into this remarkable body of work.

Don't get me wrong. This is a massive, successful effort and one that has been needed for the last year or so. No one has taken this granular a look at the technology landscape for an extended CRM. I know I could never have done this. Bill did.

Bill defined the 19 application categories (applications he called them, which actually confused me at first) as those that "support the business processes for targeting, acquiring, retaining, understanding and collaborating with customers. My comments are aimed at filling the gaps that are bound to exist in an effort this large.

Bill's Thinking

Some of the conclusions he came to through the TechRadar research:

• Early adopters are experimenting with social applications such as customer community platforms and enterprise feedback management. He sees a resurgence in customer forums as they morph to combine with collaboration technologies. Even those these are optional in the eyes of businesses - something I wholeheartedly agree with - though I think that building communities that can be internally administered and monitored/managed will be more valuable than just throwing up a Facebook page. Both would be even better. One thing that this report got me thinking about is Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) which at the moment I have no real good or bad feel for. I'm going to investigate the value of this application category and get back to y'all on it.
• Another observation in the report is that the technologies for enabling "the Holy Grail for CRM Professionals....a 360-degree view of customers" are getting more comprehensive and better. I completely agree. Given that only 38 percent of companies claim that they have achieved it - and odds are, that if we investigate those 38 percent, we'll find that there is widely varying view of what 360 degrees means in this case, there is no question that this is a real positive. The only thing is that the Holy 360 is no longer a Holy Grail for CRM. It should be seen as a prerequisite for companies trying to gain insight into their individual customers and some sense of where to go with them. The new Holy Grail is "a company like me" which is not a data record. Its an idealized state of corporate existence where each customer feels that the company knows them and they know the company - as a peer. Is it possible to achieve that state? Highly unlikely. Its something to strive for and aim at with some percent of success - the ROI of that "state" is many customers functioning as advocates on your behalf. But who knows? Dan Brown not withstanding, no one has found the sacred chalice yet either. Doesn't mean it isn't out there.

This is an important document. It shows how CRM technology as we need to map it looks, while we define the new business models, the new processes, the new business rules, and the new cultures that Social CRM demands. With the exclusions included, it would be where I would start from. If I were a company out there, vendor or practitioner, I would pick up a copy of this and keep it on top of my desk as a reference work to aid your thinking on what technologies will provide you with business value and approximately when they will. Mere individual mortals can't afford this but CRM-interested companies can't afford to not have it.

Technorati : Bill Band, CRM, Forrester Group, SCRM, social crm
Del.icio.us : Bill Band, CRM, Forrester Group, SCRM, social crm

Time to Put a Stake in the Ground on Social CRM

The debate and discussion about what defines Social CRM a.k.a. CRM 2.0 vs. its traditional parent has been going on for about 2 years pretty regularly and started, according to thought leader Graham Hill almost a decade before that.

Personally, I'm done defining it and am moving on. I think enough time has been spent trying to decide what we're calling it and what it is. I think that we've reached the point that though there is no one point of view, there is a general idea of what we have. So this post, which will be on ZDNET and PGreenblog is my stake in the ground for the definition of Social CRM. If anyone asks me what the definition is, they are going to be referred to this post on either blog. I'm putting it on both blogs, but it has implications for each blog that are somewhat different. Check toward the end of the post where I'll discuss how I'm going to approach each one.

Also, for this post, I still will welcome comments and discussion on the definition if you want. But I'm really ready personally to move on.

Why?

First, there seems to be a consensus on the definition already. We all agree on its general characteristics. We see it as the use of social and traditional CRM tools and processes to support a strategy of customer engagement. Or some permutation of that.

Second, there's too much other work on Social CRM to do. Its time to start figuring out and documenting the business models, policies, practices, processes, social characteristics, applications, and the methodologies that we need to actually carry it out. There is some great work going on in those Social CRM areas already with folks like Graham Hill, Denis Pombriant, Thomas Vander Wal, Brent Leary, Prem Kumar, Chris Carfi, Bill Band, Natalie Petouhoff, Mike Fauscette, Michael Maoz and Ray Wang, among others (please forgive me if I didn't mention you. There are many others). But we need to create a repository for all this work - and an institution that can represent it agnostically. Right now, the body of practice out there is all over the place. Even with this, the work on Social CRM's "how" needs a dramatic escalation now.

So, I'm providing one last aggregate look at what I see Social CRM to be. When the 4th edition of CRM at the Speed of Light comes out, you'll see a lot of the what and how in that nearly 800 pages. This is the condensed - black hole condensed - version of that.

I hope that I'm reflecting the consensus. If not, I'm sure the discussion will go on. But as far as I go, I'm interested in the more substantive discussions on what we actually have to do - not how it differs from traditional CRM nor what we're talking about when it comes to "social" and whether or not we are going to call it CRM 2.0 or social CRM.

