So not content with being in this week’s OK Magazine (yes, really), the CRM team have been busy sharing their thoughts on segmentation and the like with NMA in last week’s Customer Relationship Management special.

It’s an interesting article that looks at the (relatively) long established discipline of CRM with a fresh pair of eyes and asks “what’s more important to customer relationships: triggers or Twitter?” It discusses a view shared by the CRM team here - that ‘traditional’ CRM needs to evolve and make use of new, social communication methods, media and technologies.

“CRM 2.0″ or “social CRM”, as some are calling it, is about engaging with consumers on their own terms - joining their conversation. It means talking and listening to your customers at times and in places and in a way that they are comfortable with. From this perspective, the underlying principles of CRM remain true; ensuring relevant and meaningful conversations and interactions (”the right ‘message’ at the right time in the right place”). The proliferation of channels and media just make this a tad more complex!

This new approach to CRM is not just about ‘adding in a few more channels’ - its fundamentally challenging traditional CRM practices (i.e. segmentation and communication strategy) and technologies (i.e. multi-channel campaign management and marketing automation) - requiring them to evolve to accommodate the need to respond to real-time experiences and conversation that consumers expect through interactive channels.

There’s no doubt social media and technologies present real opportunities to better connect and build relationships with customers. Whilst a lot of attention is being paid to the marketing part of CRM, perhaps the greatest potential for improving and advancing relationships is through the service channel. For example, sites like getsatisfaction.com are turning customer service on its head: with customer support evolving into a community conversation between users and the brand.

Read more “Expert Views” on innovations shaping CRM, including my two-penneth! Enjoy!

Pipa

In need of some instant fun we decided to have a Kemp Folds inspired session. Take two pictures of Hard Man, Ross Kemp fold and enjoy.

Once we’d warmed up we took random photos of our colleagues and held a fold off. Each person took a random print from the table, folded it as required then with baited breadth revealed it next to the same image folded by another colleague. The biggest gasp, laugh, shock won.

Great fold. Fold on.

This friday fun was suggested by the Dan ‘Hold the Fold’ Holder - who now has his own personal tribute site - Folder of the Holder

With lots of work to show we decided to adopt a pecha kucha style presentation and crack through 7 projects in super quick time. For those that don’t know - pecha kucha format is 20 slides with 20 seconds a slide. To make sure we ran to time, all the slides were set to autoplay every 20 seconds. Bound to be fun.

We got hear to about:

• - Our work with BT, including BT Business, BT Retail and BT Tradespace.
• - The story behind our Marks in Time showcase.
• - The work on launching Electrolux in France through the Art Home project.
• - A sneak peak of an upcoming project with M&S launching 17th September (watch this space).
• - The latest on our work for Garanti - Turkey’s favourite bank.
• - A summary of the work we’ve done for UMG, including a number of artist sites and some hefty strategy.
• - A preview of the soon to be released Barratt Homes Prestige work and recent campaign activity.

The gods of Pecha Kucha did strike as one of our presentors attempted to move the slide on ahead of schedule, resulting on Powerpoint getting rather confused and moving two slides ahead completely wrong footed the flow. The rules are there to be heeded - attempts to break the 20 second rule will bite you back.

We also had three special guests in the audience from Lost Boys - our Amsterdam office. They were gracious enough to share some of their work for Vodafone with us, including a lovely story explaining how ‘Make the most of now‘ has to be meant not just said.

Pecha kucha is a registered Trademark and all rights rest with it’s creators