OUR TAKE -  Stealth Advocates     Lasting Impressions: It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. - Mark Twain Early in my career, I remember a piece of paper hung on the cubicle wall of a neighbor employee. It simply read, "Customers will remember what you introduce longer after they remember when you introduce." The idea is that it is worth taking the extra time to get the product right. This person wasn't the hippo but he wanted everyone to know where he stood - if he could, he would hit the red button to stop a bad product from reaching the customer's hands.   Based on reader input there is great personal fear in speaking up. One reader wrote, "I have yet to encounter the Utopian organization where any single person has the power to stop a process or practice from affecting the customer. All too often the opposite is actually true that the hierarchy at the top of the organization will not allow a veto that would potentially jeopardize quarterly revenue no matter the number of customer advocates calling for a halt. The most common situations I have found are where advocates work in semi-stealth mode to protect the customer and ask for forgiveness later."   I think there is more stealth customer advocacy than most people realize. If more organizations took the time to recognize and reward stealth heroics perhaps a culture where taking risk on behalf of the customer would be more accepted.   That's my take. Do you agree? What's your take?   Gary Lemke, Publisher          Action Center         Free Subscription         Submit Content         Industry Events         Webcasts         Archive     Cool CRM                     NEW IN CRM   News:    RightNow Introduces RightNow Mobile RightNow introduced RightNow Mobile, which helps organizations engage and support consumers via any mobile device. RightNow Mobile is part of the RightNow CX May 2010, customer experience suite, and is now generally available. With RightNow Mobile, consumers receive a feature-rich experience across any mobile device, including smartphones, tablets, game consoles, and GPS systems. As a result, organizations can extend their customer experience strategies to mobile devices, seamlessly integrated with their web, contact center, and social channels.(RightNow )   News:    CDC Software Completes Investment in Marketbright CDC Software announced it completed its investment in Marketbright, an on-demand software-as-as-service (SaaS) marketing automation company, marking the second investment in CDC Software’s Strategic Cloud Investment Partner Program (SCIPP). Under SCIPP, CDC Software plans to make minority investments in, and form reselling partnerships with, companies offering cloud-based or point solutions which complement its enterprise solutions portfolio. The first SCIPP investment completed under this program was eBizNET Solutions Inc., a leading provider of SaaS supply chain execution solutions.(CDC Software )   News:    Blue Ridge Communications Selects TOA for Workforce Efficiency Blue Ridge Communications (BRC), a cable and broadband service provider in Pennsylvania, has deployed TOA to manage and optimize the company’s field workforce to reduce operations costs, while improving customer service. TOA’s SaaS solution supports BRC’s management of its 220 field technicians through real-time tracking and scheduling in the field. TOA offers BRC dispatchers a predictive picture of the field so they can manage technician routes and schedules as needed to meet appointment time commitments made to subscribers waiting at home. (TOA )   Article:    Sales Forecast Accuracy – The Results Are In (It’s Not Pretty) If you found out everyone in your sales organization spends up to 2.5 hours each week on a task that is worthless – or indeed, the results of which, costs the company money – what would you say? Would you be outraged. Surely, that time and money could be better spent in activities that might smooth some of the bumps in the road that sales professionals have to deal with every day. Well, for the majority of organizations, the scenario is unfortunately all too true. Looking across more than 200 companies, a study shows that sales people spend about 2.5 hours each week on sales forecasting, and for most companies, the forecasts are less than 75% accurate. When success or failure is usually measured in margins far less than 25% – these forecasts are truly worthless.(CustomerThink )   Article:    Five Steps To Building A Better Relationship With B2B Customers Whatever your job role in the business to business arena, you have customers. Whether they are external, an end-user, perhaps a large retailer or an internal customer, such as a colleague in the warehouse or in the procurement office, they are all customers. Whether you are a supply chain manager or a customer orders assistant you are all part of the cycle of service excellence. Consider a global manufacturer that employs thousands of people, perhaps only 5% of the employees will ever regularly interact with an external customer, for example sales or commercial employees. This leaves 95% of the business remote from the external customers. However, everything you do with both internal and external customers impacts on business success as our external customer service is an eventual output of our internal customer service!(MyCustomer )   Didn't read the last edition of CRMAdvocate? Click here to see what you missed.

Copyright (c) 2010 CRMAdvocate - 14059 Old Mill Circle, Carmel, IN 46032 (+1 317.810.9585)   All Rights Reserved.   Privacy Policy