Brent's Social CRM Blog

Yo Dog, Do You Have What It Takes to be the First CRM Idol?

Do you remember Kelly Clarkson? OF COURSE you do... She was the very first winner of American Idol and went on to sell millions of records. And none of that would have happened if not for this Idol idea, so keep that in mind as you continue reading on....

Ok, the below is from the unbelievable mind of The Godfather of CRM - Paul "Purple Haze" Greenberg, for only his mind could come up with a great idea like this. So if you'd like to be an up and coming player (or is that playa) in the CRM/Social CRM software industry, this one is for you.....DOG! So without further ado, take it away PG...

Okay, everyone this is the big one. CRM Idol 2011: The Open Season is here and we're ready to take your companies and find out which one of you in the Americas and which one of you in EMEA is not the next CRM Idol but the FIRST CRM Idol.

The Idea

Most of what we're trying to do was outlined in the pre-announcement announcement of CRM Idol last week. But it bears some repeating:

Small companies - at least in the CRM software related world - and that means social software world, in this case, too - abound. There are thousands of companies out there that are possibly innovative, possibly commercially viable in a big way, possibly the next big thing. But, as we said, there are thousands of them. And, no matter how great your product is, if no one knows about it, well, then, oops. Not a good thing.

These small companies are all making efforts to get into the ecosystem that could benefit them - one which includes investors, influencers, technology/strategic partners, media connections, etc. While getting support from this powerful ecosystem is by no means a guarantee of success, it can be enormously helpful in getting well down the road there. But, those small companies are often thwarted in that effort by either really bad PR people, or just the incredible amount of companies out there trying to reach into the ecosystem who are pummeling the small amount of influencers, etc. every week with requests to demo or talk.

Now, to be fair to the influencers, they are human beings with lives that aren't built around supporting this one company that really thinks they are it. All they know is that each of them is getting between 20-50 requests a week to take a demo or conversation with someone who owns or represents a company they've never heard of and never talked to yet. In addition to those that they know. Often enough, they are pitched by a public relations person who is either inexperienced or not really good at their job who makes no effort to find anything out about the person that they are pitching to. So the influencer, journalist, venture capitalist gets a generic curve thrown at them that doesn't even break over the plate - guaranteeing that the email is going to be discarded as a matter of course before the first paragraph is even read. Or it could be that on a particular day the influencer got 10 pitches and had a headache and didn't want to see any of them.

As unfair as generic pitches and high volumes of noise are to the influencers in the highly desirable ecosystem we are chatting about here, it is a problem because what are probably a lot of good companies are never given a chance to move ahead because of the difficulties inherent in the process and the vagaries of bad luck on any given day.

Which is why CRM Idol 2011: The Open Season exists.

The concept is simple, small companies out there. If you meet the submission criteria outlined below, you will be given the opportunity, first come first serve, to secure a time slot on a specific day that will put you in front of some of the most influential people in the CRM/SCRM world. They will spend an hour with you in a demo to hear about your technology product - software only - and they will write a jointly signed review of what they saw of you - that will be published in multiple venues as soon as its written. It can be a good review, a bad one, a mix or indifferent. There's risk on your part to be taken here. But it is something that you need to be aware of. The reviews will go up as soon as the 5 judge sign off on the final content. They won't be exhaustive reviews but they will be opinionated and fair.

Forty companies from the Americas and twenty companies from EMEA (that means ONLY Europe, the Middle East and Africa) will get a shot at this - again first come first serve (more later on what that means). Of the 40 in the Americas, 4 finalists will be chosen. (NOTE: There will be an APAC edition hopefully late in the year or if not, early 2012, depending on the success of these two events. Sorry, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, et.al. Logistics made it impossible at this juncture.) Out of the 20 in EMEA, 3 finalists will be chosen. Each of the finalists will be REQUIRED to do a ten minute video about their company and the product. Not a repeat of the demo but a video. Note I used the word REQUIRED here. Let me put it this way. If you make the finals and don't do the video, we will publicly skewer your company. Know why? Because our judges are giving up what little free time they actually have in a summer to do this and it will take us 4 hours a day for 3 business weeks to do it. So if you can't or won't put in the effort to do the video, don't bother to apply. Seriously. We're trying to help out here and we want you guys all to succeed but it's a two way street.

Okay, that rant out of the way. Once the finalists are chosen and the videos done, they will be posted online in multiple media outlets. They will be voted on in two ways:

1. Popular vote - see, crowdsourcing is important. All the votes for the one winner from the Americas and the one winner from EMEA will be tallied from the public sites - in aggregate. That's 50% of the vote.
2. Extended Judges Panels - as you can see below, we may have assembled the greatest panels of judges - both leading vendors and influencers ever assembled in the history of CRM - not to be hyperbolic or anything. Each judge will select a specific winner in each of the Americas and EMEA from the 7 finalists. That's the other 50% of the vote. The original judges will be voting as panel members.

The winners in each will get a major array of prizes, some of which are below, and be declared "CRM Idol 2011 Winner."

Not too shabby is it? Vast amounts of media attention even if you don't make the finals. If you make the finals at all, some prizes to you. The winners get everything that the ecosystem can offer but guaranteed success. But they do get all the accoutrements they need to support their increased likelihood of it.

That way, you small companies out there who have been victimized by bad approaches or just circumstance have the opportunity to bypass all of that and make something happen. It's up to you to take the reins in hand but once you do, you have at least a serious chance at making yourself successful.

The Criteria

This competition is for small companies in the CRMish/SocialCRMish world. - see the categories below for some guidelines though please feel free to make the case if you don't see yourself in the guidelines.

1. You have to have software that is commercially available by the time of the demo - that would be in August - again see below. No betas, alphas, release candidates allowed. If we find that you're not commercially available, and you have a time slot, you're out and someone else will fill the slot. So please be sure that you can verify the claim if you want to participate.
2. You have to have 3 referenceable customers that, if we care to, we can contact and ask about you.
3. You have to have revenue under $12 million U.S. your last fiscal year. As far as disclosure goes, you have the choice of making the claim that you do - though that will have to be stated in your submission and we'll trust you or you can disclose your revenue in the submission with the knowledge that only the permanent judges will know what it is. If you make the claim, please be prepared to back it up if we ask. Your call on how.
4. You have to be willing to make a ten minute video if you get to the finals. More on that later.
5. You have to fit a category - though there is some leeway there.

The Categories

The categories that we've identified to start are:

1. Traditional CRM Suites
2. Social CRM
3. Sales - Sales Force Automation, Sales Optimization, Sales Effectiveness
4. Marketing - Marketing Automation, Revenue Performance Management, Social Marketing, Email Marketing, Enterprise Marketing Management, Database Marketing
5. Customer Service - all permutations
6. Mobile CRM
7. Customer Experience Management
8. Social Media Monitoring - requires the possibility of integrating with a CRM technology
9. Customer Analytics - including text/sentiment analytics; voice based analytics; social media analytics, influencer scoring, etc.
10. Enterprise Feedback Management
11. Innovation Management
12. Community Platforms
13. Enterprise 2.0 - collaboration, activity streams etc.
14. Social Business
15. Knowledge Management - this one requires the possibility of integrating with CRM systems
16. Vendor Relationship Management
17. Partner Relationship Management

Once again, if you don't see yourself in this list, don't worry. Just make the case as to why you have some customer-facing possibilities and the likelihood is that we'll be cool with it. We're trying to make this easier for you, not hard.

