CRM in AG: how Larry Wilson has a lot to teach us 25 years later

CRM AgriPassport

Changing the Game in Agribusiness CRM

Agribusiness fascinates me. So do the issues of customer loyalty, customer focus and customer relationship management. As an industry we feed and clothe the world. As marketers we have the unique pleasure of working with some of the most genuine people imaginable; we also have some of the most complex business and marketing challenges as well. An area in which many agribusiness and Agrimarketing professionals fail to realize their full potential is in “customer relationship management” – in delivering relevance and value to our customers and business partners.

Our distinct advantage, as agribusiness leaders and marketers, is that we “can get our arms around” our target universe much more completely than almost any other business model that springs to mind. As such, we should be able to build customer-based, customer-focused business models more effectively than our business peers in another industry. There should be a roadmap we can follow. My hope is to use “CRM Passport” to start an on-going industry dialogue. In some ways, I think it is about the basic blocking and tackling; in other ways, I think it is about “changing the game.”

At chrysalis marketing we focus on agribusiness. Our expertise is across distribution, sales, database marketing, marketing communications and call centers. We help our clients effectively build Customer Loyalty and Customer Relationship Management into their day-to-day operations and strategy.

AgriPassport is being brought back as an on-going communications journal in which we hope to explore the agribusiness customer business models and the issues surrounding customer loyalty, channel management, using call centers to support field sales and Customer Relationship Management. For this first “issue” I’d like to get us thinking about changing the game in agribusiness. Let me set the “intellectual stage.” The discussion is about “Value” and how our customer is the key.

In his 1987 work, Changing the Game, Larry Wilson coined the acronym T-A-S-T-E. It stands for Trust, Accountability, Support, Truthfulness and Effort. The work was aimed primarily at sales people. It called out the need to “change the game” in multiple contexts of sales as the world was changing. That message was vibrant in those days but resonates with even more clarity in today’s ”flat-world” that is defined in many ways by the web and the speed of light.

In 1996, Adrian Slywotzky wrote Value Migration in which he examined the destructive force of change. In his landmark book, Slywotzky introduced the concepts of “business designs” and “profit patterns.” He instructed us to stop thinking in simple sports metaphors of football and basketball for the “mental models” we use to describe “the game of business.” He reminded us that the best metaphor available is chess. Agribusiness would do well using a chess game analogue.

Examining industries as divergent as steelmakers, department stores and the computing industry, Slywotzky demonstrated that one reason why market leaders had lost their lead and with it their market valuation was that they had failed to manage the ever-changing nature of value. “Value”, of course, is a customer-defined concept, and one that changes virtually with each transaction a customer, or client, has with your firm. It was the failure of the automotives, companies such as DEC, US Steel, and so many others that failed to monitor the change in value and as a result found themselves 180 degrees from their heights and in some cases out of business all together. The value-delivery management “contract” failed in the customer contact efforts, in the efforts to create accurate single profiles of customers, prospects and in the sales effort. It is time again to “change the game” in CRM.

In the overall context of Changing the Game, Wilson was talking about the interaction between teams, leadership and their followers and by extension between “us” and our clients or customers. The theme for Wilson, however, was how the “game” is changing for salespeople and organizations that are trying to stay abreast of, and to (the extent they can) anticipate what their customers will need, want and expect: in other words, value

To Wilson, T-A-S-T-E requires 100% reciprocality between both parties. When applied successfully there would be between both parties 100% trust, 100% accountability, 100% support, 100% truth and 100% effort from both parties. In the context of account management or professional services, the value of this approach both for the team assigned to create and deliver the work as well as for producers, growers, and our channel partners more than likely is completely obvious, especially in today’s world. In a customer-based, customer-focused business model, one that effectively uses CRM as its underlying strategy , shouldn’t T-A-S-T-E be a primary principle and guarantee?

My simple answer is a resounding “yes!” In other words, in a successful creation and implementation of Customer Relationship Management, this acronym has a firm place as a prime operating principle. And, I submit that nowhere does T-A-S-T-E have as necessary a place than in CRM in the agribusiness world.

On the opposite side: if an agribusiness were to implement CRM incorrectly - especially without the foundation of T-A-S-T-E - wrongly or in reverse (let’s call it: “anti-CRM”) can we see in that failure to be customer focused and customer based some of the root causes of the current channel tensions?

CRM is a strategy based on customer focus, on customer knowledge, and on delighting the customer. CRM includes customer experience management, customer knowledge management as well as a portfolio management approach to customers. Additionally, effective CRM provides “value “ as defined by the customer - at each point in the customer’s lifecycle and allows multi-channel interaction (web, phone, in-person, social networking, etc).

CRM’s strategy defines how a company delivers value to its customers and profits and growth to the firm as it practices customer-based, customer-focused delivery of its products and services. Tied back to the strategy are issues such as business practices, training, communications, data, capture and use, business process, operations, compensation, etc. (viz., people, process, & data).

The benefits of successful CRM implementations are well documented. They include:

1. Increased sales

2. Increased profitability

3. Increased product penetration

4. Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty

5. Increased employee satisfaction

6. Decreased cost-to-serve

7. Increased retention of the existing customer base during times of economic uncertainty.

8. Increased likelihood of acquisition of new customers

T-A-S-T-E, I would submit, inherently lives in successful CRM practice.