You are here: Home / Management & HR / From community management to customer management

From community management to customer management

March 8, 2010 By 7 Comments

I’d like to go back on this  interesting article published in the January-February issue of the Harvard Business Review about the need to reinvent marketing.

The postulate is now well known. Companies have more tools to interact with customers than they ever had and customers want more than ever to tell businesses what they think about their products. To stay competitive is such a context, the focus has to be set on quickly bringing customers to a transaction but to build a long term relationship that may generate less value at the beginnig but more in the future. (On this point, I highly recommend you to read my takes on social CRM here and this HBR paper on consumer capitalism).

One of the interesting things that emerges from the article is the “Customer manager” with a clear definition : someone with a deep knowledge of the products, knows how to analyze both structured and unstructured informations (blogs, forums…), who is more interested in brand perception than in audience numbers. They need good skills in social science (psychology, sociology), in economics and may have some knowledge in marketing.

http://www.duperrin.com/english/wp-admin/post-new.phpSo the idea is to stop pushing the product to the client but consider this latter as a stakeholder in the enterprise develpment and co-build the offer with him.

Obviously, it questions the role of this customer manager compared to a trendy one : the community manager. Is it the same thing ? Are they complementary ?

I already exposed my fear to see the role of community manager lead astray and become nothing more than the good old push marketing with a facelift. In my opinion, a good community manager (or a community manager which employer really gets the purpose of the approach) is a customer manager. In the other case, the difference between both is at the same time slight and essential : the one is here to generate conversation and attract attention, the other is here to create value. Creating value means : turning conversations into action and make the organization determine itselft according to its customer relationship, what implies to question many processes and certainties. This also implies some seniority for the customer manager who has to deal with an heavy responsability.

Anyway, it’s already an ongoing change. As said in the articile, B2B businessses are more advanced but B2C are jumping on the bandwagon. That’s true that many organizations have already started to learn how to co-operate with their customers and suppliers to improve the efficiency of their supply chain while, because of their weak individual economical wieght regarding to the market sizez, individual customers have often been neglecting and asked to buy and shut up.

Times change.

NB : in this post I considered the community manager in a customer relationship approach. Internal community managers have their own specificities.

Related posts:

  1. Community management Vs Socio-Collaborative management : how to make the right choice
  2. Community management is about business, not claptrap
  3. So you love your customers…and you let others take care of them
  4. Sometimes you need a community manager. Sometimes a manager is enough…
  5. Beyond social CRM : social stakeholders management
Filed Under: Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , ,
  • Anonymous

    Hello Bertrand,nnI’ve been reading most of your Social CRM related posts for the past couple of months and I wanted to compliment you on how you seem to be able to cover all the bases pretty well.. I specifically like how you tie Social CRM in typical Social Business or E20 topics.nnThat’s for the general kudos, know for some comments on the above post.nnI like how you see community managers as Customer managers, although I believe Customers are not the kind of people that like to be managed, and will not allow to be managed.. Another suggestion could be: Customer Segment Manager. This would take into account the fact that not all Customers want the same and that a Company can best build/leverage communities of people around the same ” object”. In my terms this “object” would be the “job a customer wants/needs to do”. By example: Nike running is a very popular online (and offline) community because it centers around the Customer’s “job” of running and sharing.nnI also think that the role of the community manager should not be limited to the online community. When one takes/has responsibility for a Customer segment, one needs to have it across all channels and products.. A good read that ties into the Customer Management discussion, in the same issue of HBR as the article you mentioned above, can be found here: http://hbr.org/2010/01/rethinking-marketing/ar/1nnEnough said. Good post. I’ll keep reading & please let me know what you think.nnWim Rampenn@wimrampen on Twitter

  • Anonymous

    Hello Bertrand,nnI’ve been reading most of your Social CRM related posts for the past couple of months and I wanted to compliment you on how you seem to be able to cover all the bases pretty well.. I specifically like how you tie Social CRM in typical Social Business or E20 topics.nnThat’s for the general kudos, know for some comments on the above post.nnI like how you see community managers as Customer managers, although I believe Customers are not the kind of people that like to be managed, and will not allow to be managed.. Another suggestion could be: Customer Segment Manager. This would take into account the fact that not all Customers want the same and that a Company can best build/leverage communities of people around the same ” object”. In my terms this “object” would be the “job a customer wants/needs to do”. By example: Nike running is a very popular online (and offline) community because it centers around the Customer’s “job” of running and sharing.nnI also think that the role of the community manager should not be limited to the online community. When one takes/has responsibility for a Customer segment, one needs to have it across all channels and products.. A good read that ties into the Customer Management discussion, in the same issue of HBR as the article you mentioned above, can be found here: http://hbr.org/2010/01/rethinking-marketing/ar/1nnEnough said. Good post. I’ll keep reading & please let me know what you think.nnWim Rampenn@wimrampen on Twitter