The Rules

They are numbered to be entirely clear.

Submissions

1. There will be 40 slots made available in the Americas and 20 in EMEA.
2. The submission will be by email ONLY to: [email protected]. (See below to see this again and what to do if there are problems). Any other attempt at submission will be rejected out of hand with the problem exception mentioned below.
3. The submissions will occur starting today - Monday, April 25 and will continue until Friday May 13 or until all slots are filled, whichever is first (watch #crmidol on twitter for updates on that as it occurs). On May 13, should any slots be left, the remaining specific dates and times will be made publicly available and another final round of submissions for those remaining slots will occur from May 13 through May 20. After that the submissions will be closed.
4. Each submission will include the following:
5. 1. Your company contact and named person contact information Two date and time specific slot requests. ONLY two. If your slots are not available, you're out of luck until May 14 - and then you can resubmit to any time slots that are publicly announced as still available. Though there is no guarantee that there will be any available slots at that time. (see below for examples of how to submit the dates/times)
   2. The category you feel you fit into - or if you don't but think that you qualify - why.
   3. A description of what the product is/the company is. Be persuasive here that you meet the criteria, not that you have a great product. This is merely a qualifying discussion. URLs cannot be used as substitutes for this description. The submission needs to be all inclusive. However, they can be used as supporting documentation.
   4. The names of the three (3) referenceable customers - the company, the contact and the way to communicate with them - minimum of email and phone, please.
   5. A statement that says that you meet the revenue requirement along the lines of "our company states truthfully that our revenues in our last fiscal year 2010 were under $12 million U.S". OR you can state the actual number with the knowledge that the primary judges in each of the Americas and EMEA will treat it as under non-disclosure. But please be aware those designated primary judges below will see the actual figures if you choose to reveal them.
   6. A statement that says, "if (you) make the finals, you are committed to making a 10 minute video for submission and public viewing as part of the conditions for entry." Word it anyway you prefer but make the commitment clear.
6. If you are accepted, you'll be notified privately but it will be posted that you've been accepted on the Twitter #crmidol stream. The time will only be sent to you privately. Just your acceptance will be posted. Please allow some time between your submission and the posting of it to the hashtag and your private notification, since we all still have to work for a living.
7. If you don't include everything specified in the rules for submission, it means automatic disqualification and you cannot resubmit.

The Demo

The demo has few rules. Just be prepared to a. explain your company; b. show your product - live please c. answer questions from the influencers/experts. Not much more than that. I'm sure many of you are experienced at this already so wed don't have to tell you this, but just in case… A site for the demos with login etc. will be announced to the timeslot owners in early August.

The Video

The standards for the video will be mentioned to the finalists once they are named. To rest any unease, you won't be required to spend lots of money to get it done. How much you spend and on what will be up to you as will the content and how you present it. We'll issue guidelines when the time gets near, including how the video is going to be distributed for posting and voting.

The Judges

Here are the lists of all the judges. As you can see, we have what is likely to be the heaviest hitting list in the history of anything done in CRM when it comes to awards or competitions. Click on their names to get to their LinkedIn bios. They are in alphabetical order.

Primary Judges

The Americas

These five judges will handle the 40 entries for the Americas which consists of the United States, Canada, South and Central America. They will all be involved in the one hour reviews each of the days over the two weeks and will jointly sign off on each review which will be posted to multiple media sites. They will also solely choose the four finalists for the Americas.

1. Paul Greenberg - Managing Principal, The 56 Group, LLC
2. Jesus Hoyos - Managing Partner, JesusHoyos.com, LLC
3. Esteban Kolsky - Principal and Founder, Thinkjar LLC
4. Brent Leary - Managing Partner, CRM Essentials
5. Denis Pombriant - CEO, Beagle Research Group

EMEA

These four judges will handle the 20 entries from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia etc. They will all be involved in the each of the 1 hour demos/discussions from Sept 5 through 9 and will write and jointly sign off on each review which will be posted to multiple media sites. They will also solely choose the three finalists for EMEA.

1. Laurence Buchanan - Vice President, CRM & Social CRM, EMEA, Capgemini
2. Silvana Buljan - Founder & Managing Director, Buljan & Partners
3. Paul Greenberg - see above
4. Mark Tamis - Social Business Strategist, NET-7

Mentors

This is an exciting part of CRM Idol 2011. Each of these fine human beings has volunteered a day of their time - two during the finals and one with the winners - to provide the benefit of their experience to the contestants. What they will do is noted by their name. This is an awesome idea that Anthony Lye actually cooked up. Each of these mentors has decades of experience in the software and venture capital world and is considered a leader in the CRM space. So if you make it to the finals, you have the benefit of their knowledge and their valuable time. Amazing.

1. Anthony Lye - Anthony will provide one day for the Americas finalists and one day for the EMEA finalists for consultation on how to best do the content for the contending videos and whatever other pertinent advice the finalists need. Anthony has had years of experience as a senior management person for enterprise CRM and a thought leader.
2. Joe Hughes - Joe will provide one day for the Americas finalists and one day for the EMEA finalists for consultation on how to best do the content for the contending videos and whatever other pertinent advice the finalists need. Joe has been a leader in the CRM space for as long as we can remember and one of the more foresighted when it comes to the value of Social CRM
3. Larry Augustin - This is a prize for the winner of EMEA and the winner of the Americas. Larry who has years of experience as an executive in the software space and has been a successful venture capitalist will work with the winner to prepare them for dealing with possible investors including doing a VC matching with the winners.

There will most likely be other mentors announced as the competition gets closer to the demo dates. We might try to make some mentors available to prepare you if you need them for the one hour demos but that's still up in the air. We'll keep you posted.

Extended Judges Panels

The Influencer Panel

1. William Band - Vice President & Principal Analyst, CRM, Forrester Research
2. Jim Berkowitz - CEO, CRM Mastery
3. Bruce Culbert - Chief Service Officer, The Pedowitz Group
4. Zoli Erdos - Publisher/Editor, CloudAve and Enterprise Irregulars
5. Mike Fauscette - Group Vice President, Software Business Solutions, IDC
6. Josh Greenbaum - Principal, Enterprise Applications Consulting
7. Dr. Graham Hill - Partner, Optima Partners
8. Dennis Howlett - Buyer Advocate
9. Ian Jacobs - Senior Analyst, Customer Interaction, Ovum/Datamonitor
10. Michael Krigsman - CEO, Asuret
11. Marshall Lager - Managing Principal, Third Idea Consulting
12. Kate Leggett - Senior Analyst, CRM, Forrester Research
13. Maribel Lopez - Principal Analyst and VP, Constellation Research Founder Lopez Research LLC
14. Jeremiah Owyang -Managing Partner, Altimeter Group
15. Sameer Patel - Managing Partner, Sovos Group
16. Scott Rogers - Customer Evangelist
17. Robert Scoble - Managing Director, Rackspace Hosting
18. Brian Solis - Principal, Altimeter Group
19. Dilip Soman - Professor of Marketing, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
20. Ray Wang - CEO, Constellation Research
21. Mary Wardley - Vice President, CRM Applications, IDC

