One morning while standing in line at Starbucks, half-asleep with a string of droll on my chin, I marveled at how effortlessly Starbucks combines world-class customer service with obnoxious operational efficiency. It wasn't even six a.m. yet, but these folks were moving at full speed with smiles glued to their faces like Olympic ice-dancing champions. Perhaps it was the intoxicating smell of freshly brewed Java, but I allowed my still groggy, un-caffeinated mind to momentarily ponder what would happen if CRM vendors decided to enter the retail coffee business? What would happen if CRM vendors sold cappuccino?
Well, first of all, I suppose the CRM vendors would get rid of those paper cups and plastic lids -- which work just fine -- and introduce the world’s most technologically-engineered coffee cup platforms. The titanium-alloy lids would have built-in thermal detection and reporting systems which could be configured to display the temperature in Kelvin (but probably not in Celsius or Fahrenheit). The cups would also contain variable fluid-volume sensors that would send workflow notifications to your manager whenever the cup was low or empty. And of course, both the cup and lid would come unassembled in seven pieces, which could be configured in at least 28 different industry versions. Finally, the lids would come out of the box without any sipping spout; instead, you would need to take your cup down the street to a third-party systems integrator who would charge you $10 to install a spout so that you could drink you coffee, which by now would be cold. To solve this dilemma, CRM vendors would offer an optional temperature-maintenance service, where for a yearly fee of 17% to 22% of annual coffee-license fees, they would provide a dedicated team of off-shore support people who would remotely reheat your coffee within three working days (local holidays and weekends excluded).
Suddenly my early-morning day dream was interrupted when the barista handed me my extra-hot-low-foam-Venti-triple-vanilla-skim cappuccino. Clearly, I concluded, CRM vendors could not cut it in the retail consumer coffee market. Coffee junkies want their fix, and they want it quick. Coffee addicts have no patience for things like service outages, crashes, bugs, long implementations, delayed release cycles, or endless support packages. People are serious about their coffee, and there is no room for error. Just imagine what would happen if customers were as serious about CRM as they are about coffee? Without a steady, fast-flowing supply of caffeine, all businesses would come to a stand still!
So what’s the lesson to be learned here? If CRM vendors want to become as beloved and ubiquitous as the morning cup of brew, they need to make the transition from engineering companies who understand technology (or worse, marketing companies who only understand advertising) to customer-service companies who truly understand people.
What would happen if CRM Vendors Sold Coffee?...you'de be first in line for a vanilla latte. j/k, it's a very good article and colorful analogy.
Posted by: amy | November 17, 2007 at 04:15 PM