The Shift in Technology - and Relationship Power

Just a quick alert that I've submitted a post to my weblog providing my thoughts on how technology is shifting away from corporate-controlled applications such as Enterprise Software, CRM and SFA and toward more customer-controlled social applications such as weblogs/RSS, social networking and mobile applications.

How will companies adapt their Marketing and Sales strategies (or as Scott would say, how will they revolutionize them?) as the customer takes charge of the relationship?  Interested in hearing your thoughts (as always) - comments welcomed either here or there.  If you don't want your comments seen publicly, you should also feel free to e-mail me at  [email protected].

Comments

[Scott Jones]

My humble take on the matter is this ... if implemented and executed from a people/process/ technology perspective of execellence THEN our technology advances will allow our sales organizations to focus on the more important part of what we all do ... forging strong relationships with decision makers. That said, however, if not implemented and executed with excellence in mind OR if the sales folks don't use this time to forge stronger relationships, then it's all for naught. My feeling is that this happens more times than any of us would care to admit. It's a tricky balance ... but crucial nonetheless. This reinforces a conversation that I had this morning at one of my 5,400 offices around the world (Starbucks) with David Nour, Managing Partner, of The Nour Group. David puts on an excellent course on Relationship Currency that I have probably referenced previously.

[Leonard Scott]

As a long time practicing human resources consultant, I see no evidence of the use of technology for POSITIVE customer service. Endless voice loops, command prompts that don't relate to the questions customers call in with, 12 second performance standards for telephone information operators, absence of human availability for customer call ins, and time stealing customer service telephone prompt systems have destroyed customer service.

[Tim Young]

Chris, Great post. I believe you will hear companies talk less about 'sales cycles' and more about 'buying cycles', as they come to grips with this issue. It is critical that sales and marketing teams understand customer buying behavior and triggers and integrate their resources to "facilitate the buying process" to help customers solve problems and address needs, rather than selling their products based on perceived features and benefits. Pipeline management and understanding the true value of the pipeline will become much more difficult. Tim Young CEO X-Sells www.x-sells.com X-Sells' Blog on Sales Lead Management: http://salesleads.typepad.com/xsells/