The Vendor Panel

1. Larry Augustin - CEO, SugarCRM
2. Anthony Lye - Senior Vice President & GM, CRM, Oracle
3. Phil Fernandez - CEO, Marketo
4. John Hernandez - General Manager, Customer Care Business, Cisco
5. Jonathan Hornby - Director, Worldwide Marketing, SAS
6. Joseph Hughes - Senior Executive, CRM Service, Support and Social System Integration Lead, Accenture
7. Charlie Isaacs, VP, eServices and Social Media Strategy Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise
8. Vinay Iyer - Vice President, Marketing CRM, SAP
9. Katy Keim - CMO, Lithium
10. Marcel Lebrun,- CEO, Radian6
11. Mitch Lieberman, Vice President, Marketing, Sword-Ciboodle
12. Chris Morace- Senior Vice President, Business Development, Jive
13. Zach Nelson - CEO, NetSuite
14. Bill Patterson- Director, CRM Product Management, Microsoft
15. Dileep Srinivasan - AVP - CRM & Social CRM, Digital Marketing & MDM, Cognizant
16. John Taschek -Vice President, Market Strategy, Salesforce

The Journalist Panel

1. Elsa Basile - Director, Callcenternews (Argentina)
2. Barney Beal - Managing Editor, SearchCRM,
3. Anita Campbell - Publisher, SmallBizTrends.com
4. Robin Carey - CEO, Social Media Today
5. Neil Davey - Group Editor, Sift Media
6. David Myron - Editorial Director, CRM Magazine, Speech Technology Magazine
7. Valdir Ugalde - Board, Member, mundocontact (Mexico)
8. Ann Van Den Berg - Senior Editor, CustomerTalk (Netherlands)

Media Partners

You'll note that we have 8 journalists on a panel of judges. Well, each of them represents a media partner that will be broadcasting the competition and posting the videos for voting in the finals for the popular vote. They are an awesome array of the most influential media sites in social media, CRM, and small business as well as local influencers in CRM in Latin America and Europe. They will be significant in the lives of the contestants, the finalists, and the winners giving each what may be an unprecedented breadth and depth of coverage. Their coverage will be supplemented by posts to the blogs and other sites that are owned by many of the judges so there will be significant reach for all 60 of the initial contenders. Each of these partners will be getting exclusives from the judges and hopefully some of the companies too so that we can add a quality of coverage that would enhance the value to the SMBs participating. in all areas - CRM, social and small business directly.

We expect to add more media partners as we continue on throughout the competition.

The current partners and links to their sites (in alphabetical order, like every list here):

1. Call Center News (Argentina)
2. CRM Magazine/DestinationCRM
3. CustomerTalk (Netherlands)
4. Mundocontact (Mexico)
5. MyCustomer.com/Sift Media
6. SearchCRM
7. Social Media Today
8. SmallBizTrends.com

The Prizes…So Far

These are the prizes as of launch today. There are several others in the works that will be announced as the contest rolls out.

All Finalists

All 7 finalists will get to choose one day of consulting from the list of Influencer consultants below. The order of choice will be based on the popular vote on the video which will be kept confidential but used for the choosing. There will be more consultants added to the list as contest moves forward.

The Americas and EMEA Winners

Each winner will get to choose four prizes from the list. Note - in the case where multiple prizes are being offered by a single vendor - the vendor counts as a single prize with all the items as part of that.

1. Accenture
2. 1. A full day workshop with CRM leaders in Accenture for possible partnership and/or possible investment.
3. Capgemini (for EMEA winners only)
4. 1. A half day workshop with Patrick James, Global VP CRM and Laurence Buchanan to explore joint go to market opportunities and help you refine and test your value proposition.
5. Social Media Today
6. 1. A blog post featuring the winner of the contest to run on both The Customer Collective and Social Media Today
   2. A single blast to the Social Media Today opt-in list (approximately 50,000 names) which will conform to their minimum standards (valued at $10,500)
7. Microsoft
8. 1. 12 mos. of CRM Online Free for developing extensions to CRM
   2. 12 mos. of Windows Azure Free for developing web-based portals and BI solutions
   3. Access to the Office 365 Beta for building collaborative applications and services
   4. Access to the BizSpark One program -a program designed to connect emerging businesses and their investors with a Microsoft advisor to help them identify unique opportunities and expand its business presence
9. SugarCRM
10. 1. Free 10 user subscription to SugarCRM Professional or Enterprise
    2. Membership in the Sugar Exchange and free consulting on product integration with SugarCRM
    3. CEO Larry Augustin, a successful venture capitalist in his own right, does a mentoring & VC matchmaking session with the winners
11. Brian Solis
12. 1. One hour internal webinar on how to use SCRM and social media to your advantage
13. Paul Greenberg
14. 1. One hour pro bono external webinar on a subject TBD for lead gen, mindshare, etc.
15. Ray Wang
16. 1. One hour pro bono external webinar on a subject TBD for lead gen, mindshare, etc.
17. Sameer Patel
18. 1. One hour pro bono external webinar on a subject TBD for lead gen, mindshare, etc.
19. Influencer Consulting- free strategic consulting for 1 day or 8 hours from a variety of judges (in person travel expenses to be covered by winners)
20. 1. Esteban Kolsky (in person only)
    2. Paul Greenberg (on phone or in person)
    3. Denis Pombriant (on phone or in person)
    4. Mark Tamis (on phone or in person)
    5. Jesus Hoyos (on phone or in person)
    6. Brent Leary (on phone or in person)

The Times, Dates, Hashtag and Email

Okay here's the hardcore stuff:

1. The hashtag is #crmidol
2. The email for submission is [email protected]
3. 1. If you have a problem submitting to that email send your submission and a report of the specific problem to [email protected]

Dates and Times Table for the Americas and EMEA

We've put together an easy little table with all the relevant dates and times that you'll need as you progress through the competition.

Dates/Times	Americas	EMEA
Submission Dates	August 15-19; August 22-26	September 5-9
Submission Times	3pm ET; 4pm ET; 5pm ET; 6pm ET	3pm GMT; 4pm GMT; 5pm GMT; 6pm GMT
Finalist Video Submission Date	September 30	October 14
Winner Announcement	October 17	October 31

A Note or Two

A little bit of unfinished stuff that will sort itself out as time goes forward.

• There will likely be a CRM Idol site (Joomla based) coming in the next month or so that will be an aggregate site for all the media outlets and streams. However, this remains a work in progress that's still under discussion.
• There will be more mentors and prizes added and possibly a judge or two.
• For now ongoing news will be found at the twitter hashtag #crimidol.

In Closing

That's about it. Now its time to bring it. First come, first serve. See you, maybe as the 1st ever CRM Idol, in Vegas, Hollywood. London or on the Social Web. Somewhere anyway.

