If Dialogue is the Key, Why Aren't We Rich?

This blog item comes with a warning label: “Dialogue” sounds easy; yet, it’s hard to do.

If you want to find the silver bullet for more customers, more money, and great joy in your life’s work, it’s never been closer than it is now.  All you have to do is recognize it and use it -- dialogue.

Normally, this blog is not about me, but my story might prove to be your wake up call, too.  The first time I heard about the power of dialogue was from Martha Rogers, Ph.D., Pepper & Rogers Group, and I remember thinking, “How easy is that!  We are trained and experienced marketing executives.”   We know how to listen, talk and build a relationship.  Is that what this means?  Martha went on to say, “This is the explicit bargain with all of your customers today:  You talk. I listen.  I make.  You buy.”  With those eight words, she put the whole world and the way to get all that I wanted, right into my hands. It was one of those moments you never forget.  Only eight words--this is easy to remember.  Just become the master of “dialogue,” seemed to be the implementation strategy. How long can that take?

It took me three years of really hard work, study, project implementation and attitude adjustment to understand that dialogue was not at all what I thought I’d been doing most of my professional life.   If there was ever a CRM poster child, it was me.   

Fortunately, there were teachers and thought leaders that helped with this “dialogue” lesson and one was Greg Gianforte, when he was starting RightNow Technologies  who came out with something that looked like software but it was really the genius of dialogue.  He was the first to show us what it meant to really listen and remember everything the customer on the phone or visitor to our web site asked and how to create the dialogue, driven by the customer.  Greg showed us how to keep the customer completely engaged in the dialogue, for as long or short as it took, until they told us we reached high satisfaction with them.

The purpose of this blog is to help you learn faster.  Maybe you don’t have three years to get it.  Maybe you prefer to be rich or famous now.

I’m reminded of these two people—Rogers and Gianforte, who turned on the lights and ushered me out of the dark ages of “mass marketing” into “mass customization” when the e-mail this morning delivered news about a new white paper on Random Acts of CRM.

Before you, too, assume you know what dialogue really means, get this white paper and find out how random acts of CRM can damage the customer experience and drain a company’s pockets.  You may have the greatest product, best service, most talented team, best location, great financing and air tight marketing plan.  If you don’t have dialogue, it’s all headed south and you don’t know what you don’t know.  Dialogue is that complete exchange of everything that the customer has ever told you, shown you, referred to you, or allowed you to know and absolutely everything that same customer has ever experienced, researched, gained or lost because of your business.  Doing that in a simple way, remembering it all, recalling it all, having great exchanges with customers and making money is what dialogue is about.

It was also Pepper & Rogers who taught us this: One of the most significant challenges facing the aspiring enterprise is identifying means of enhancing dialogue with its customers. In order to build lasting and profitable customer relationships, companies must interact with and learn from their customers. Too often, though, companies are handling this task poorly.

If you do not yet have all the money your want or all the customers you’ll ever care to serve, get information and get help around the issue of dialogue and “learning relationships.”  Learn how to use every possible way to communicate – with or without technology, to engage a customer in dialogue, and to gain from each interaction with a customer a little information about how to rachet up that particular customer's learning curve.  As your company and each customer travels, lockstep, on that learning curve, you’ll know the next time you get the opportunity to connect with that customer what makes it more likely that your customer will remain loyal because it is simply more convenient for him to do so.

Think of the family doctor you just loved and how much you thought you lost when you had to start all over with a new doctor.  That long-time family doctor asked a lot of questions, got a lot of information, recorded it all and everyone in the office could find it and use it to make you feel better.  The longer you remained in this dialogue, all those years, the faster you both discovered what’s wrong and what treatment to apply. At the same time, you  learned a lot about the doctor, medical information, and how to work together to get the results you wanted.   That’s dialogue.

Comments

[Ed]

How do turn over rates etc., affect the "dialogue?" I've been working for a company for about three months that doesn't seem to have great dialogue with the staff, let-alone their customers. The scape goat for this very frustrating corporate culture is the former General Manager who (I was not aware) had plans to move on a week after hiring me. Disorganization and a Laissez-faire attitude has seemed to have crept into this place like an agressive cancer. While I'm keeping "one ear to the track" I'm also observing how all this is going to play out. It's a mess.

[el]

I agree that dialog is the key - and it does sound easy and we all do it - but sometimes dialog is just a monolog in disguise, albeit with two people engaging in alternate vocalizations. What fun to think of talking as the key to success - some of us talk so much we should be really good at it (and maybe rich, too!)

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