Why meaning matters for CRM.

When it comes to organizational change and the role of CRM in driving that change, the questions we ask are not just random inquiries. They are pivotal, as they shape the direction of our thinking. By leveraging the available technology, we can ask questions that lead us towards the desired change.

Such questions are not asked randomly or in isolation. They are relevant to what the business believes it should be studying and is meaningful to it. Organizations are a source of infinite meaning, so they have some choice about what they think is meaningful and worth exploring.

How does the business decide what would be meaningful to study, and what implications does that have for how the CRM System is configured and implemented within the organization?

Understanding your organization's perspective is a crucial starting point in the CRM journey. It's more valuable than focusing solely on technology and its functionality. This approach often leads to asking questions that the technology enables, but are irrelevant to the organization's orientation and, therefore, meaningless.??

How meaning generates questions

It's tempting to believe that some apparent questions are meaningful to a business, but an underlying mindset often drives these. For example, since the 1980s, businesses have accepted that their purpose is exclusively to generate shareholder value (Milton Friedman). Therefore, the only meaningful questions would be about how profits can be increased through generating revenue with fewer costs. Unsurprisingly, many CRM Systems propositions make this underlying assumption.

Recently, a different perspective has gathered momentum: a business should have a purpose it seeks to fulfill. A further claim is that fulfilling a shared purpose will generate greater profits for its shareholders than simply cutting costs and increasing prices. So, this isn’t necessarily antithetical to shareholder value, but it asks different questions to maximize it.?

Businesses operate in different realities, each with its unique challenges and opportunities. In a fast-changing environment, being a learning organization is crucial. This reality prompts businesses to ask questions about their adaptability and the information needed to facilitate it.

Companies will also be at different stages in their development. Start-ups may be looking for innovators and first adopters, while others seek to secure the value of their client base for the future. Start-ups may focus on acquisition, while more mature businesses focus more on retention.?

Lastly, different stakeholders in the business may live in different worlds of meaning, perhaps informed by the drive to satisfy their needs: physiological, security, social, esteem, and self-actualizing (Maslow’s Hierarchy). Understanding these perspectives is crucial, as it can lead to resistance to CRM implementations, misunderstanding the questions' purpose, and the motivation to generate the answers that the SLT may want. It's a call for empathy and consideration in CRM discussions.?

What difference does this make to how you talk about CRM?

The issue of meaning and choices about what you study as an organization extends to how you talk about CRM and the people you involve in this discussion.

If your purpose is maximizing shareholder value, you are likely to take a top-down approach to implementations and configure the system to ask questions relevant to that perspective. I expect such systems to be highly automated and extensively embedded with standardized processes. I have configured many such systems in my time.

But suppose you are a purpose-driven business. The relevant and meaningful questions here are about whether your purpose is being fulfilled in developing and nurturing relationships with your clients who share it. This is more likely to lead to inbound marketing, thinking about managing the whole client lifecycle, and building long-term relationships.?

Suppose you are a start-up business with limited resources and need to generate interest. In that case, the relevant questions are likely related to the efficient use of marketing resources to generate inquiries. As a start-up, your organization is likely to be quite close, so issues like collaboration are less of a problem, and automation will be used to save you time rather than cut costs.?

However, suppose you are a mature business defending your client base in a challenging, competitive market. In that case, your focus will be on developing and nurturing long-term client relationships and quickly identifying accounts at risk. You will also be interested in clients' long-term profitability and know which relationships to invest in and which to terminate.

From the stakeholder perspective, the worlds of meaning for each group may be completely different. That meaning may color the meaning of the questions the SLT asks. For example, suppose you are a salesperson who feels insecure because you have not hit targets. In that case, the questions that the SLT is using the CRM to answer may have a very different meaning and significance than if you are a high-performing salesperson. Being sensitive to these other worlds of meaning can be crucial, e.g., creating safe spaces where questions can be asked and responded to frankly.

CRM and worlds of meaning

If this article is interesting and you want to engage with the worlds of meaning in your organization, then please contact me - at 07983784816 or [email protected]