Customer Reviews

The Customer Relationship Management Survival Guide

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I know from sad experience that there are lots of books out there on customer relationship management. I can't name three that are genuinely helpful in daily work -- ever hear anyone say "I know this'll work, I got it from Peppers and Rogers" during an implementation? -- but one would be this survival guide.

It lives up to its subtitle, "Everything you need to know, before you need to know it." Lee doesn't waste a lot of time on theory, he takes the approach that if you don't know by now the importance of being customer-centric then you'll be working for someone else pretty soon anyway. There was a crying need for a book in this space, one wonders that it took anyone so long to write it.

He writes for decision-making business people who have a company to run, but who've been confused with CRM misinformation from overzealous and unscrupulous vendors and consultants. He shows you that you just might have more than you think in the way of solid CRM building blocks already on your computer in Outlook and Office, no vendor or consultant's going to tell you that. Plus I think he has the importance of technology pegged (fairly low), I can't count the number of CRM projects that have tanked because people bought a bunch of stuff, took it out of the boxes and said "Okay, what now?" I'd hate to see what Lee says about those people when he's not in mixed company.

One warning: Lee says that the time's passed for polite books about this or that aspect of CRM, that it's "time to get in people's faces about this stuff," and show what it's going to mean in real life business. If that's not what you're up for then avoid this book.

I really like Dick Lee's book. As an instructor teaching an "electronic marketing" class, I wanted to find a place for CRM, but I was having trouble myself getting a handle on what CRM is. The author's perspective--that CRM is about organizational transformation--rings true for me. It's not database marketing, and it's not an adjunct to ERP. It's the process of creating a customer-centric organization, with the transformation facilitated by technology. This book offers both high-level and on-the-ground perspectives on the process, all based on the author's extensive consulting experience. The book's earthy vernacular put me off, at first, but I could not put the book down. It really is the book I was looking for.

Skip the first 140 pages, unless you'd be amused reading a sarcastic romp, where Dick Lee rides roughshod over ad agencies, direct marketers, IT managers, and sales consultants. After you get past this diatribe on why all these idiots can be cured by-- here's a revelation, listening to what customers want!-- Mr. Lee does finally get down to some useful, "how to" information. He's right that we all talk about becoming customer-driven organizations but few stick to a plan for implementing real internal change. His CRM Survival Guide isn't nearly "everything you need to know," as the publisher boldly writes on the cover, but it does eventually present some provocative tips on how to move the mountain inch by inch. Very clearly and cleverly written, but a little vague on how to put his ideas into practice. Nice for the classroom, limited for the practitioner. I get the feeling that Mr. Lee doesn't think we deserve all he's got for just twenty bucks. Maybe he's right.

Dick Lee obviously has a good understanding of CRM. He understands CRM is not about software, it's about combining customer centricity, process re-engineering, linking information across the enterprise, all of which is ENABLED by software. A lot of reviewers here have said good things about this book, so I won't add to them. I'm going to explain what's bad about this book.

In summary: It's a good CRM-101 primer, but ignore his technology recommendations, they're rather naive.

I don't think anyone in IT is the target audience of Dick's book, because he's very patronizing towards the role of IT. This attitude is tremendously damaging to any large-scale CRM initiative, because it lulls business people into a false sense of security.

Granted that many IT groups have tried to do the "Software=CRM" strategy, or "Software first" approach, and failed miserably. Many CRM strategies didn't first win the hearts & minds of sales, marketing and CEO -- and then gotten into the technology game. This is all a sad reflection of technology myopia. BUT -- this doesn't imply that IT is useless, and all this data and application integration stuff is easy as pie.

One of the greatest problems with CRM is to get your IT systems house in order, as most IT systems are a mess. This means forming an enterprise integration strategy, improving your data quality, and providing facilities for unified analysis, reporting, and operational touchpoints. All of this needs to be done in incremental and iterative steps if you're ever going to get to the "actionable information"/"closed loop" dream of CRM. CRM is a long journey for many organizaitonal AND technological reasons.

Sadly, Dick's approach seems to be to sprinkle a little magic, completely do a run-around the IT department, and all of these problems go away. Perhaps this worked with small businesses. It doesn't work with large businesses with a history of legacy systems.

If you don't have a long-term strategy of a unified enterprise information architecture, your black-boxing your back-office systems only postpones the inevitable service problems that WILL be experienced by your customers. CRM technology integration IS NOT for the faint of heart!

