Customer Strategy Gone Bad

Yesterday I received a phone call from a CRM software company whose site I had visited. They were following up to see if I had any questions about the product and (theoretically) to determine if I was likely to buy.

The person knew which white paper I had downloaded as well as the pages I had visited, and we could have had a very meaningful conversation except for one thing: I had visited their site in December 2008.

I didn't even remember visiting their site and asked the caller when I had. She then told me that it was in December 2008. Once reminded, I vaguely remembered visiting the site, but couldn't, for the life of me, remember why I was visiting or what the business need was.

Gathering customer data is necessary to build customer relationships and gain a competitive edge in terms of customer insight. But, those organizations that do so without a plan on how they're going to use it run the risk of missing out on prime opportunities to sell or increase loyalty.

As an organization, it's important to continually ask: why do we want to capture this piece of data? How are we going to use it? How will this piece of data help us better understand our customers, meet their needs, or increase their loyalty and satisfaction with us?

And, just as important: How are we going to integrate this piece of data into our overarching marketing, sales, service and communication strategy and experience for this customer?

The software company that called me obviously didn't have a plan. This was the first time they had reached out to me since I had gone to their site almost a year ago. I had not received any emails from them, no newsletters, nothing...until this call. If I had been a "hot lead" a year ago, that time had passed. It was definitely a lost opportunity for the company.