A relationship with my supermarket? No thanks, I just want some milk.

Relationship marketing has reached something of a saturation point.  Organisations large and small have bought into the idea that they need to develop and manage customer relationships - and CRM (along with a plethora of products and services to support it) has become an integral part of the marketing activities of many companies.  I'd question, however, whether they are really building relationships? Or is this something of a misnomer...a convenient and cuddly word for the mass customisation of marketing communications?

Katy Perry - Married to the Brand.*

As a consumer, I don't want a relationship with many of the organisations I buy from.  I don't want to be part of their gang. I don't feel a personal affinity to their brand.  I just need a product or service that works, that I can afford, and that's in the right place at the right time.  I don't think I'm alone in this.

Don't get me wrong - there are brands and parts of organisations with whom I'm happy to engage on a personal level.  My favourite supermarket cashier, who always has a smile and a quirky comment about my purchases; the owner of the garage I go to who never patronises me (despite the fact that I am clearly female); the people I exchange messages with on Twitter who work for organisations I buy from.  These are human relationships, and they tend to be one-to-one.  What CRM systems attempt to deliver is the one-to-one experience, but this is delivered through a many-to-many system, and however sophisticated that system is, it is still not as real. 

So, does that mean Customer Relationship Management is not important?  No - it just means the 'relationship' part is a bit mixed up.  It's a bit of a bunny boiler of a name really...like the person who thinks they're in a relationship with you because you smiled at them once.  What we need to accept about CRM is that it is not really about building a relationship with our customers, it's about improving our communications and learning more about our customers so we can keep improving everything we do.

Purveyors of CRM 'systems' want marketers to believe they can use them to build these close 'relationships' when in fact we'd all be better off calling a spade a spade and admitting that they simply enable us to personalise marketing messages, find out more about our customers and manage our communications better.  This still has the same benefits, but I'd argue that a change in terminology is less likely to lead the marketer down a false trail in search of the holy grail of brand advocacy in the unlikeliest of places.

The fact is, customers aren't stupid.  They know when they are being sent a mass email/sms/mailing.  They don't think your large corporation has contacted them personally; they know that you've been filtering your database, and they're unlikely to be getting that warm friendly glow because you remembered their birthday.  That doesn't mean it's not worth doing - it just means you need to get it right.  You need to send your customers the information they want and need to make the decision to buy from you.

I receive about twenty emails a day from companies who want to sell me something.  They are all generated by CRM systems.  I open the ones with a subject line that interests me.  I click through to the store when the email contains a product/story/offer that interests me.  At no point do I think, ooh, I love this company.  I think - that content looks useful, interesting, fun; I'll go there.

The take home message here is, use your CM system (I'm removing the 'R') to deliver great content, and your customers will buy, and continue to buy their products and services from you.  As someone once said...content is king.

And no thank you, I still don't want a relationship with you Mr Tesco - I just want a pint of milk...


*Image www.thebestmoviereview.com under creative commons licence.