The changing world of 'Know your customer'

Knowing your customers used to be a marketing issue. The more you know and understand what your customers want the better you serve them, the happier they are and the more likely you get return business. In our iMedia sense we may need to apply this from two angles – understanding our clients, and understanding their customer base. You might, for example, indicate in the scoping phase of the project, that you can – for a cost – get market intelligence on their customer base to aid targeting them more effectively interactively. They may have this intelligence already and offer it to you if you ask. You would perhaps have needed the first set of information on your client prior to this when you were winning the project. (There are many companies that offer to find intelligence on customers such as Onesource)

But things have got more complex, of course. Now the waters are muddied by the Know your customer (KYC) legislation that has been out in place for anti-money laundering initiatives. You may need to consider this angle when implementing any project in the financial services sector. See the pwc article April 2011, for more on this.

But let's get back to the marketing sense of know your customer. This is good business sense and the basics are covered in a Business Link Guide.

Knowing your clients goes hand-in-hand with knowing your competition, since if they are offering more services for the same or less money, it is easy to see why your clients might migrate to them, especially in the present stringent financial climate. You'd better be sure of your own reputation/branding if you want to counter any client's comparison with cheaper services being offered, or take the hit. Again, the basics are outlined by Business Link.

So, do you know your clients' business well enough to define their needs? Do you know their customer bases well enough to proffer goods and services to them in a way that is visible to your clients? Do you keep an eye on your competitors so you are in tune with your own sector and what it is offering at what cost?

All these are necessary and yes, I know there are so many other things taking up your time too.

Working together – the client/developer relationship

The key word here is relationship. We know that interactive project management is a collaboration between client and developer. Each needs to know their specific role and responsibilities within the project for the project process to flow. The 'relationship' element in the partnership has to be managed sensitively especially in interactive projects because the risks of misunderstanding between client and developer increase over and above other types of project. It's that cross-functional communication again - potentially causing gaps - let alone the changes/slippage syndrome.

The people that have bridged the relationship gap in iMedia projects have had various job titles depending on the background culture of the company. So we can have Account Managers, Project Managers/Team Leaders, and Client or Customer Relationship Managers. The Account Managers come from the Agency type of culture and has been deemed more on the creative side; the Project Manager/Team Leader is from a newer breed of iMedia companies and emerges from the software side; the Client/Customer Relationship Managers hail from the business and management side.

The Account Managers have traditionally had a more hands-on and personal relationship with the clients whereas the client/customer relationship managers are linked with the use of software packages that track and flag information about the clients that action responses from the managers. The Project Managers are in the middle of this. Whatever the role is called, it is a difficult one. A successful relationship manager has great people skills, keen business skills and a strong sense of commitment to finish a project that is successfully perceived from all sides. Hard, yes.

It was difficult to try to define this relationship role. There are some definitions of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and so by inference what a CRM role is: see Verbatims - and is there parity across all the definitions?

Then there is an Account Relationship Manager's job description sample at Great Sample Resume

Andrew Sobel has defined 15 common pitfalls to Client Management in his Client Loyalty newsletter (PDF). Take a look and assess if you fall into any.

Finally - just because I'm a stirrer - have a look at the salary scale for Client Relationship Managers at, SalesTarget.

These don't answer all the questions raised by the various people in iMedia projects who fulfil the 'relationship management' role, but it starts the conversation!

Customer Relationship Management going social?

It could be argued that CRM (Customer Relationship Management) lifted the lid on the potential of all this social networking. Well, if we just imagine how influenced teens are by their peer group, it's not rocket science to extend this idea of strong influence to friends and family. So CRM, which bonded people by brand association and/or buying habits, is not that far from companies trying to influence people bonded by friendship or family ties to buy similar things.

This seems to be a successful advertising formula improving recall by 30% if friends' names are linked to buying a brand. See the article from MyCustomer.com.

You’d imagine that the links between CRM and Social Networking are a bit obvious if I make the link as a non-marketeer! But it is not, it seems. Although Facebook and Twitter have passed the fad stage, traditional CRMers have not bought in to them - as cited in another MyCustomer article.

Watch this space because the social networking sites are still growing more rapidly than any other communication media. But again if we try to learn from the past, the social sites grew for other reasons and may react badly to adverse influence. It has to be handled carefully. Where's the solid research?

Talking of research, Forrester looks at the trends of CRM 2010. They see this year as one where the hype about social media and CRM leads to some pilot projects. Take a look at a summary of other CRM trends at Forrester.

Perhaps you can do your own bit here. Would you be happy to see ads with your friends and family names and faces linked to them? Would it influence you positively?