The Things Fairy Tales Are Made of: Customer Relationship Management

Once upon a time, there was a young business woman travelling the world in search of customer relationship management…

Oh, let’s cut that and get straight into it.

What is customer relationship management?

So what’s this thing, called customer relationship management? And I don’t mean the software package many companies have installed these days.

I want to know what they do with it, how they manage the relationships with their customers.

Your product doesn’t matter to me.

There I said it. The cold, harsh truth: Your products don’t matter to me. Actually, even your pricing only slightly matters to me. What I want when I do business with you is SERVICE. That you care for me, look after me, make me happy, make me feel good!

So what’s this all about?

Let’s pick a real life example: internet.

I recently had to switch my internet provider. For a while, I was tolerant. The line had its ups and downs. Unfortunately, not as in upload/download speed, more like in service up and even more so, down.

Trying to get help via phone turned out to include painstakingly long waiting times and a ridiculous impact on my phone bill.

Trying to get someone to help via online chat, not exactly successful.

Liking social media, I took them up on their offer to raise issues via Twitter.

The result? Even more disappointing: please call us using our service number.

Well, no thanks, that’s why I’m trying to get help another way: because, whoever eventually answers my call either doesn’t know what to do, promises to do something or never calls back as promised.

So after months of trying to get them fix my line I decided to leave them.

You want to cancel your contract, why?

Upon cancelling my contract, suddenly the company took an interest in contacting, as in, calling me. They couldn’t possibly figure out why I was so unhappy that I decided to leave them. Excuse me? I have an extensive list of emails, calls, tweets trying to get help from you; you should have all this locked in your CRM system!

You can already guess now that they were not able to trace any of the communication I had with them. A fragment of a call here and one of an email there that was it.

They soon had to realise our relationship was beyond repair and agreed to terminate the contract.

So the story ends here.

Not so fast. The story, unfortunately, doesn’t end here. Even after the last invoice (I almost forgot to give them credit for issuing a credit note for that one), they managed to keep using my email address for someone else’s account communication and for sending me more invoices.

So again, emails, calls, tweets. Again no solution.

Taking it to the next level!

I’m a patient person. But when you hit that spot, you better be prepared. I reached out to the complaints department and get ready for some good entertainment now:

Approximately two weeks after my letter to the complaints department I received an answer explaining to me how they used my personal details, that all was under control etc., etc. and giving me two weeks to reply to their letter, either taking the complaint further or saying thanks, you clever dudes, I’m happy now.

Unfortunately for them, during these two weeks, they managed to use my details again to communicate to me regarding someone else’s account and, correct, to send me another invoice.

On route to a happy ending?

So off goes my next letter with a copy of everything.

With zero delays this time they came back to me, even including a case number, and apologizing for how poorly they had handled my case, etc., etc.

Happily, I considered the case closed (at least until the next 15th of a month when things usually got interesting in my inbox) until another letter from another person in the complaints department arrived: Sorry, we haven’t heard from you, looks like the issues you raised aren’t as important as you claimed in your initial letter, we’re going to close the case now.

Really? Where’s the hidden camera? Someone clearly doesn’t know what’s going on in their department.

What is this CRM thing?

My understanding of a CRM system so far was you lock every communication you have with your client in the system to have a complete record of what’s going on (at least that’s why I’m doing – am I doing something wrong?). Calls, emails, letters… I hear you can actually link these systems to applications like hybrid mail and social media these days! No gaps.

Delivering Happiness and The Thank You Economy

My other understanding of Customer Relationship Management was that this is what it’s all about these days. Making sure at all times you maintain the best relationship possible with your customer. Knowing whether there’s a problem, understanding what to do when there is one and taking action to solve it as quickly as possible and if there’s no problem, using the system to say happy birthday or Thank you for doing business with us. Am I wrong again? I heard a “buzzword” along with it: Company culture.

In an age where more and more products are becoming a commodity, it’s the service that counts. No matter what business you’re in, if you don’t care about your customers, they’ll turn away from you. The competition is only a mouse click away.

Happily ever after.

I’m with a new internet provider now. I even pay more for my contract as the initial online chat went so well and the new, upgraded plan made, thanks to my charming chat counterpart, so much sense. Not sure I really need that super high-speed line but it came with a £100 shopping voucher, installation within 10 days – actually on Christmas Eve – and a Sports TV pack for the other half.