Here are some of those coal lumps from his book:

"For example, while technology limitations, such as the difficulty in getting different databases to communicate with each other, still hinder CRM's progression.... with the advent of Microsoft's SQL Server 7.0 database, a model of open architecture that's already the de facto standard for CRM databases and becoming widely used in the back office, these limitations are history, at least they will be soon."

So, if I install Microsoft SQL 7.0, all of my data integration problems go away. Right.

"And Windows 2000 may actually be more stable than many flexilbility challenged back-office systems. So there."

Somehow Dick feels that stability has something to do with flexibility. Or that operating systems have anything to do with back-office flexibility (which is a limit of the actual software that was written).

"Open architecture: You're [sic] safest bet is to stay with CRM software that observes tight Microsoft standards -- even if your back-office folks are running Oracle databases or heavy on UNIX or Linux at the points of integration with CRM... But if you hear mention of running CRM on other than a Microsoft SQL Server databaes -- run, don't walk, for a second opinion."

Supporting a single company's products implies "open architecture"? How's that for a revisionist definition?

And again with the SQL Server. I thought CRM wasn't about software? Does database platform really make that much of a difference? Shouldn't you leave that up to technology experts (which are alternately praised and scorned in this book)?

Dick has been a consultant to Microsoft in the past, so I can understand the loyalty, but he also obviously has no idea how naive these statements are. Microsoft is *just another vendor*. Why treat them preferentially?

I wish Dick Lee stuck to the business-end of CRM and left the technology stuff to people like Claudia Imoff (Building the Customer Centric Enterprise).

Dick Lee brings a funny, irreverent style to explaining customer relationship management (CRM). He is candid about many of the reasons that some CRM projects have failed. And he gives some practical advice to those who may be just beginning a CRM project.

Unfortunately, he misses in a couple of important areas.

First of all, he shares many of his beefs with CRM failures, but doesn't go into nearly enough detail on how to avoid those problems. The book is called a "Survival Guide," but it is really more of a meandering definition of CRM and a superficial view of "how to" handle a few specific issues.

Secondly, he is clearly biased towards "operational CRM" - at one point going so far as to say that marketing automation is a "trojan horse" and that database marketing is "not even close" to CRM.

If you're just starting a CRM project for the first time - and your CRM project is mostly sales or service automation - then buy this book. If you're more advanced, or implementing back-office CRM (i.e. a data warehouse, marketing automation, data mining, or integrating across channels) then look for something else. Another good "basics of operational CRM" book is Michael Gentle's, "CRM Project Management Handbook."

It has been a while since I read this book. I neglected to share my views. Since then I read quite a few books on CRM, mainly the newest additions to the mushrooming literature. Hence I believe I can appraise the value of the book better than before. Compared to all the stuff I recently read, this is certainly the best and most comprehensive and succinct account of CRM concept and application. I do reccommend it to any serious student of CRM.

CRM Survival Guide contains all the essential elements to implement CRM successfully. It provides the reader with a clear understanding of what CRM is and is not, describes how to develop a CRM strategy and outlines the steps necessary to implement CRM successfully. It should be required reading for top executives trying to move to a more customer-centric focus.

As a CRM consultant in Latin America, I found this book very helpful to explain my customers what CRM is and what isn't. Perhaps one of the most valuable concepts that Dick Lee explains in his book is that CRM doesn't equal software. He also presents the reader with a step by step guide to implement a successful CRM initiative. In my opinion however, the most important concept that I got from this book was that CRM is about listening to the customer -genuinely - and transforming according to customer's needs and expectations. CRM is a way of life for organizations not a software, and that is neatly explained in Mr. Lee's book.

This book hammers home the point that having a customer-centric business stratgy is imperative for CRM. I've heard and read alot about just going out and buying a software package, following it's processes, and automating stuff. This book should disabuse you of that idea. Lee defines CRM and how to get there for a win-win solution for the company and the customer. Dick Lee takes the reader through six commonly misunderstood areas of CRM and provides practical advice for sucess. It makes sense and I've seen it work.

The book is written in a readable style (often irreverent and funny) that gets the salient points across. Company leaders and decision-makers should read this one before undertaking CRM -- or if you need to chart a correction course, it's insights will help.

I have got this book with big hopes. I did not expect a magical touch to understand what CRM is, it was much lower than my expectations. Especially the jargon throughout the book makes it difficult to read.