Putting the 'Pro' into Proactive Calling

Mike Donoghue is a member of a multinational information technology corporation where he collaborates on the communications guidelines and customer relationship strategies affecting the interactions with internal and external clients. He has analyzed, defined, designed and overseen processes for various engagements including product usability and customer satisfaction, best practice enterprise standardization, relationship/branding structures, and distribution effectiveness and direction. He has also established corporate library solutions to provide frameworks for sales, marketing, training, and support divisions.

  CRM   Stakeholder Management  

There are times when a CRM practice catches my eye/ear that really stimulates my thoughts and makes me feel very positive about a company--this is especially true if I happen to be the customer. Case in point, I had a couple of circumstances a few weeks ago that made me sit back and go "Hmmm" so much that I was trying to think about how to employ similar simple techniques at my firm.

Long in need of new furniture in our living room, we purchased a love seat and sofa combination one weekend that arrived at our house within a few days. No big deal there, but as they were getting ready to leave, the delivery person asked if he could use our phone to call in to his dispatcher. But as he was leaving for his next destination, he told me that the furniture company wanted to speak with me and pointed to my phone.

My first impression was, of course "sales pitch." However, the person on the other end instead asked me if the delivery was on time, if the product was to my satisfaction and if the delivery people were courteous and helpful. Incredible! In the span of the 30 seconds in our friendly conversation I had fostered a warm-fuzzy relationship with the store and started to develop a bridge to customer loyalty.

Fast forward to a couple days when we had our furnace cleaned. I already had a nice relationship with the firm that was performing the …

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