CRM IDOL 2011 IS NOW OFFICIALLY UNDERWAY

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The Cloud, The Drugstore and The Social Customer

Back in September I had the pleasure of participating in MyVenturePad.com's online event, On-Demand: Soaring with the Cloud Virtual Summit. They just published the follow up e-Book to that event, a Software-as-a-Service Guide for Leaders of Growing Enterprise. The book contains insight and analysis from cloud computing expert and ZDNet blogger Phil Wainewright, and includes a session by session breakdown of the summit complete with video excerpts. It's a free download (with registration) and definitely filled with insights from folks like Netflix founder Reed Hastings, former BusinessWeek.com editor-in-chief Jon Byrne, and a host of others.

You can use this link to download a copy of the book.

As part of the event I had the great pleasure of having a conversation with Lisa Larson, Director of Customer Care for Drugstore.com. Lisa is leading the effort to extend Drugstore's customer support engagement through social tools and strategies to create a more satisfying customer experience. Lisa is passionate about customer service, and she's also passionate about building real relationships with them. Below is a transcript to a piece of our conversation. It's kind of long, but hopefully you'll feel it's worth a read.

If you have some time, you may want to check out the audio below, so you can hear Lisa's words come to life. The words she says are great, but it's the passion behind the words (and the actions those words inspired) that drives the success Drugstore is having in this area. And it's that passion for customer engagement that will bring success to those looking to integrate social strategies with traditional customer support to create the collaborate relationships needed to build mutual loyalty and trust.

Brent Leary: When did you start using CRM, particularly on the On-Demand forum, to help grow the business?

Lisa Larson: Really to help grow the business with CRM on demand, we started that back in late 2004.

Brent Leary: What was the driving factor to help make that decision?

Lisa Larson: Really we needed something that would help us manage our contacts. We were growing at a rate that was exponential. There is no way that we could grow the call center at that rate and handle those costs. We needed something that would help us with our cost and our growth. The first step into this was the knowledge base.

Brent Leary: Take us through what it took to get that going, and why you decided to do an On-Demand solution, as opposed to the traditional installed applications.

Lisa Larson: With On-Demand, you actually have opportunities to create the process and programs yourself. That was meaningful to us. We knew that we were going to grow. We actually had many outside partners and sites already. At this time we have 20 sites, back then I believe we had four websites that we needed to personalize and crate a knowledge base for each of our customer care units.

Brent Leary: How did that impact the support you gave the customers? How did that impact their ability to get the information that they needed?

Lisa Larson: This allowed our customers to go right online and find it, if they want to. The important piece of that is you need to create a tool that is easy for them to access. It's actually something that they own.

Lisa Larson: The tool that we purchased allowed us to customize it to our customers needs, based on how they are using it. That meant something to them. We decreased over thirty percent of our email contacts by using the On-Demand knowledge base and that's huge. If you think of that and we're mainly an online retailer, so we have a lot of email contacts. That is a lot of cost savings for customer care and that is growth that we don't need.

Brent Leary: So, how did that impact the way your employees felt about doing their business, engagement with the customer? Did it actually make them more productive in other ways?

Lisa Larson: OH absolutely, they are more productive. What happens is, the easy contacts go away. What you are left with is the difficult contacts. It is a little bit more time consuming. You will see your talk times go up and your email handle times go up, but you'll see your contacts go down overall and you do get great cost savings on that. The CSRs perspective, they love it, mainly because they own and they actually manage the knowledge base. The CSRs are the ones that are telling us what is happening with the customers and we go back through and we look at our contacts. We will then update and upgrade the knowledge base based on their feedback.

Brent Leary: CSRs have a tough job and they are on the front line. How is giving them those tools and also giving the customers the tools, how has that impacted their job in terms of are they happier? Do they stay longer with Drugstore.com?

Lisa Larson: We definitely have seen a decrease in turn over and it was a great decrease. It was over 80% and right now it's just over 40%.

here are many different reasons, great tools is one of them. If you ask CSRs that is one of their requests is they want good tools. They want to be able to serve the customers. CSRs want to be able that their customers get the information they need, it is important to them. When you are a part of that process and you own it. Then you know that you are going to manage it well for the customers, and they are doing their jobs well.

Brent Leary: How are On-Demand tools and even some of the social media tools, how is that allowing the customers to get a better sense of who you guys are?

Lisa Larson: Right now we are out there in social media, in two areas with the marketing. That's drugstore.com and beauty.com. But we are also out there within Customer Care; we have Beauty Advisorand Directors Desk. So we go out there and we talk to our customers and the online on-demand tools help us manage those contacts. We can know what they are, who they are, how long they take and then learn from theme to schedule them and what their costs are.

Brent Leary: Was that a big transitional change, being able to start communicating with customers or have them communicate with you over social channels, as opposed to the more traditional channels?

Lisa Larson: It was. It really was. It's different. You have to learn how to do it. You start out rough. I think most people probably do. Not many people are doing this yet. They are trying to learn how to talk to your customers. You are trying to learn, should it be personal or rally professional. I think there are different areas. With our marketing areas, you will see it purely marketing and professionalism promotions. We have fun and they get to know us as a store. But when you are sitting down and you are talking to someone within Directors' Desk, its personal. You are talking to me and I am there to solve your problems and you will get to know who I am, or you will get to know who the beauty advisor is, because we are there to serve you. Just like you walk into the corner store and you are talking to the person at the front desk, it's the same thing. That is hat social media is, it's the communication and we think that's important. We want people to know us.

Brent Leary: Does that also translate to better relationships with the customers, now that they are getting a sense for knowing who you are? Does it make it a more valuable interaction between customers and the agents?

Lisa Larson: It does. They start caring for you. Sometimes when you are online or just on the phone or email, people almost forget that you are human. When you put a face out there, or you put people out there and they get to know who you are, they treat you differently. Our goal is to serve them and to solve their problems and did it well. I think I hear that and see it and know it. Social media is a big part of that. They can come and see who we are. We fix their problem, they see us not only fixing their problems, but fixing everyone else's. That means something to them. You do it well, honestly, and openly and you are going to create relationships. They are going to like you for that. ITs when you don't do it that way or you ignore them or you don't resolve their problems that they won't trust you.

That's a goal, is to build trust because we want to fix every problem out there. We want to do it well. We want to do it right.

Brent Leary: Talk a little bit about, maybe some ROI, or how the overall hard numbers have been impacted by using the online solutions to integrate some of these things then?

Lisa Larson: The big one was the knowledge base. That was a large one for us with the 30% decrease in the amounts. Social media is one that we are learning. We know that we have a win in social media because we are actually committed to our customers and we joined the community and they are getting to know us. What we are learning and what we are trying to do is understand the costs and the impact. That is something that we don't know really well right now, we are pushing on it. I believe this is an area of growth an opportunity, but what that tells me is, I need to look at this context like I do chat, email or phone. I need to be able to manage them. I need to be able to schedule them and forecast them even. How do I do that? By learning and I am using the on demand tools right now to help me with that. It's really looking at them and saying, "How long do they take? When are they coming in? What are the resolutions? What are we doing to resolve that? What is the cost?"

Brent Leary: Have you integrated the social fully into the traditional methods that you are using for Customer Care? Or is it segmented out? How are you handling that?

Lisa Larson: At this point, it is segmented out. This is an area that we are learning. It's also an area that's right out there in everyone can see it. It's not like your normal email or phone call. We have senior agents who help in this area, including myself because we are still learning.

