Series of Tubes

Customer Experience

The title of this post is one that most of you should be familiar with, as it's been one of the driving forces in CRM for quite some time now. Customer Experience is one of those things everybody wants to provide, whether online or off. Great. But some businesses are going to have an advantage where that is concerned. Defrost Walt Disney's head and he'd tell you.

Last night, Meaghan and I were down in Union Square (the New York one, natch) and decided to stop into Max Brenner, a restaurant whose main devotion is to chocolate. We'd been meaning to for some time, but we were right there. It was an experience that no Web site can match.

From the outside, Max Brenner looks like any of a hundred establishments fashioned after an Irish pub. From the inside, it's Wonkaland for grownups. There are covered vats of chocolate mixing in the entry hall, with pipes and pressure valves mocked up to give the appearance that chocolate is the place's circulatory system. Food is on display, enticing you to make your choices. Each diner receives three menus: alcohol, much of it chocolate-themed; food, including some chocolate things; and a booklet of other drink and dessert choices, with the obligatory drool-inspiring shots on every left-hand page. If you're not grinning like a happy child by the time you've browsed through them, you can't possibly be human.

And then there's the smell. There is a subtle aroma of fine chocolate in the air when you walk in and sit down (service was prompt, by the way, despite a very busy night). Subtlety ceases as soon as anybody nearby orders anything warm and chocolate-endowed, and you get punched in the face with full-on chocolate bouquet that will leave you giddy. We went in there for actual food, but when the couple next to us received their orders—a molten chocolate cake and something involving a waffle—I seriously considered having my sandwich wrapped before it was even served, the better to contemplate my impending cocoa suicide.

Show me a Web site that can incite this kind of ardor, and I'll show you the next trillionaire. Now of course there's no fair comparison of a restaurant to an e-commerce site, but that's the sort of feeling businesses should be aiming for, the "Oh boy!" reaction that makes you feel you're getting a treat, like you're getting special handling. At the very least, it should be a pleasure to go into the store or sign onto the site, with some positive memory to take home with you and the desire to return.

Is Dialogue Overrated?

Sorry for the brief absence -- even young and enthusiastic bloggers need downtime for things that happen in the physical world. In short, I was busy.

Anyhow, one of the buzz words in CRM 2.0 is "dialogue," the concept of two-way conversation between customers and the companies that serve them, leading to stronger relationships and all the benefits that entails. I get it, I encourage it, but personally I'm not sure how comfortable I am with it.

Let me explain. When I think of customer relationships, my default mental picture is of the customer (me) interacting with local businesses. Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a snob. I don't mind knowing their names, or making small talk, but I really don't want them knowing my business while I'm patronizing theirs. I get uncomfortable, feeling like I owe actual friendship to somebody I only deal with because they're selling something I need. Sometimes, that feeling drives me away.

It's fine for a hotel to know who I am when I make a return visit, or for an e-commerce site to make recommendations based on my activities. But depending on the nature of the interaction, anything more can feel a little creepy -- like a hooker asking about your family. (No, I don't actually know what that's like. Cut me some slack on the descriptive text, huh?)

On the other hand, some of the best business interactions occur when the vendor and the customer make a real connection -- common interests, similar experiences, a real simpatico moment. It can happen at the grocery store, at the electronics megamart, in a nail salon, or over a boardroom table when negotiating a contract. There's value to be had by relating to the customer (and for the customer by relating to the vendor).

The point here is that businesses should definitely attempt to have dialogue with their customers, but they should not force the issue -- and be prepared to back off when the customer is done engaging them. Not every customer is a snobbish prick like I am, but some are, and you need our business too.

License to Blog

I'm not the sort to wake up early for anything; even weekend brunch is usually eaten around 2:30 pm. Even so, I was up before the sun two days in a row for a two-day course in social media and CRM 2.0 (of which the former is an indispensible part) with Chris Carfi and Paul Greenberg.

Paul you should know, assuming you've heard of CRM at the Speed of Light, or have bothered looking at the left column of this page. It was my first time meeting him in person, but he's like an old friend already. Chris is new to me, but he's also a helluva guy, and I'm glad to know him as well--he co-founded Cerado, the company that makes Haystack, a sweet social networking software package for business.

Together, they ran a group of about 20 people (including journalists, executives, and smart cookies of every stripe) through an everything-you-need-to-know-to-start seminar on blogging, podcasting, and other community bits. Pretty eye-opening stuff—I'd share details, but Chris and Paul get paid for these things. I may write up a few highlights for my magazine job, but that's it. I don't want to sully the certificates we earned for our efforts (the aforementioned license, such as it is).

I knew a fair amount about social media from the outside, but it took a two-day beating with the clue-by-four to teach me how powerful it could be and pull me in. I'm ashamed that I waited as long as I did to get involved in what's shaping up to be the next phase of Internet community, and of business-customer interaction. Let's just say I'm glad to be a consumer, because our people are really and truly in control now. There's a lot more I could say, but I need to make social media work for me before anybody will care what I have to say about it.

