This is part of an article I wrote in my last year at Uni about CRM and ongoing definitional issues in Marketing… It’s a little on the long side, but please do give it a read.
Hope you enjoy… Comments and questions welcome!
The world, you might have heard it said, is a mysterious place. Sometimes, the mysterious things in this mysterious world are, well, simply too mysterious to be tied down to mere human definitions.
Who, after all, really wants to know what love is (except eighties purveyors of power ballads, Foreigner)? It defies definition. Oh sure, you might try. There are always those… let’s call them pedants, who seek to lasso the intangible with words and corral them into some semblance of understanding. They’d have us believe, for example, that love is a profoundly deep affection for another person, or an amorous incident, or even a chemical reaction in the brain that has something to do with pheromones. And maybe they’re not wrong, but do we need these definitions? Do they make love easier to handle or less confusing? No. Of course not.
We all know, pretty much, what love is (except Foreigner… they still need a little time to think things over). We have an instinctive comprehension that is beyond articulation, which makes these ropes of definition seem like a waste of time, restricting and pointless.
This is not to say that all definitions are useless. Civilised society is founded on a bed-rock of knowledge and understanding, borne of language. Without definitions, we’d be floundering in confusion, unable to communicate.
And communication is the key. Can we get by communicating complicated concepts and ideas, and truly understanding them, when the syntax of the thing is so debated? It’s a prevalent issue not only where matters of the heart are concerned, but in academia and the business world too.
According to The Chartered Institute of Marketing (“the voice and champion of marketing and marketers”), 90% of UK marketing professionals view their profession as “dynamic and constantly evolving’’. Despite this, The CIM’s official definition of marketing is over thirty years old (thirty-four this year). It describes marketing as a “management process” whose responsibility it is to identify, anticipate and satisfy customer needs profitably. There’s so much wrong with that definition… In pigeon holing marketing into a ‘management’ process, it implies that marketing can only be practiced by executives. In the age of user generated content; blogging, Youtube, Twitter- this idea seems archaic. Also, the emphasis on profit completely disregards the not for profit (charity) sector.
It’s hardly surprising then, that this thirty four year old definition doesn’t fit anymore. To put it in context, 1976 was the year Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple. Foreigner were a decade away from chart topping success and their wares wouldn’t feature on anyone’s ‘cheesy 80’s’ iTunes playlist for at least another quarter of a century.
The closest things to a modern mobile phone, let alone an iPhone, the world had seen in 1976 were wielded by Captain Kirk and co. on Star Trek re-runs. The world has changed dramatically since then, as have the people on it and the way they communicate with each other. As such, the original definition of marketing offers an outdated, outmoded and out of touch explanation of what it has become.
Definitions seem to be an enduring issue in marketing and the whole industry could be said to be going through something of a prolonged identity crisis.
Take CRM for example. There’s a lot of mystery in those three little letters.
CRM’s roots go as far back as 1946 and it is generally accepted to be a value-adding concept based on data collection, customer interactions and relationships, but it has never quite managed to be roped down by a specific definition. Perhaps it’s because over the years the term itself has morphed from Relationship Marketing to Customer Relationship Marketing, with a litany of variations in between and little agreement on a definitive term.
Or perhaps it’s because it encapsulates such a vast array of practices and comes under so many guises; One to One Marketing, Target Marketing, Database Marketing, Customer Service Management, Customer Asset Management and Customised Marketing to name but a few. The list, long enough to feed a hungry pedant for weeks, goes on and on. Summing up such a vast, encompassing and broad concept in a neat little phrase clearly presents problems.
Even figuring out what CRM actually stands for is headache inducing. Is it Customer Relationship Marketing or Management? To me, Management suggests an impersonal, business like process of maintenance and improvement that errs on oxymoronic in juxtaposition to the (more emotionally loaded) term Relationship, while Marketing, though weighed down by it’s own definitional baggage, carries a more communicative, perhaps collaborative connotation.