Brent Leary: So they can actually contact you on Twitter?

Lisa Larson: They can contact me on Twitter. They can contact my team on Twitter and we'll be there to talk to them. We make sure that we actually use our escalation team or a team leads to talk back, because you cannot take things back. There is one shot. If you say the wrong thing or you create the wrong impression, it could be a bad brand experience and that's one thing we want to be cautious of. We are learning. We have put together processes. We are building on those and the guidelines on how to speak to our customers in this arena.

Brent Leary: Just to give us a sense, how many reps do you have?

Lisa Larson: Overall we have over 150 CSRs, plus a management team.

Brent Leary: A certain number of them are interacting or all of them? What percentage of them are actually out there?

Lisa Larson: Within social media, just a small percentage of my escalation team. I have got a team of ten right now that are trained and being trained. They are not all corresponding. What we have done is we are looking at those sites, because its 24/7. We look at every social media site, every two to four hours, depending on the time. We have a schedule. If there's an issue that is a Customer Care issue and they can quickly and easily respond to, they do.

If it's a situation where they are not sure how to handle that contact, they actually bring it forward and we have a social media team that includes marketing, legal, myself and HR. There are some issues you want to be very cautious about.

Brent Leary: What are some of the other challenges that you see as you begin utilizing these services and interacting with customers on social networks?

Lisa Larson: Customers speak pretty plainly out there. This often means that you can go to a conversation that is very interesting and very intriguing and if you respond to them, you're showing all of your customers the response. You are guiding them. They can click on that. You have to make that decision, should you do it. We have pretty much gone towards everyone. One person we didn't respond to because they had so much personal information. We thought that we would be jeopardizing this customer. Customers will swear, they will do things and we go out there and we don't mind responding and saying "Hey, we're sorry. We'll take care of this for you."

It's funny; I had one customer who was so irate. It was amazing. I had read his thing and thought, "Man, if I respond to this customer I am leading all of my customers into this. Do I want to do it?"

I did it. It was an opportunity. He had a problem. We made a mistake and we needed to fix it. So I went right through. I said, "I'm sorry. I am Lisa Larson, Director of Customer Care, how can I fix this for you?" The next thing you know, everything was, "Thank you. I love Drugstore.com. This is the best place to shop. You guys are awesome." He was tweeting about us everywhere.

That is what we want. You look at that person and sometimes they are emotional. Its okay, when things go bad, customers get emotional. That is not a bad thing. You just need to go out there and try to fix it. Then they are emotional that you fixed it. They are so happy. There hasn't been one contact yet that we haven't been able to solve.

Brent Leary: There is a lot of publicity and a lot of focus on social media but web self service seems to help with customers being able to solve their own issues and challenges. Where does web self service fit into what you guys are doing at Drugstore?

Lisa Larson: That's big for us. Our job is to allow the customers to shop online and we offer them convenience. Web self service just fits in with what we are trying to offer our customers, its convenience.

They want to go online and they want to search for the knowledge that they need to make their shopping experience better, they have that opportunity. I'll be honest, we use it and we push it out within social media. A lot of those customer questions can't be handled in 140 characters, but I can definitely push out a page of our self help and they can go online and look for themselves. It's interesting, we are constantly learning how to meld these different tools together, even chat.

We use chat within social media. We will push out a chat link if we can have immediate conversations with our customers. They use it within social media to chat with our beauty advisors as well.

Lisa Larson: It's a great opportunity because it is just pushing a link out to the customers.

Brent Leary: Where does mobility fit in? Are you seeing customers trying to get help using their mobile phones? Where does that fit in to what you guys are doing?

Lisa Larson: That is our next project. I am so excited for mobile. I think it is the future. I think it is the way we are going. That is coming up for us within the next month. We have got the beauty advisor team that we actually started to really focus on chat and we saw between 25% and 30% conversion.

It's a great conversion on sales with larger basket sizes. I believe that mobile will help us reach the same goals. It's an opportunity that we can look at and we can actually pull the data in and analyze and understand how our customers are using it. Mobile is hard to use. We have an application out there.

I shop and I try to shop mobile and it's difficult. I know that if my Customer Care team is right there to help them, I can make it easy and I can close those sales.

Brent Leary: What has been management's biggest goal and objective met at the high level for using these services?

Lisa Larson: There is actually many. I think you look at the customer and what's the customer level at. We look at our scores month's customers and it's higher. Then we look at the cost savings. It's right there and it's allowing us to grow. Then we look at our employees and their happier. All of the areas that you look at you can't look at one because so many areas are affected by this.

Brent Leary: You mentioned mobility is next. Look out a year from now, what are you going to be using? What kind of services are you going to be able to provide your customers that you might not be doing right now?

Lisa Larson: I would love to have forums out there and have the conversations amongst the customers. I'd love them to have the opportunity to teach themselves and have fun and learn about products. I would love to create communities that are based around health and wellness and our company and really get out there and educate customers. We have nutritionists working for us as well, we could use them as well our beauty advisors.

I think it's just an opportunity to have fun with the customers. It's not only an opportunity its cost savings because I know my customers are going to solve their own problems with each other. What does that do? It deflects contacts from me. That is a huge part of my business because then I can spend more time hiring more nutritionists and beauty advisors because they are solving their own problems and I can thrive in other services that are cool and fun. That's always neat to do.

Technorati : customer service, drugstore.com, lisa larson, myventurepad, on-demand
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Best One-on-One Conversations of 2011: Social CRM, Entrepreneurship and Connecting with Real Influencers

Over the past couple of months I've been hosting a conversation series over at SmallBizTrends.com (thanks Anita Campbell!) called One on One. The goal of the series is to pick the brains of successful entrepreneurs, best-selling author, and executives with organizations serving the small business community, to provide entrepreneurs with their valuable business insights. A transcript of each conversation is included with the audio recording.

Each person I had the pleasure of speaking with had some really compelling insights to share with respect to doing business in today's world. Below are snippets from each of the one-on-ones. If you want to check out any of the full conversations just use the links included here.

Jon Ferrara: pioneer in the CRM industry, co-founder of Goldmine (one of the first contact management apps), founder of Nimble.com, a social CRM service for small businesses.

Question: Do you think successfully implementing CRM hinges on being able to integrate social media into a CRM strategy?

Jon Ferrara: Without social, CRM is a stale database. Goldmine helped create the first model of networkable relationship management. Today, what's different is the social aspect. If all you are going to do is CRM, you can do databasing with anything. But combining the ability to communicate and collaborate, to listen and engage, transforms a business.

Check out the full conversation with Jon by clicking here.

T.A. McCann: Serial entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Gist.com, formerly ran the Exchange business at Microsoft.

Question: A year from now, where are we going to be in utilizing all of these different services-e-mail and social networks-in gathering information?

T.A. McCann: Having all of your data in the cloud, accessible anywhere and anytime, will continue to proliferate. Therefore, the value of desktop applications will continue to lessen. And no matter what app you are in, you are going to have access to the other data that's relevant to that application. There will be more integration.