My Take On It

Okay, here's my take on Social CRM's definition.

1. I'm conceding to "Social CRM" as the term of choice, rather than CRM 2.0. If ZDNET will let me, I'll change the name of the blog to "Social CRM: The Conversation" CRM 2.0 has been a placeholder at best and obscuring at worst - it doesn't reflect the customer's control of the business ecosystem all that well. Social CRM is a better, though not great, reflection of what we're talking about. Let's use the acronym of the Twitterverse group for it - SCRM or sCRM. I don't care which.
2. The customer controls the business ecosystem and the conversation, but not the business a.k.a. company a.k.a. enterprise itself. What that means is that while customers have much greater control over their destinies in how they interact with businesses, make no mistake about it, they don't run the business, nor does the business have to concede everything to the customer.
3. What this means is that SCRM is an extension of CRM, not a replacement for CRM. Its a dramatic change in what it adds to the features, functions and characteristics of CRM but it is still based on the time honored principle that a business needs its customers and prefers them profitable and that same business needs to run itself effectively too.
4. The transformation that's sparked the need for Social CRM seems to have occurred in 2004. It has been a social revolution in how we communicate, not a revolution in how we do business per se. All institutions that humans interact with have been affected by things like the cellphone/smartphone, the new social web tools and the instant availability of information in an aggregated and organized way that provides intelligence to the person on the street, not just the enterprise.
5. Part of that transformation affects how we trust and thus who we trust. Since 2004, "someone like me" is the most trusted source, not businesses, NGOs, government agencies or corporate leaders. That means that peer trust is how influence and impact germinates and then propagates most effectively - at least as of now.
6. The lesson for business, in terms of Social CRM is that we are now at a point that the customers' expectations are so great and their demands so empowered that our SCRM business strategy needs to be built around collaboration and customer engagement, not traditional operational customer management.
7. We've moved from the transaction to the interaction with customers, though we haven't eliminated the transaction - or the data associated with it.
8. Businesses still need to run their operations, set goals that are cognizant of what the customer wants and needs, but not determined by that. They need to map their goals and objectives to the customers' goals and objectives to make it work for all concerned.
9. That means that we need to recognize that there is an extended enterprise value chain which consists of the company, its suppliers, vendors and agencies that the enterprise has to deal with. There is a separate "personal value chain" which is the total greater than the sum of its parts of what an individual customer needs to achieve whatever their personal agenda is.
10. For the company to succeed, since they cannot control the personal value chain of the customer, nor should they want to, they can only provide what the customer needs to satisfy that part of the customer's personal agenda that is associated with their enterprise. That means products, services, tools and experiences that allow the customer that satisfying interaction.
11. The intersection of the extended enterprise value chain and the customer's use of part of his personal value chain to satisfy that personal agenda creates the possibility for a collaborative value chain that engages the customer in the activities of the business sufficiently to provide each (the company and the customer) with what they need from the other to derive individual and mutually beneficial value.
12. That means that transparency and authenticity become more than buzzwords because in order for the customer to make intelligent decisions on how they are going to interact with the company and the level of that interaction, they need that visibility and honesty from the company.
13. That also means that the companies need to make the decision that its a good thing to allow the customer to have that increased level of knowledge, access and honesty - it can help the company immensely in their engagements with their customers. That's a cultural issue that has to be resolved for Social CRM to work.
14. If these aforementioned conditions are met, the customer is afforded the ability to co-create by the company. What that means is not all that pat. It can mean anything from customers and the company collaborating on product development, to customer suggestions on how to improve a company process, to customers helping other customers solve customer service issues, to even doing what gamers do and modifying game play using tools for scenario creation which adds value to the game. Co-creation is the ability of the company and customer to create additional value for each other - what form it takes is not always THE BIG THING. But co-creation, mutually derived value, is at the core of SCRM.
15. SCRM differs from Enterprise 2.0 though is integrally related to it. Enterprise 2.0 is organized around increasing the productivity of the workforce in all that it does utilizing new collaborative tools to do so. It uses those tools to aggregate and organize information and systems. However, though different, Enterprise 2.0 is integrally related because part of that improvement in productivity increases the effectiveness of employee-customer interactions. It also increases the company's ability to capture useful information and knowledge about customers, not just boatloads of data. But what it doesn't do is provide avenues for the customers to engage themselves with the company. That's not its purpose. That is the purpose of SCRM.
16. SCRM also changes the nature of what kind of customer is optimal for you. Rather than aiming at a satisfied customer (an increasingly useless metric) and even rather than thinking that a loyal customer is your best customer, your objective should be to create advocates and settle for loyal customers.
17. How you measure customer value changes when you're thinking about SCRM. Rather than just Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) - which reflects the direct financial value of a customer to a company over the life of his relationship to that company, think too about Customer Referral Value (CRV) which measures how valuable influential customers are when they tell others about your company, not just promise to.
18. When you look at the SCRM applications out there - there are no actual SCRM suites, no matter what the claims of any company on either the CRM or social tools side. What you do have are effective and important applications that increase the ability of employees to interact with customers - though they are not tools that facilitate the actual interaction. You also have the integration of social media and community building tools with traditional CRM tools which are providing effective combinations which are leading toward SCRM. I want to emphasize. These are all good tools. They are worthy of any company's consideration. There is just no SCRM suite out there - as of yet or in the near future. Which doesn't matter one iota.

