If you’re not yet ready for CRM the technology, work on CRM the discipline

By Chris Bucholtz I love my hobby. I build scale models. Y’know – those plastic kits we used to hammer out in an afternoon as pre-teens. Of course, as an adult builder, a model requires research, expenditures on books and aftermarket details, and hours of work. Like other hobbies, it’s gone a bit upscale. The … Continue reading →

The blog: the often-forgotten but awfully useful first step toward becoming social

By Chris Bucholtz We talk a lot about Social CRM (SCRM) and the potentially complex ways of using it. Sure, there’s value in collecting customer data from social, and from listening to sentiment. It’s very helpful to discover the right conversations and engage with your customers (or customers of competitors). It’s the right thing to … Continue reading →

Buy it early, get it late: the CRM mistake built into Google’s Nexus 7 launch

By Chris Bucholtz How many CRM users claim they use their systems to identify important customers? A lot. Who are your important customers? I’d say subscribers, fanboys, people who pre-order things; in the social media age, they’re the ones who don’t just spend money with you, but they want to talk about the experience of … Continue reading →

Customer-centricity starts with honesty, and honesty starts with leadership

By Chris Bucholtz Dr. Natalie Petouhoff is fond of saying, “The fish rots from the head.” She often uses it in describing failures of customer service that stem from shortcomings of leadership. Without executive buy-in, all the insight a service organization may uncover will never be translated into improvements to service processes. But that’s the … Continue reading →

First impressions: getting it right the first time with customers

By Chris Bucholtz I love the saying, “you never get a second chance to make a first impression,” and not just because I enjoy figures of speech that are expressions of the blindingly obvious. I also like the fact that this old saw is usually trotted out after someone’s made a horrible first impression, when … Continue reading →