IS IT POSSIBLE FOR CLUBS TO BE “UBERED”?
Is it possible for Clubs to be “Ubered”? Can technology reshuffle the deck in both the club, and competing industries, that will reduce market share?
Digital disruption is the new buzzword in the business transformation consulting, and for good reason. Business model after business model are being disrupted by ridiculously fast evolution in technology. Technology has truly accelerated business transformation. Are Clubs immune to this?
But the one immutable fact through all of this transformation is that the customer is king.
Today’s customer expects immediate answers. Clubs can continue to innovate and augment service offerings, but if you don’t put a modern customer experience at the centre of all your business planning, you will lose. This means the most impactful digital transformation strategy for your business must be around transforming the member experience in your Club.
That’s where modern Customer Relationship Management (CRM) comes in. With a well-planned investment in CRM, people, processes and technology, Clubs can innovate in how they communicate with customers. Regardless of the channel, CRM puts immediate, relevant information in front of your customer. Sounds like lots of moving parts though, right?
CRM technology has been around for decades. More than 30 years ago, CRM related to call centre software. Laptops and the mobile workforce in the 90’s lead to sales force automation. The late 90’s saw the rise of outbound emailing and CRM evolved by way of marketing automation.
But what truly transformed CRM was when companies stopped looking to CRM software just as a way to gain efficiencies from their employees. Instead, when companies began looking to CRM to manage a set of interactions between the company and their customers, that’s when CRM transformed from a cost reduction investment to a market share acquisition tool.
Many Clubs may find themselves stuck in old habits, using legacy technology to support siloed business functions. By looking forward, the opportunity exists to use modern CRM as the backbone of a digital, customer-first strategy. To do so, consider four steps towards CRM transformation:
- Transform Initiatives – Align your business initiatives with customer needs. If a customer-first strategy is at the centre of your business, it makes sense, then, that your CRM must follow suit.
- Transform Individuals – Empower individual employees. Your CRM platform must be designed with the individual employee and the customer in mind.
- Transform Interactions – Orchestrate customer interactions across the customer journey. Doing so brings a customer focus to everything and orchestrates consistent and informed interactions throughout the entire customer journey and at each human and digital touch point across departments, processes and systems.
- Transform Information – Deliver insight with a single view of customer information. A Modern CRM gathers and organizes information about the customer across all internal and external data sources.
If a customer-first strategy is at the centre of your business, congratulations. You’re squarely on your way to fostering a customer-first strategy. Your next goal should be to ensure your CRM people, processes and technology supports this strategy and positions you to maintain, and then grow, market share.
Source: https://www.cmswire.com/digital-experience/has-your-business-been-ubered/