I'd say that covers the basics.

A Shorter Definition

For a shorter definition of SCRM, I'd say:

"CRM is a philosophy & a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes & social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted & transparent business environment. It's the company's response to the customer's ownership of the conversation."

Well, it may not be tweetable but it's shorter.

A Tweetable Definition

"The company's response to the customer's control of the conversation."

With the quotes and the period, its 71 characters. Get rid of the period and you can just write it twice.

What's Next?

Let me reiterate something. This is my stake in the ground. It would be presumptuous of me to assume I can halt a discussion that I no longer want to participate in. That said, in presentations etc. I'm going to continue to give the definition of SCRM because people will be asking. But I'm not going to try to define it anymore. I know what it is. I think that most people who read my stuff know it too - and many who don't, also know it. I also am no longer going to engage in discussions or defenses of whether or not it's "necessary" or "marketing hype" or any of that. Again, stake in the ground. While there is plenty of room for traditional CRM strategies, the change in the customer necessitates some sort of commitment to social CRM to succeed with that neo-customer.

So, here's what I'm going to be doing and not doing from here on.

1. No more debates on what Social CRM is, though I certainly will discuss what it is in presentations and when else it makes sense. But I'm not trying to define it any more
2. No more detailed defenses on whether or not its necessary. Its existence is always necessary. Its use is necessary in appropriate situations.
3. No more calling it CRM 2.0 for me. Its Social CRM.
4. In all the venues I have when it comes to discussing Social CRM, it will be the new business models, the processes, the methodologies, the practices, reviews of the applications that are part of the SCRM universe - and debunking the claims of those apps if need be. I'll be providing as many success and failure stories as I humanly can so we can develop a body of practice.
5. For ZDNET, now that the book is done, I'm going to focus on what the ZDNET audience loves the best - the technology and processes of Social CRM - related or otherwise. Plus the practitioner stories of successful implementation. There will be deviations from that but that's my ZDNET primary direction. Plus I'm going to try to change the blog name, if it doesn't wreak too much havoc to Social CRM: The Conversation
6. For PGreenblog, the focus will be on the discussions ranging from the business models, the social psychology, the economics to the theoretical concepts and the practical strategies. I'll look at the culture of the companies, the nature of the customer's thinking, the effect of style on all of this, etc. I'll do the best I can with what the line of business person needs to know and what the academician needs to explore.
7. I'm going to spend some time trying to create an institution to capture all of this called the Institute for the Future of Business and the Customer (IFBC) which will include the actual B2B and B2C and B2G customer on its leadership body with the company leaders. Unlike any other institution of its kind that I know of. This is not an easy task. I've been trying for two years to do this already and have made some progress but it needs a good academic institution and an endowed chair and a couple of companies to underwrite it. It is an agnostic body that will attempt to aggregate and organize all this incredible knowledge on how companies and customers engage and establish what the new business world looks like going forth. Ambitious, even grandiose? Maybe. But I'm going to try or go down in flames trying.

That's it. Stake is in the ground. Comments on the definition per se are welcome this one last time on either of the blogs that you see this.

But I'm done. AND I'm just starting.

Technorati : CRM, CRM 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social CRM
Del.icio.us : CRM, CRM 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social CRM

Radian6: Heading to Rock Stardom Themselves

On June 24, we par-tayed - for me until 2:30am. But this wasn't the "hey lets get wasted on um, substances" kind of par-tay. This was another new form of party - a content driven party.

Before you yawn and say, hey Greenberg, your elderly brain is frying really really fast and you're showing that you are everyone of those 60 minus 1 years you have been on the planet, hear me out. WTF is a content driven par-tay, you might be asking?

(A digression caused by a sudden senior moment, pops into my head) "Actually, though, now that I think of it, you could make the case that my baby boomdom does fry me to some degree. My fret finger is arthritic and as a result (or as an excuse) I suck at things like Rockband or Guitar Hero.".

(Back to our station) Patience. All will be explained, grasshopper.

I had the good fortune to be one of the main players at the Radian6 "Social CRM Rockstars" event last Wednesday in Boston at the Renaissance Waterfront Hotel. This thing was amazing.

