Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

hello emailcharlie:

you are quite right that there are not many books on CRM and even the few are very theoretical and not very practical in terms of how to increase retention and acquisition rates.

But there are a few useful websites related to CRM e.g. the CEO refresher, DM review and the wise marketer. the wise marketer in particular also publish journals called 'the loyalty guide' which you can order online.

hope that helps

Dear Charlie

I have to say that I don’t think that there is a single generic CRM book which I could recommend and that’s based on 15 years experience as a user and 10 years as a practitioner of what might (sometimes, if the customers will let me!) be called CRM.

Admittedly in other subjects it is very different. If you needed a book on Economics, you’d read Lipsey; Physical Chemistry, Moore; Genetics, Hartel and Jones. The point is that they are all good generalist books and are safe recommendations. It becomes harder to recommend a general marketing text book, because they either divide into extremes of opinionation or spend 700 pages telling you how to sell breakfast cereal (With added diagrams!)

CRM books tend to be written because someone has a product, usually a software package to sell and no matter how objective the authors attempt to be, they inevitably end up tailoring their CRM advice around the features and benefits of their own software as they have been paid to do.

My advice would be to go to the CRMGuru site www.crmguru.com which has now been re-branded Customer Think www.cutomerthink.com (They both work, but what on earth Bob Thompson, the founder thought he was doing to the planet’s best known CRM brand, Lord only knows) There you will find a decent selection of writings on CRM as a practice and CRM as a software. The latter is often quite heavily disguised as being written by some nutter from SAP or Siebel or Oracle and so on. At least Salesforce.com is honest enough to admit to the fact that they sponsor anything and everything that moves in the CRM sphere!

That said, the most voted for book on CRM on Amazon is by Jill Dyche and is called “The CRM Handbook: A Guide to Customer Relationship Management” She is the founder of The Baseline Consulting Group and as she’s been involved in databases since they were written in Machine Code for Honeywell, her later associations with Oracle and other big CRM vendors appear to have left her remarkably uncoloured in her views. I’d go for that one and then download as many white papers as you can.

Instructions: Purchase One lb of salt. Take a pinch, read white paper. Repeat!

Best wishes


Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions (Maximizer Business Partner) SalesVision (Forecasting and Sales Performance Management)

Hi emailcharlie,

hope you're having a great day but more importantly a wonderful life.

STEVEA A GIVES GOOD ADVICE...
Stevea has more foundational experience with the subject and he is equally well grounded in the foundational principles and the sound gospel of CRM ideas. So please follow through with his recommendations for things to read. I have not read any CRM books but I have spent quite a few years following the subject.

THE SECRET CRM RESOUCE FROM A LOVER OF CUSTOMER IDEAS...
With that said and the fact that no one up to now has included a great online resouce that is probably one of the most useful for this subject. I've corresponded with the editor for the past couple of years and have found Gwynne Young to be sharp and very knowledgable.


SO HERE IS ONE OF THE GREATEST SECRET WEAPON RESOURCES OF A CUSTOMER PASSIONATE EXECUTIVE...

Read it and Weep or Click and Think!
https://www.customerthink.com/ REMEMBER... our only real problem in life is our failure to be "MORE Creative" than we’ve ever been. If you “Invent” your opportunity YOU WILL most definitely create your future. I'm only an email away from you if you need my help. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant,

Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)