it's what people hear

"Nostalgia", that longing for something out of the past. I keep thinking that with the speed of change and the increased complexity of technology and life, we have given up more than we realize. This can be true especially in our selling efforts and our relationship management initiatives.

When I look to where the world has sped these last 10 years, I long for a return. It could be my age. It could be what my advisor was trying to reveal when we read Ibsen's, "The Master-Builder" in grad school. Whatever the cause, I often wonder what we may have lost on the human side of our CRM efforts, given the speed of our world and the increasing complexity of our business models.

Needless to say, much of today's CRM technology is "mind-blowing" and "awesome." The systems we have today really are amazing. The depth of data we now can plumb astounds me, especially when I stop to compare what could be recorded and excavated (data-wise) a brief 20 years ago. As the kids would say, "OMG!".

But as I look at what CRM has done for our relationships with clients, prospects, the various constituents, I wonder if in our race to keep up if we haven't lost the essence of building loyalty with our customers. Consider the driving metrics for our sales, service and marketing contacts with our customers. I wonder if we haven't lost something, perhaps a certain "civility" in customer interactions. Is one way back, a constructive look in the rear-view mirror, simply to ask ourselves: How well do we ascribe to Stephen Covey's adage, "Seek First to Understand".

Or, maybe it is to think hard on Dr. Frank Lunt's words: "it's not what you say; it's what people hear." How well do we incorporate that simple advice into our daily customer interactions?