Here's the scene. A room with a large screen and a raised stage and buncha plastic translucent contemporary chairs adjustable for size and weight up and down. The screen sat in the middle of the stage in front of a curtain. In fact, it was a setup like the one that I had at a SAS Financial Services event in 2004 where I fell off the stage because there was no wall behind the curtain. So, this time I checked the curtain with my palms. No wall. Luckily, my job, as we'll see in a moment was to be part of a panel that didn't walk around, but sat on those springy chairs instead, so I didn't have worry about another little faux pas with a consequent sore butt.

The idea of the night according to Radian6's thinking (yeah, I'll get to the Radian6 story in a short while. Cool it for a few.), was to have some chosen Social CRM Rockstars do this panel on Social CRM with a what it is and what do you do about it. Radian6 uses Social CRM as their mantra and message for their company and product. While I don't think that they are there yet, nor is anyone at all for that matter, they are serious about it, made clear with their announcement of their integration with salesforce.com and, for their analytics, WebTrends, also a helluva good choice.

This was a live event at the Renaissance Waterfront Hotel and a Twebinar. The host - MC really - was social media star Chris Brogan who has a following of about 10 zillion and provides some seriously good insights into the world of social media, community and business via his ChrisBrogan.com world. He also is a helluva MC. Even sings - better than me anyway. He's got a book coming out called Trust Agents, and if its anything like his blog insights, its gonna be worth reading. I have it pre-ordered. Trust me.

BTW, for those of you who are Twilliterate (Brent - include this in our Hall of Shame please) a twebinar is a webinar done with live streaming and Twitter feeds. So questions can be asked of the panel for example via Twitter while they watch the stream via UStream or whatever streaming channel was chosen. They had about 250 at the live event (or a little less) and about 600 (I think) at the twebinar. Not bad for a weeks worth of organizing.

The cast of Radian6 zillions was amazing. Aside from the ones who did the heavy lifting so incredibly well like Amber Naslund and David Alston, both Radian6 superstar stalwarts, most senior management was in there working and schmoozing. CEO Marcel LeBrun who also moderated the panel, wandered throughout the event making sure all was fine in Radian6's piece of Boston. The two Chris's - Ramsey and Newton were all over it, meeting with the crowd all night and proselytizing for Radian6.

The Rockstars for the panel were actual rockstars when it came to CRM. That would be Brent Leary, who of course you know all about, Michael Thomas, the president of the CRM Association and not only an old friend but a hugely insightful guy; Frank Eliason, of Comcastcares, who led the way for practitioners in his use of Twitter as a channel for actually solving customer service problems for Comcast. Me too. The discussion on the panel was lively and there were a number of people who posted on their takeaways, including Katelyn D'Eramo of Topaz Partners. Her takeaways capture what was said extremely well.

Following our panel, which was very good and a distraction at the same time, there was about 1.5 hours of people up on the stage playing Rockband2 - which went really well, even with a broken drum pedal. You'll see below.

I'm not going to describe the event through my usual wordsmithing. You can see it pretty much by all the resources that I'm giving you - and its well worth it to get a sense of what's going on in the world of new business. It was kind of weird in one way. I'm usually not existential about business events. But for some reason, the nature of the crowd maybe (though I've been in many like this) and the quality of the event and the way it was carried out, made me realize that I was one of the oldest guys in the room - if not the oldest. There's all kinds of good and bad in that realization which I'm happy to talk about somewhere else if you want. Send me an email and ask me at paul-greenberg3@comcast.net if you care at all. I'll tell you. It made me contemplate though. No event EVER made me think about my generation gap before. Regardless of which generation ran it. This one did.

A Rich Summary of the Event

You want to see what really went on there, watch the following stuff for awhile. That saves me the time of trying to explain everything. Its Saturday, for chrissakes. My next post will be about Radian6's product. I'm not sure whether it will be here or on ZDNET. Or both. Got some work to do on it.

Rockstars of Social CRM

View more documents from Warren Sukernek.

Here's a video of some of what I said, taken by my good friend and fellow CRM expert and blogger Wouter-Trumpie. This is what I mean by a party with content.

Rockstars of Social CRM @ E20CONF / Boston from Wouter Trumpie on Vimeo.

Finally, an incredibly creative Animoto presentation of the event done by VP of Marketing at Radian6 David Alston, which will eliminate your need for coffee on any morning.

Other Resources from the Event

Tweet Stream for the Event (#soccrm)

Photos posted by CEO Marcel LeBrun from the Event

Christopher Penn's Take on Rockstar Conversations

Technorati : Brent Leary, CRM, CRM 2.0, Chris Brogan, Frank Eliason, Michael Thomas, Paul Greenberg, Radian6, Social CRM
Del.icio.us : Brent Leary, CRM, CRM 2.0, Chris Brogan, Frank Eliason, Michael Thomas, Paul Greenberg, Radian6, Social CRM