Social CRM: The Conversation

Paul Greenberg

Voice of The Customer: Speech Meets Larynx at CRM Evolution 2009

By Paul Greenberg | August 31, 2009, 4:00am PDT

Summary: Last week, I keynoted the CRM Evolution 2009 conference - probably the best conference I ever attended, though I was biased because I also chaired it - first time I ever chaired a conference - so I had the opportunity to be a participant in more than just the speech. But the keynote wasn’t just for [...]

Last week, I keynoted the CRM Evolution 2009 conference - probably the best conference I ever attended, though I was biased because I also chaired it - first time I ever chaired a conference - so I had the opportunity to be a participant in more than just the speech.

But the keynote wasn’t just for the CRM Evolution conference; it was a joint keynote for CRM Evolution 2009 (get all coverage here) and SpeechTek 2009, the annual best attended speech technology conference (get some coverage here).

So I had this dilemma. What can I say to a joint group of people with diverse interests that would interest both without watering down the message? Honestly, it took me WEEKS to solve this one. I truly had no idea beyond a mundanely clever title for the presentation - Voice of the Customer (get it?).

But after awhile I realized that I was thinking about the whole thing wrong. I was trying to appease the dual groups rather than realizing that my actual job was to get across my idea in their metaphor. AND that there was a common glue that bound both audiences - they were all business people who needed to engage customers.

The ultimate difficulty was combining the metaphors in a way that would attract both audiences. The idea remained the same and its one that I preach constantly - “the social customer is the customer of the 21st century and they demand engagement and knowledge that they need to accomplish a piece of their personal agendas. In order for you as a business to provide that you need insight. That means data needs to be captured and analyzed. But data is no substitute for human judgment, merely an aid to it.”

Here’s my presentation. I’m doing this because I got the idea when Michael Krigsman, our ZDNet compadre who has the world class IT Project Failures blog, did the same for his presentation at CRM Evolution last week. Please let me know what you think. This was slightly uncharted waters for me, so I can stand to get some pointers on where I might have done better - both on the ideas and the style of presentation. Though I do admit, that I think its pretty good.

Voice Of The Customer 2009

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Topics

Voice, Conference, Presentation, CRM, Advertising & Promotion, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Software, Marketing, Software, Paul Greenberg

In addition to being the author of the best-selling "CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers," Paul Greenberg is President of The 56 Group, LLC.

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Biography

Paul Greenberg

In addition to being the author of the best-selling CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers" Paul Greenberg is President of The 56 Group, LLC, a customer strategy consulting firm, focused on cutting edge CRM strategic services and a founding partner of the CRM training company, BPT Partners, LLC, a training and consulting venture composed of a number of CRM luminaries that has quickly become the authority for the CRM industry.

His book, CRM at the Speed of Light: Essential Customer Strategies for the 21st Century, now in its fourth edition, is in 8 languages and been called "the bible of the CRM industry". It is used by more than 70 universities as a primary text. It was named "the number 1 CRM book" by SearchCRM.com in 2002 and is one of two books recommended by CustomerThink. The Asian edition of CIO Magazine named it one of the 12 most important books an Asian CEO will ever read. Paul has also authored two other books including "E-Government for Public Officials" (Thompson Publishing, 2003).

Paul is also the Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management CRM Centre of Excellence, and the Executive Vice President of the CRM Association.

Paul is considered a thought leader in CRM, having been published in numerous industry and business publications over the years and having traveled the world speaking on cutting edge CRM and topics geared to the contemporary social customer. He has been called "the godfather of CRM", the "Walt Whitman of CRM" and even "the Bob Dylan of CRM" by analysts and organizations throughout the industry. He is known particularly for his work on the use of social media, such as blogs, podcasts and wikis and social networks/communities in CRM as tools and channels for customer collaboration with a company. He is seen often as the "voice of the customer" and is well known within the CRM industry for this work. His blog, PGreenblog has been named the #1 CRM blog every year from 2005-2010 by all industry award providers. He also has a podcast, Experience on the Edge, that has garnered a myriad of industry kudos and his collaboration with Brent Leary on the always funny, often cutting, CRM Playaz" is the most popular broadcast in the CRM world.

Paul was also named one of the most influential people in CRM by CRM Magazine in August 2008. In 2010, he was inducted into CRM Magazine's CRM Hall of Fame.

He is a member of the Destination CRM Board of Experts and the SearchCRM Expert Advisory Panel as well as a member of the Board of Advisors for GreaterChinaCRM for many years. He also sits on the Board of Advisors of the CIE Institute and and multiple other companies.

Currently, Paul lives in Manassas, Virginia with his wife and five cats. To reach Paul, please email him at paul-greenberg3@the56group.com. You can follow him at Twitter or join up with him on LinkedIn or Facebook.