Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) and Cultural Change

CRM Cultural Change? Culture is defined as "the ideas, customs and art of a particular society". For an organisation it could therefore be "the ideas, customs and ways of doing things in the organisation". When Customer Relationship Management is introduced it means - "there will be new ideas, new customs and new ways of doing things" -  there will be a CRM Cultural change.

CRM & Cultural Change The Transformational Change Cycle and CRM

The Transformational Change Cycle and CRM?

The 'Transformational Change Cycle' provides a model for viewing what happens to organisations when change is introduced.

The above reflects the organisation and change - Change can typically be viewed in 4 quadrants, each quadrant will have different actions or variables associated with it, but it is only once the 'Competence' quadrant is reached that the true benefits of the change introduced are realised.

There is always a strong underlying desire by many people to return to the way things were (represented by the outer arrows above), to where they felt comfortable.They like and understand the status quo. It is for this reason that you need to have appropriate plans and steps to drive people forward, to get them to reframe to the new way of thinking.

In the case of change related to Customer Relationship Management (CRM), only once there has been acceptance and people have reached the Competence quadrant in terms of skills, processes and CRM role integration, does the organisation get its Return On Investment (ROI). Just how quickly (and if) they reach that quadrant depends on how the organisation sets in place its cultural change management program.

It is this cultural change management program that SRD Group helps design and maintain for organisations who are implementing CRM!

With more than a decade of experience in all aspects of Managing Customers we know what is required to take organisations through cultural change and make CRM implementations a success.

We know most, if not all the reasons why Managing Relationships with Customers must be a critical component of your business strategy and philosophy; and all the reasons why Customer Relationship Management often fails to deliver the potential business benefits.