Clearing out the kitchen cupboard where I throw all my papers this week, I came across an IBM proposal dated November 1997 outlining how they could help me with the Customer Information Programme I was running at the time - for a mutual organization as it happens.  As I’m a great believer in serendipity, I had to wonder why this particular document had suddenly decided to reveal itself?

Flicking though its pages the names of the wide variety of people I worked with so closely on that ground breaking work brought back memories: the collaborative mix of IT and business skills; the innovative ideas from outside that we shaped to our own business needs; the smiles and tears, success and politics.  Some names, I still know well others I’ve completely lost touch with.  However, I’d like to thank Merlin Stone, Andrew Law, Derek Starling, Pete De’Giovanni, Chris Atkinson, Kate Lennard, Leslie Ross, and Alistair Stevenson for all their support and guidance.  The results of the work we did ten years ago has travelled the world and been the base of good CRM practices in many companies.

And if you’re goggling your names and find this, and we’ve lost touch, do send a hello, I’d like to tell you what happened to all our ideas!!

People talk about customer engagement as a single state instead of a relationship building process.  You start by engaging someone in a conversation; as you learn more you do more together, and eventually you might engage in a partnership.  Along the way are many stages of engagement, all facilitated by the great ‘selling’ art of listening and learning?

Listening and learning in CRM means collecting data and turning it into actionable insight.  A process fraught with difficulty as everyone seeking that ‘single customer view’ knows.  Drowning in data in a desert of insight is a familiar experience; but now crocodiles lurk in the waters - frustrated customers who give false data.

Customers cannot be blamed; they feel hunted by junk mail, intrusive cold calling, and fatuous communications at every turn.  Everyone wants their data - particularly the commoditised list brokers seeking competitive advantage - their renewal dates, family interests, and lifestyles; but it is not used to give them back value.  So they sign up to preference scheme to keep organizations at bay - 14.8m UK numbers are now registered with the telephone preference scheme alone.

The UK Government is now making things worse with even more intrusive surveillance - in October an act was passed to allow over 600 public organizations access to mobile and landline call logs, which telecom companies now have to keep for a year. The situation can only get worse.

Customers know their data is valuable and will soon start to trade in it.  On the horizon, advancing like Omar Sharif’ in Lawrence of Arabia lurk personal data banks and open ID’s where customers keep their own ID and data for online access to those granted permission.

The only recourse is a better engagement process.