The preponderance of location-based [services], whether Foursquare, Gowalla or others, and being able to do a query like, "I am in place X - show me all of my most important people who are nearby"-those kinds of queries are going to start to show up, whether in Gist or other applications.

When you think about building relationships, it is still about physically connecting with people. Having systems that are smart enough to say Who is important to me? Who's nearby? and How can I quickly connect with those people? are some of the scenarios that [will be] natural and easy to do for a year from now.

Check out the full conversation with T.A. by clicking here.

Scott McMullan: Partner Lead for Google Apps

Question: There seems to be a very vibrant CRM application store for the Google Apps Marketplace. As I saw on a recent blog post on the official enterprise over at Google , CRM is one of the hottest areas from a customer perspective.

Scott McMullan:We've got 2 million businesses using Google Apps - businesses that need to serve their customers. They need to sell and engage with their products to keep the lights on and to grow. These businesses are turning to Google and saying, "Google, we love the way you are bringing ease of use and messaging collaboration. We would like you to help us with our customer relationship management." Again, we are not building those applications. There are a lot of great CRM applications out there. Our goal is to make it easy for our customers to discover and use all of these different CRMs.

Check out the full conversation with Scott by clicking here.

Robin Carey: CEO of Social Media Today and veteran of the publishing industry

Question: You've built a number of excellent online communities, such as SocialMediaToday.com, MyVenturePad.com, TheCustomerCollective.com and TheSocialCustomer.com. What do you think people should be concerned about when it comes to creating active communities online?

Robin Carey: First and foremost, content, content, content. Keep the content flowing. That's the beauty of user generated content or crowd-sourced content-if you moderate it or curate it properly, you can have it 24/7.

The other critical part is people. Find the right people to come to your community. Find those who are not only the most influential (and that's easy enough to measure these days) but also have the most intriguing way of looking at things. We read people's blogs before we invite them to become part of our community. You cannot automate that yet. [Identifying and creating] really good content requires human intervention.

A combination of content and contact makes a strong online community. After getting it launched, you have to continually nurture it.

Check out the full conversation with Robin by clicking here.

Jim Fowler: Founder and former CEO of Jigsaw

Question: What do you think this type of acquisition and integration does for Salesforce customers?

Jim Fowler:You can have the world's greatest data container, i.e. a CRM solution, but without great data to drive it, the system has significantly less value-[even] zero value. Salesforce was remarkably prescient in their vision of combining the container and the services and cloud, as well as the data. What we had done before we were acquired, and [have done] even more since, is make it seamless and automated for Salesforce customers to get the value of account and contact data, the two foundations of all CRM databases. The ability for us to go in and automatically deliver, clean, and maintain data in a real-time way just doesn't exist anywhere else. I think it is going to help Salesforce continue to be the market leader in this field.

Check out the full conversation with Jim by clicking here.

Greg Gianforte: Founder of RightNow Technologies

Question: If you could leave the audience with one or two pieces of advice, what would they be?

Greg Gianforte: Sales is Number 1. At the end of the day, if you haven't sold something you haven't done much. I would start by immersing myself with my target customers. Go in, talk to them, and decide if your skills can be applied against their problems. Once you have a clear path to some value you can create, go off and build a product or service.

Don't go build a suite of applications, or a product, or even build a feature. Build a featurette you can charge money for to get cash flow started. You have to get the wheels on the bus turning, even if it's a tiny fragment of what you are going to do eventually.

Check out the full conversation with Greg by clicking here.

Dan Siroker: CEO and Co-Founder of Optimizely and formerly Director of Analytics for the Obama presidential campaign

Question: What were some things you took from your role as Director of Analytics that would apply to a small or mid-sized company that's just starting to analyze how impactful their website is?

Dan Siroker: First, define quantifiable success metrics. Very early in the [Obama] campaign, we identified what we were trying to optimize. We looked at things like average dollar per page view on our donation sites, or dollars per recipient of our [outbound] e-mails. Defining and measuring enabled us to know whether we were going in the right direction as we made changes. Without a quantifiable sense of what your goals are, it is very easy to optimize for the wrong thing.

Check out the full conversation with Dan by clicking here.

Andrew Zuckerman: Photographer, documentary film director and author

Question: Your book Wisdom includes interviews with Nelson Mandela, Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford, Billie Jean King and many others. How did you not only get in front of these folks, but really connect with them?

Andrew Zuckerman: Getting in front of them is a very pragmatic series of steps. One major influence on my project is the support of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has extended letters to subjects that I am interested in. I travel all over the world to find my subjects and slide surreptitiously into their schedule. That's the "getting."

Connecting with them- that's an abstract thing. People can smell and feel dishonesty right off the bat. If you are looking for something, an angle or any desire, they are going to pick up on it and most subjects are not going to give that to you.

It's very important to have no expectations. Go into these engagements with an absolute purity and sense of honesty about what you are looking for. It is [in] that meeting place where everything happens. Like anything, you continue learning every single time and rejecting the things that do not work.

Check out the full conversation with Andrew by clicking here.

Technorati : crm, entrepreneurship, smallbiztrends, social crm
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Will you be on the ISH List This Year? CRM-Ish List That Is...

At the end of last year Paul Greenberg invited me to put together a list of companies I thought were worth watching in the CRM space, from an SMB perspective. He included it in his awesome (and extensive) group of posts for his ZDNet blog, which he called his 2010 CRM Watchlist. You can check them out with the following links:

• 2010 CRM Watchlist Part I
• 2010 CRM Watchlist Part IIa
• 2010 CRM Watchlist Part IIb
• 2010 CRM Watchlists Part IIIa
• 2010 CRM Watchlist Part IIIb
• 2010 CRM Watchlist Part IVa (part one for SMBs)
• 2010 CRM Watchlist Part IVb (part two for SMBs)

If it's easier the folks at ZDNet turned the series of posts into an ebook you can download for free.

The companies I selected to watch weren't all what typically would be considered CRM vendors, but they definitely had products and services that I felt had the potential to impact how SMBs find, catch and keep customers in the Social Age. I think of these companies as being CRM-ish, which is why I called my list the ISH list... that's my explanation and I'm sticking to it.

Well 2011 is right around the corner, which means it's time for The ISH List to return. I'm in the middle of making my list - and checking it twice - which will be unveiled again this year along with Paul's watchlist. I've got a few weeks to pull it together, and feel pretty good about the companies I've been watching throughout the year. But, if there are companies you think should get ISH List consideration, please feel free to throw them into the comments section here. If something catches my I, it make find it's way onto the list.

So be on the lookout early next year to see which companies are The ISH. And in the meantime, check out the latest episode of the CRM Playaz. Paul and I talk about how to determine playaz from posers when it comes to who has real influence online.

Technorati : crm, ish list, small business, social crm
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Details on How You Can Win the 2011 Small Business Technology Kick-start Package Featuring the HP ProBook 4425s

Thanks to everyone who has spread the word about the Kick-start package. As I recap, Hewlett Packard (HP) has given me a laptop - a brand new HP ProBook 4425s notebook computer, powered by AMD - that I'd like to give to a small business person.

