OUR TAKE -  "The Message" and Sand Castles     Lasting Impressions: The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided. - Unknown What did you think of the proposed message that could have been used in the early stages of the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico? Do you think that setting different expectations from the start could have avoided the current crisis of trust?   This week, the Wall Street Journal reported the BP CEO saying, "We have to get Coast Guard approval before we say anything . . ." In contrast, my suggestion is an upfront commitment for regular and free-flowing updates. In general, I think people have an uneasy feeling when they sense a slow crawl toward the truth when the major players do not speak freely. A controlled message often does not feel like the real message.   Trying to control the message is like building sand castles on the beach. It may look good for a while but eventually the forces of nature and time will win. Likewise, given enough time, the truth usually finds a way into the light destroying "the controlled message" and more importantly destroying trust.   That's my take. Do you agree? What lessons have you learned that can be applied to how you manage your customer expectations?   Gary Lemke, Publisher          Action Center         Free Subscription         Submit Content         Industry Events         Webcasts         Archive     Cool CRM                     NEW IN CRM   Article:    Why Customer Acquisition Stinks It’s fascinating how we consider New Product Development /Research to be investments (by implication, a return can be had on these) on one hand, but we allocate marketing and customer acquisition as an expense. In plain English that translates to: We’re ok with considering what we design, build and sell, an asset that will yield returns. But not the effort it takes to serve prospects and customers that may be interested in what we purvey. Baffling, no? Marketing has this almost comical, inverted model of inputs and outputs that defies Economics 101. (CustomerThink )   News:    COLLOQUY Announces Finalists for its First Loyalty Awards COLLOQUY, a provider of loyalty publications, education and research, has announced 15 finalists in its inaugural COLLOQUY Loyalty Awards, a competition that recognizes the most customer-focused loyalty initiatives in the United States and Canada. The loyalty awards are the first that invite members of the loyalty industry itself to determine the final winners, through COLLOQUY’s 38,000 subscribers. The event is the highlight of a yearlong celebration of the 20th Anniversary of COLLOQUY, a LoyaltyOne company. (COLLOQUY )   News:    Almost Half Of Sales Reps Did Not Meet Their Quota Last Year CSO Insights announces the release of their annual Telemarketing-Inside Sales Report (Telemarketing/Insides Sales Performance Optimization 2010 Key Trends Analysis), showing the top Telemarketing-Inside Sales metrics selected based upon size of change over the past two years, a significant discrepancy between field and inside sales, or a change in trend direction. CSO Insights found many key findings, including account research continues to lead all other Internet uses, on-line collaboration is taking on new meaning and importance for telemarketing/inside sales, and sales cycles have lengthened for inside sales over the past two years.(CSO Insights )   News:    TeleTech Deploys Three New Revenue Generation Offerings TeleTech announced the addition of three new solutions in its revenue generation product suite. TeleTech's new offerings respond to clients' needs for sales coverage and revenue growth within the public sector and small to mid-size business (SMB) markets, as well as the need to transform the economics of existing contact center operating models across all industries. Service to Sales integrates revenue generation and focuses on three areas to drive sales success: operational process transformation, training and coaching to enable contact center staff to sell effectively and technology enablers to provide support for the service to sales process. (TeleTech )   Didn't read the last edition of CRMAdvocate? Click here to see what you missed.

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