Implementing eCRM Strategy

We’re still talking about this eCRM strategy nonsense in 2014, huh? Why, exactly, does this term even exist in this day and age?

Why eCRM Strategy is Not So Special:

eCRM stands for “electronic customer relationship management”. Pretty much, anything beginning with “e” indicates a special implementation of a common practice with focus or significant use of computers and digital communication.

In this case, it means incorporating modern digital communications as part of the various set of contact mediums used in CRM. These include email, SMS, social networks, and instant messengers, along with traditional communications like post, faxing and telecommunications of various forms.

So, why isn’t eCRM special? Because all CRM in this century is eCRM. Therefore, distinguishing eCRM versus regular CRM is like comparing water to water. Really, it is.

But Know This:

I guess I have to go over the things to consider with the ramifications of being digital. Some channels are more useful than others, is the biggest thing I’d want to point out, I suppose.

Social networks are useful for a lot of business actions and communications, but they need to be left out of direct CRM. But, a lot of CRM solutions have extended features that do make good use of social networks (BI and CI software functionality for example).

Along with this, since we’re on a steady conversion t pure digital for more or less everything, you’ll want to pick solutions that work very well for that, and will continue to work fine when telephones and fax machines exist only in museums (which cannot happen soon enough).

There are a few CRM solutions that meet these standards quite proficiently, such as Salesforce, Netsuite and Siebel, which are built entirely around the digital age, by companies who have worked in the digital solution markets for a long time before CRM was a viable niche to market into massively.

The three eCRM strategy components for enterprises are Operational,  Collaborative, and Analytical.

What else can I say? ECRM is just modern CRM, and there’s not much to warrant discussion with this.

What to Walk Away With:

Well, I want you to walk away feeling informed, because that’s the point. So what I want you to take from this is the knowledge that when you see eCRM, you can just ignore it, because it means completely and utterly nothing in modernity.

Had this term come around at the turn of the century when there were still common situations where companies used no digital communications of significance, well, it would’ve served as an important distinction in mentality – a new way of doing things.

But the truth of the matter is that everyone uses ECRM. Your ECRM strategy is just a CRM strategy.