In the end, what I'm trying to say is "Thanks, Paul and Chris. It was eye-opening." And so I just did.

And now the fine drinkables

There are so many wonderful concoctions out there, I couldn't possibly hope to sample them all and keep my liver flexible. Not that I drink to excess, mind you—at least, not when it isn't clearly a good idea. Or when I have to cope with certain family matters. Or when I feel like it. You get the picture. I haven't done all that much sampling lately, but I'll mention some of the better ones.

Lindeman's Cassis. Yes, I drink lambics. No, they're not just for girls. I was at Petit Abeille (a wonderful little Belgian place down in Chelsea) with Meaghan for brunch last weekend, and it seemed like just the thing to go with a waffle. Lively, well carbonated, very tart without being sour. The ale, not the waffle. It was a great complement to the sweet waffle (loaded with vanilla ice cream and a banana—brunch is just another way of saying "dessert for breakfast").

Macallan 18. You can't go wrong with a Macallan single malt, neat. I've had this before; it's one of my favorites, especially when somebody else is buying (which they were). A little smoky, a little more sweet, a lot earthy, smooth as anything. Sipping this wonderful chestnut-brown spirit at the bar of Del Frisco's Double Eagle and hobnobbing with the folks from NetSuite made for a nice Monday evening last week.

DuMOL 2004 Russian River Valley Syrah. I'm partial to syrah/shiraz, since they blend fruity and spicy in a way that makes me not mind that I'm not drinking ales or spirits. Actually, I've had a number of really good wines, usually on the advice of the lovely and talented Mei Li. This was one of her picks, and she was kind enough to send me home with a bottle for Meaghan and me to share.

Singha. One of my rules is to always try to drink the national beer when eating foreign food. Last night was a Thai night, and Singha is a very nice lager from Thailand. Light, crisp, a good balance to the strong basil, ginger, and peanut flavors I was taking in. American large-brewery lagers are swill (except for me), and even good microbrew lagers don't make me as happy as a nice micro ale. But given the choice between one of my other favorites and this when eating Thai food, it's this.

There. And I barely mentioned businessy stuff this time.

Remember what I said about Chaos?

I've been waiting for something meaty to hang a post on, one that wasn't just a regurgitation of my paying job. (Mmmm, regurgitated meat ....) Well, there have been three CRM upheavals this week, so it's time to put up—when you have major announcements from SAP, Sage, and Oracle all at once, things are bound to get a bit queasy. And now I'm done with the peristaltic metaphors.

First, SAP and its acquisition of Business Objects. It seemed like a good idea to me at the time, and I think that came through in my news report. SAP is good infrastructure, and adding functional depth with the much-loved maker of Crystal Reports gives the company hope of getting its props, rather than being the "other" infra vendor after Oracle. Much has been made of the shift in SAP's strategy, from organic growth and in-house development to Ellison-style shopping spree. But ya gotta do what ya gotta do when you're in a competitive market, so the perception of SAP gazing into the abyss of acquisitiveness and having it taint them somehow is crap. Still, quotes like the one from Rich Williams (at the end of this Bloomberg article) must be giving Larry Ellison a victory stiffy.

Next came this little shocker from Sage, punting Ron Verni and Jim Eckstaedt based on the North America division's trailing performance. Granted, Sage has seemed a little directionless this past year, but putting Nina Smith in charge of the new Business Management division was a step in the right direction. I figured she'd have a thankless job; now in addition to that she may well have to undo her efforts to conform with new policies. I don't know her, nor do I know Jim all that well, but Ron's a good guy who is beloved of Sage's partner-resellers. This will be a blow, and so is the likely loss of partnership with Biz Objects. Good luck to Ron and Jim wherever they land.

Last, today's monster story about Oracle trying to snap up BEA Systems. That rather neatly trumps SAP—or does it? BEA's stock price quickly shot up past the offer tendered by Oracle, and there's talk of a bidding war. IBM is mentioned, as is Microsoft, but SAP is the big gun. A bidding war between SAP and Oracle, as pretty much everybody has been quick to point out, would be a rematch of the Retek fight, and it would get ugly fast. I can't say it wouldn't be interesting, but I wonder if anybody except Carl Icahn would really win.

Each piece is big in its own right, but the 1-2-3 synchronicity of them all together is great. SAP pulls an Oracle, screwing Sage in the process. Sage has to absorb the Biz Objects hit while dumping its senior management. Then Oracle does its own thing, possibly sticking it to SAP in turn, or possibly getting stuck itself. Daggers are flying everywhere, and it makes my job fun and relevant. Sweet!

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I promise to write something that relates to life and not work soon. Until then, peace on you.