Not only has HP stepped up here to make this happen, but the following great products have been donated to me to include in the giveaway:

• BlackBerry Torch
• Microsoft Office 2010 Pro
• Sage ACT! 2011
• Adobe Acrobat X Pro
• Intuit Quickbooks Plus Online subscription

If you'd like to have chance to win this package, all you have to do send me an email describing how you would be able to use this package to help your business get off to a quick start in 2011. You can be a new startup, or an experienced small business. If you'd like to nominate someone other than yourself, please feel free to do so! Here's what you need to know:

· Keep your contest essays to 500 words or less

· Send it to me by 3pm ET Monday December 27^th

· Include company information, website, social networks you belong to, blogs, etc. (this is not included in essay word count)

· The winner has to have a US address, as I will only ship it within the US

· There will be only one winner

· The winner will be announced the first week of the new year

· Email entries should be sent to Brent [at] BrentLeary [dot] com with the subject line of 2011 Technology Kick-start Contest

That's it! I will select the winner from the entries that come in by 3pm ET December 27^th. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at the address above.

Once again a big thanks to HP for inspiring this idea - and for all the vendors who are pitching in great small business products to make this a truly awesome package. And finally thanks once again to everybody who checked out my blog and columns throughout the years.

Technorati : adobe, blackberry, hp, intuit, microsoft, probook, sage, torch
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4th Annual CRM Editors' Roundtable: The State of CRM in 2010

I'm Back! Yes it's been a long time, so it has to be called a comeback. But there's time to go into why it's been so long later on. Today it's all about this year's annual roundtable conversation with the CRM editors.

It's hard to believe that this is the year four in having the best and brightest editor types join me to discuss what's going on in customer relationship management. But I'm fortunate to have two of the best editors AND thinkers in the industry share their considerable knowledge and insights on what's going on in the space.

Every time I've done this 1to1 Media's Ginger Conlon has been right there with me. Not only is she incredibly knowledgeable about the industry, she's one of the nicest people in the industry. The same can be said for Josh Weinberger of CRM magazine, who joins us for the second year in a row.

Ginger and Josh tackle a number of different topics, including trust-ability, where we are with social crm, the impact of the economy on CRM, and some predictions about what the year ahead will throw at us - like why Josh feels you shouldn't put too much emphasis on Facebook.

Both Ginger and Josh have valuable perspectives and opinions, and you can hear them all below on the player, or by clicking here to download the mp3. The conversation is right at 40 minutes.

Thanks again Ginger and Josh. And see you next year!!!

Technorati : 1to1 media, crm, crm magazine, social crm, trustability
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Social Media Trustbusters: Look At Me Marketing Gone Wild

OK, the picture of Teddy Roosevelt has nothing to do with this post, but he's the most obvious symbol of trust busting I know of. Anyway, have you seen this year's Edelman Trust Barometer report? It's fascinating. The folks at Hubspot had a nice post on it, and my recent Inc. column used its findings as the focus - Overemphasis on Brand Building Leads to Mistrust.

In short, trust in "people like me" is way down, while trust in recognized experts is way up - and it seems like the fall in trust of people like me coincides with the rise in social media.

To be sure this is just my observation, not any scientific fact. But it's easy to see that we communicate more and more each day via social channels. And it's also easy to see that a lot of the stuff being created is about building your brand... I mean a whole lot of stuff.

I don't mean to say that social media is the cause for the decline in trust for "people like me". What I do think is that social media tools in our hands today is equivalent to a Porsche 911 in the hands of a sixteen year old. The car looks great. The car is powerful. The car can take you anywhere you want to go...but the car can get you in big trouble quickly if you don't understand its power before getting behind the wheel.

The other thing about the car is that it is seductive, which means it doesn't take much for it to entice you to drive it before really know what you're getting into. The same thing goes with the social stuff. We want to use it because of all that we hear and see about it. The difference between leaping into a Porsche without know how to drive it, and using social stuff without knowing where it will take us - is physical pain. Oh we definitely will feel pain with a bad misstep, we just won't have cuts, abrasions, contusions or limps.

We also have to fight the urge to overdo the self promotion and branding. I mean it's ridiculously easy to push our stuff out there, which makes it ridiculously dangerous to step over the line with the LAMMP - Look At Me Marketing & Promotion.

I know I've stepped over the line and had the LAMMP shining directly in people's faces. I didn't mean to, but it happens. I bet most of us have done it. And that's why I believe trust is down in "people like me". It's important for us to try and share our spotlight in ways that help us build better relationships, not alienate the people we're trying to connect with. So please let's do each other a favor and keep the following things in check:

The RT-Thank You

It's always cool to thank people who think enough about what you tweet to share it with their "followers". But what get's old quick is thanking them by way of a retweet that has the link back to whatever it is you want people to see. Hey, I've been guilty of this in the past - and I may be guilty of it in the future - but I'd like to think that you won't see me do that much at all going forward. I'd rather just keep the focus on the "thank you" for a kind gesture, than the extra opportunity to spread my link.

The Overuse of the Auto-Tweet

I know. I've seen the stat that says you need to tweet multiple times to get your message/links across. But if I look at your twitter stream and most of what I see is the same things over and over again I'm pretty much done. It just doesn't look good, or interesting. And I have to think this doesn't build any interest or trust. The LAMMP is blinding me at this point, which makes me have to turn my eyes away.

The Facebook Fan Page Recommendation

When someone adds me as a friend in Facebook, then shortly thereafter recommends I become their fan on Facebook, I reach for my shades. They've never really talked with me, but they recommend I become their fan. Interest down.... not even the possibility of trust. Please let's get to know each other first before trying to sign each other up as fans - Friends before Fans, ok? I'll try to keep my end of the deal up if you will.

These are just a few of the Trustbusters I try to stay away from committing. It's not always easy, but I feel it's important for me to limit as much as possible. And try to keep an eye on your Net Promoter Score... not that one, your social media NPS:

If you promote yourself alongside of promoting your customers, partners and industry community - in a really meaningful, genuine manner - you won't have to self-promote as much. Others will help you out with it, because they'll trust you a little more.

Technorati : edelman trust barometer, social crm, social media
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#SCRM: How an Accidental Online Community Became an Offline Family

I'm writing this while on a plane flying back to Atlanta from Baltimore. I'm coming back home from BPT Partner's Social CRM training event that was headed up by Paul Greenberg (aka The Frientor of CRM). The event was held in Herndon, Virginia, a stone's throw from Dulles Airport, which is where I flew into to attend the event. But I had to fly out of BWI in Baltimore after having two flights cancelled from Dulles because of the blizzard that hit the Northeast.

I'm writing this after suffering through a 2 ½ hour delay, which had me sitting a total of eight hours at the airport. I'm tired..and cranky… and hungry, because the five pretzel bits they give you on the flight ain't cutting it. But more importantly, I'm happy that I traveled in blizzard conditions and got stranded for a couple of days , because coming to what was eventually dubbed the Social CRM Summit was worth every flight cancellation, minute of flight delay, and inch of snow… and that is truly saying something.

It goes beyond the training, which was stellar. Jeff Pedowitz did a great job going over the practicalities of tying "social" to demand generation efforts. Ryan Strynatka from Radian6 gave a nice demo of their social media monitoring tools that sparked quite a discussion on the tool - and the subject. We performed a couple of interesting case studies that really got our minds (and our creative juices) going. And, of course, PG doing his thing. In fact I can honestly say that he was in the rarest of form, which is truly saying something. But I knew he would be.