There are those who would go one step further in pointing out the inadequacies of the term Customer Relationship Marketing, and say that ‘Customer’ is the wrong word. Though Customer indicates patronage, Client implies repeated patronage and in the context of a business relationship, this, they say, is more apt, though some have argued ‘Stakeholder’ would be even more encompassing.
But they don’t stop there. Oh no, the R, the very heart of the concept, has been debated too. Does CRM simply deal with Relationships, or does it deal with Retention? Maybe it deals with both and we need to wedge an additional R in there for good measure (CRRM?).
On the other hand, critics of the whole ‘relationship/ retention’ facet of CRM such as Dennis Cahill have thrown out quotable objections such as, “But all I wanted was a one night stand”. No love there, then.
Cahill (our friend with the commitment issues) says that he doesn’t want or need to have a relationship with a business, a brand or a product when purchasing something as simple and functional as a bar of soap. Based on that, is it fair to say that CRM, at least, isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ solution? Perhaps, but without understanding what CRM is, statements like this are hard to justify.
So, back to relationships, we’re not just talking about physical interactions (face-to-face contact, phone calls, direct mail) in CRM, but electronic relationships too. A number of CRM models deal solely with electronic relationships and some believe in this context, CRM needs to be prefixed with an ‘e’ so that we’re all clear of the difference. But does that really need to be pointed out in the 21st Century? The term “eCRM” sounds like a rather desperate, pre-millennial attempt to ‘update’. Who’s trying to convince whom? “CRM is relevant and fresh, honest”? We might as well call it iCRM and then really be down with the kids. Speaking of the kids, what about CRM practices that incorporate Social Networking? Isn’t that eCRM as well? Well, no. Apparently it’s Social CRM.
If this is a case of dividing up the work-load of the various CRM functions within a business, eCRM seems even more mysterious, as surely an integrated approach would be more cohesive and economical. It seems like an unnecessarily tangled web.
While the terms listed above (Client vs. Customer, Retention vs. Relationship, Management vs. Marketing, CRM vs. eCRM) are to some degree interchangeable, each variation also implies a slightly different mentality or approach to the practice as a whole.
I’ll concede to a fault in the ‘love’ metaphor I’ve been vaguely following.
Marketing practices may not be as enduring and timeless as love (there’s certainly less poetry written about CRM), but if the 90% of UK marketers who agreed marketing is “constantly evolving” are right then trying to define, redefine and restrict the concept is a pointless uphill battle.
No matter what you call it, CRM, eCRM, Social CRM, CRRM, this concept deals with data, networks, interactions and relationships. Its function has been variously described as attracting, building, developing, maintaining, and enhancing those relationships, whether they are mutually beneficial, make a profit, pertain to two or more parties or include the possibility of termination (or “divorce”) when necessary.
Despite its’ apparent identity crisis, its’ credibility is growing. Recent survey data from The Chartered Institute of Marketing shows that confidence in CRM’s ability to deliver Return on Investment is higher than ever.
CRM, like that flighty mistress love, can best be summed up as a malleable concept. As with love, trying to predict what the future holds for CRM is confusing, contradictory and seemingly impossible. While its flexibility and uncertainty may strike many as challenging and difficult, it also means CRM can be whatever we need it to be, it’s all about finding the right context.
An Ode to CRM
Customer, Client,
… Stakeholder?
I’m gathering your e-data.
I’ll use it wisely, (hopefully).
Then we’ll be good friends,
You and me.
I’ll market, manage, marry you,
And love you,
(If profitable..?).
Long before I began officially studying marketing and had an excuse to obsess over adverts, I had my favourites. I’d say most of us have at least a touch of nostalgia for the advertising we grew up with, which might seem like a pretty strange phenomenon (reminiscing over sales messages?) but if you take a moment to watch those ads again you’ll recognise a common theme, as exemplified by a couple of personal favourites: Mr Soft and Um Bongo (- A would like to point out that Mr Soft was his suggestion).
ecocomo 