  • Anonymous

    Hello Bertrand,nnI’ve been reading most of your Social CRM related posts for the past couple of months and I wanted to compliment you on how you seem to be able to cover all the bases pretty well.. I specifically like how you tie Social CRM in typical Social Business or E20 topics.nnThat’s for the general kudos, know for some comments on the above post.nnI like how you see community managers as Customer managers, although I believe Customers are not the kind of people that like to be managed, and will not allow to be managed.. Another suggestion could be: Customer Segment Manager. This would take into account the fact that not all Customers want the same and that a Company can best build/leverage communities of people around the same ” object”. In my terms this “object” would be the “job a customer wants/needs to do”. By example: Nike running is a very popular online (and offline) community because it centers around the Customer’s “job” of running and sharing.nnI also think that the role of the community manager should not be limited to the online community. When one takes/has responsibility for a Customer segment, one needs to have it across all channels and products.. A good read that ties into the Customer Management discussion, in the same issue of HBR as the article you mentioned above, can be found here: http://hbr.org/2010/01/rethinking-marketing/ar/1nnEnough said. Good post. I’ll keep reading & please let me know what you think.nnWim Rampenn@wimrampen on Twitter

  • Anonymous

    Hello Bertrand,nnI’ve been reading most of your Social CRM related posts for the past couple of months and I wanted to compliment you on how you seem to be able to cover all the bases pretty well.. I specifically like how you tie Social CRM in typical Social Business or E20 topics.nnThat’s for the general kudos, know for some comments on the above post.nnI like how you see community managers as Customer managers, although I believe Customers are not the kind of people that like to be managed, and will not allow to be managed.. Another suggestion could be: Customer Segment Manager. This would take into account the fact that not all Customers want the same and that a Company can best build/leverage communities of people around the same ” object”. In my terms this “object” would be the “job a customer wants/needs to do”. By example: Nike running is a very popular online (and offline) community because it centers around the Customer’s “job” of running and sharing.nnI also think that the role of the community manager should not be limited to the online community. When one takes/has responsibility for a Customer segment, one needs to have it across all channels and products.. A good read that ties into the Customer Management discussion, in the same issue of HBR as the article you mentioned above, can be found here: http://hbr.org/2010/01/rethinking-marketing/ar/1nnEnough said. Good post. I’ll keep reading & please let me know what you think.nnWim Rampenn@wimrampen on Twitter

  • Anonymous

    Hello Bertrand,nnI’ve been reading most of your Social CRM related posts for the past couple of months and I wanted to compliment you on how you seem to be able to cover all the bases pretty well.. I specifically like how you tie Social CRM in typical Social Business or E20 topics.nnThat’s for the general kudos, know for some comments on the above post.nnI like how you see community managers as Customer managers, although I believe Customers are not the kind of people that like to be managed, and will not allow to be managed.. Another suggestion could be: Customer Segment Manager. This would take into account the fact that not all Customers want the same and that a Company can best build/leverage communities of people around the same ” object”. In my terms this “object” would be the “job a customer wants/needs to do”. By example: Nike running is a very popular online (and offline) community because it centers around the Customer’s “job” of running and sharing.nnI also think that the role of the community manager should not be limited to the online community. When one takes/has responsibility for a Customer segment, one needs to have it across all channels and products.. A good read that ties into the Customer Management discussion, in the same issue of HBR as the article you mentioned above, can be found here: http://hbr.org/2010/01/rethinking-marketing/ar/1nnEnough said. Good post. I’ll keep reading & please let me know what you think.nnWim Rampenn@wimrampen on Twitter

  • wimrampen

    Hello Bertrand,

    I've been reading most of your Social CRM related posts for the past couple of months and I wanted to compliment you on how you seem to be able to cover all the bases pretty well.. I specifically like how you tie Social CRM in typical Social Business or E20 topics.

    That's for the general kudos, know for some comments on the above post.

    I like how you see community managers as Customer managers, although I believe Customers are not the kind of people that like to be managed, and will not allow to be managed.. Another suggestion could be: Customer Segment Manager. This would take into account the fact that not all Customers want the same and that a Company can best build/leverage communities of people around the same ” object”. In my terms this “object” would be the “job a customer wants/needs to do”. By example: Nike running is a very popular online (and offline) community because it centers around the Customer's “job” of running and sharing.

    I also think that the role of the community manager should not be limited to the online community. When one takes/has responsibility for a Customer segment, one needs to have it across all channels and products.. A good read that ties into the Customer Management discussion, in the same issue of HBR as the article you mentioned above, can be found here: http://hbr.org/2010/01/rethinking-marketing/ar/1

    Enough said. Good post. I'll keep reading & please let me know what you think.

    Wim Rampen
    @wimrampen on Twitter

  • Pingback: Online Community Links Roundup 19/03/10  | Blaise Grimes-Viort