CRM 2.0, or whatever

There's an interesting discussion going on here about the future of what we now call CRM (or CEM, sometimes). More than a discussion, really; it's an effort to define the future of customer/business interaction. One of the things that needs to be defined is what we call it going forward.

CRM is a comfy name. We know more or less what it means, and what sorts of applications and activities fit into it. But to some people, it's just another TLA, and it conjures unpleasant images of how relationships can be managed, leveraged, and quantified. CRM 2.0 is an abomination to my eye, combining the trend of slapping 2.0 onto everything with the idea that CRM is just about technology. It intensifies the negative aspects of CRM.

CEM (customer experience management) has the advantage of including the concept of customer experience—how the customer engages you as well as how you engage them—but it's still a TLA, and it has that pesky M for management on it. I know that I mention customer experience whenever I talk about CRM, but exchanging CRM for CEM seems a pointless half-measure.

Simplicity should rule here. I propose no acronym or abbreviation. Just call it customer care. You can talk of customer care efforts, techniques, software applications, or anything else. But customer care is at the heart of everything we're working for. A good customer experience is one where they feel they're being taken care of. Businesses can't properly serve a customer's needs without the sort of information that CRM collects and dissects. The broad concept of customer care may not sound as exciting and tech-crunchy as WTF 2.0, but it gets the point across with a minimum of explanation and a maximum of flexibility. Call it CC if you want (though contact center specialists will get all pissy about it), but my money's on Customer Care.

SAP and Business Objects get hitched

Well, this news gets the week off to a quick start, doesn't it? It looks like SAP is getting tired of playing the "me-too" spot behind Oracle in the press, and is reminding the world that it's got a world-class enterprise computing platform of its own. A platform, mind you, that doesn't have nearly the level of acquisition-integration woes that Oracle does. NetWeaver appears strong while Fusion is still coming together, and I think the joining of Business Objects' winning BI capabilities with SAP could prolong Oracle's current slide in the rankings.

Don't get me wrong—Oracle has created, or owns, some of the best enterprise capabilities out there. Hell, Siebel still rates at the top of everybody's charts for functionality, and it was acquired two years ago. If Oracle can get its act together (or maybe it has and just needs to find a way to portray that message) then it can recapture any ground it has lost to its European competitor. Either way, I have something to write about.

Better minds than mine have already chimed in on this topic. I recommend Ray Wang's Software Insider post to get Forrester Research's POV. Ray's terrific, and anytime I can steal copy from him, I do it. If you have access to Credit Suisse reports, Jason Maynard did his usual bangup job on the financial perspective. He's another one who's eminently quotable. The sincerest form of flattery, what?

The mean-spirited part of me wants to say something about a German industrial machine taking over the French, marching in the shade down the Champs-Elysses. Again. But I'm too nice for that. ;-)

The 24-hour economy

It could be that I'm naive, or that I've spent too much time in The City That Never Sleeps, but it seems to me that major metro areas should be able to support a level of business that doesn't include closed doors. Why should it only be White Castle that's open 24 hours?

Population is increasing worldwide. The US is shifting more and more to a service economy, driving more of that population to cities. People's work schedules often don't allow them to take care of personal business in a convenient manner. Wouldn't it make sense to answer all of this by using the available work pool to answer the customer need by keeping businesses open 24/7?

"But wait," you say. "The Web is always on and always open for business. Doesn't that do the same thing?" Well, not really. Web retail and service businesses don't create the number of new jobs that brick-and-mortar would in this instance. And a Web store doesn't help when you realize at 3 a.m. that you forgot to restock on toilet paper. And the always-on nature of the Web only works when your effing ISP can come through with the goods (RoadRunner, I'm talking to you—I'd like to go a whole day without needing to reset my modem twice).

Clearly, not every business can maintain such a schedule, nor does every area need it. But if things continue the way they are, I think we'll soon reach a point where it's a valid option. But I've been wrong before. I'd be more than happy to discuss this topic further and find out why I'm an ignorant putz who just doesn't get it.

Welcome to the chaos

Right then, since calling myself "old-school" is no longer a sufficient cover for my laziness, I'm starting a blog. There's too much going on in CRM—customer relationship management—to fit into my normal coverage for CRM magazine and its Web site. This is my way of adding my voice to the news and developments, and maybe get away with some things I couldn't in my 9-to-5. In other words, this is unofficial, supplemental, supernumerary, and whatever else it has to be to keep my paying job and my personal opinions separate.

Don't think that it will be all business, either. In addition to being old-school and lazy, I'm also cheap, so there will be entries that have nothing to do with CRM, sales force automation, channel management, or any of that nonsense. If I want to talk about my thoroughly mediocre skillz at Guitar Hero or Bioshock, my thoughts on microbrews, or how completely awesome and sweet my girlfriend is, then that's just what I'll do, goddammit.

Enough intro. I'll be back when I have something to say. Welcome to the chaos.