This is where I stop talking about the training. If you want a blow by blow of developments check out the pdf of all the #scrmsummit tweets put together by the one and only Esteban Kolsky…who seemed to actually be there with us, even though the weather (and airlines) conspired against him making a physical appearance. And I'm sure there are already blogs posted about the event that have covered it in ways that make it unnecessary for me to do so here(Brian Vellmure's write up is an example). So I'll talk about it from another perspective.

This kind of event would not have been possible a year and a half ago. Not the way it played out over the past few days. It couldn't have because many of the people that attended the event didn't know each other. Yeah we all knew (or knew of) Paul, but even Paul didn't know @ScorpFromHell (aka @Prem_k), or @WimRampen, or @MarkTamis. He probably didn't know @CRMStrategies (Brian Vellmure), @MJayLiebs (Mitch Lieberman), @KathyHermann or @MikeBoysen (who I met for the first time at the summit even though we both live in Atlanta). But we all know each other now because of a Twitter hashtag - #SCRM. And that hashtag was the beginning of an accidental community of like minded people, that officially became an offline, flesh-and-bone, group of friends with a common cause.

What's so cool about this story is how naturally it progressed. We didn't start out thinking this would happen, we just gravitated towards each other because of our interest for this thing we call Social CRM. And the discussions that took place through that hashtag moved from strictly professional conversations, to meaningful friendships based on mutual respect. This was no more evident than at this event.

People came from all over to be a part of this - and from all corners of the industry spectrum. Executives at major vendors, highly influential analysts, industry media, practitioners at leading companies, and independent experts everywhere you looked. And the coolest thing of all was that we were all equals, and equally interested in moving Social CRM forward…together.

I loved that we spent so much time together after the formal sessions were over. It felt like a college reunion of sorts. And even though I had never physically met many of the folks before, it already felt like we knew each other, because we did - through that hashtag. And I really think the blizzard became a convenient excuse for us just to hang out all night with each other.

The most important thing for me was a true sense of camaraderie permeated through the whole thing. We all were interested in "the cause" and in each other. And even though there were many debates and differences in opinion, as the President says, we were able to "disagree without being disagreeable". There were no instances of anyone trying to make a name for themselves at someone else's expense. And there was not even a hint of shameless self promotion, or pointless pontification. None of that is needed when you're among respected colleagues, and friends.

In fact what you did see is quite the opposite - people promoting others at every turn. The best example I saw of this was Michael Krigsman's sincere introduction of Forrester's Natalie Petouhoff to SAP's Peter Auditore. Michael's admiration for Natalie was so sincere you couldn't help but see it as he approached Peter. And Peter, Natalie, Michael and I spent the next hour talking like old buddies afterward.

The brain power at the conference was awesome, and equally matched by the years of experience people brought with them. Concepts were explored and debated. Partnerships and business opportunities were discussed, and possibly initiated. But the brains and experiences were outdone by the spirit and friendship displayed throughout the week. And the common interest of moving Social CRM - with tools, services and strategies - from mass conversation to mass implementation.

In the end this was a great event. Only Paul G. could have gotten us all together from all over the world, and in the middle of a blizzard. Well I guess Paul, and Twitter…and a hashtag. After my last rant (Twitter followership and real influence), this whole event is what can happen when Twitter is used for the good.

A big thanks needs to go to the BPT Posse - Bruce Culbert, Bill Howell and Paul - for pulling this one off in some really challenging conditions. We all will benefit for years to come from this. I can't wait for the next one….hopefully without the blizzard.

Technorati : #scrm, #scrmsummit, social crm
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Revisiting and Revising the AAAs of Social CRM: Free #SCRM Webinar

I can't believe it's coming up on two years since writing about the AAAs of Social CRM for my monthly Inc.com column. And oh what an almost two years it has been. Back then there was next to nothing going on with it. Now it really does seem to be what everybody is talking about - which is great as I've had a front row seat to seeing things develop.

The best thing is that small businesses have a chance to pull strategies and tactics together that can help them connect with people who can really use their services, and do so in a ways to establish serious engagement.

While we're still early on in the development of Social CRM, there are tools and strategies we can begin to use to create more (and better) opportunities to leverage the web and build long lasting business relationships.

Tomorrow, as part of Intuit's free small business expert series, I'll be presenting a webinar to talk about tools and tactics for mixing social with traditional crm to "win friends and influence people" in today's business world. I'm including a new look at those three As - automation, analysis and audacity - as so much has changed since 2008.

Here are the details:

Title: Integrate Social Media into Traditional CRM

Date: Wednesday, February 3rd

Time: 1pm ET/ 10am PT

Cost: Free

To register for the webinar just click here.

Hope to see you there!

Technorati : #scrm, intuit, social crm, webinar
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The Future of Customer Service is Here - Are You Ready For It?

An increasing percentage of interaction with customers is coming by way of social networks and online communities. Included in these interactions are requests for information, ideas for product improvements, pleas for assistance, and customers helping each other with questions and concerns. With all these open conversations taking place, not only is it important to respond quickly and accurately to keep customers happy, but it also can convince potential customers of our ability to serve them as well.

This Thursday (January 28th) I'm moderating a free webinar of experts to discuss how customer service is changing to serve socially-empowered customers - today and beyond - in order to build long lasting relationships with them. This event is brought to you by TheSocialCustomer.com, and features a great group of panelists, including:

• Frank Eliason, Senior Director in National Customer Operations at Comcast
• Michael Chui, Senior Fellow of the McKinsey Global Institute
• Mark Yolton, Senior VP of SAP's Community Network

As you can see from this lineup of experts, you will hear a great mix of experience, best practices, and real examples that will help us all understand how we can build better customer experiences for those we serve. Here are the details:

Title: The Future of Customer Service is Here

Date: Thursday January 28th

Time: 1pm ET / 10am PT

Click here for more information and to register for this free event.

Also I'm in the midst of playing "editor-in-chief" for an ebook project we're doing at TheSocialCustomer.com on this very subject. The ebook brings together a wealth of knowledge, experiences and insights on how companies are engaging today's customers in order to provide the kind of customer experience that will build long lasting relationships. Told from the perspectives of service professionals, industry analysts, company executives, and service providers, you will find various approaches, best practices and lessons learned.

Expert Participants include:

• Chris Brogan
• Frank Eliason (Comcast)
• Emily Yellin - Author of Your Call Is (not that) Important to Us
• Dr. Natalie Petouhoff - Sr.Analyst at Forrester
• David Alston - VP of Marketing and Community at Radian6
• Sanjay Dholakia - Chief Marketing Officer at Lithium
• Scott Rogers - Director of Strategic Planning for David's Bridal
• Mark Simmons - VP of Customer Service at Six Apart
• Ellen Filipiak - SVP of Customer Care at DirecTV

As you can see TheSocialCustomer.com is bringing an "A List" of experts together to fully cover this area. Stay tuned for when this book becomes available, and I hope to see you on Thursday at the webinar.

Technorati : customer service, social crm, social customer
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