Purple Patch Blog

The new era: Social CRM explained

Can you answer the following questions?

• What is the online profile of your donorbase?
• What is the ROI of your new media budget?
• What are people tweeting about your organisation right now?
• Have you considered using an iPhone app?
• What % of internet statistics are made up?
• How do you know what to believe?

Apparently, there’s another e-revolution going on!  Are you up to speed?  Ahead of the curve?  On the bandwagon?  It’s easy to feel alarmed by experts with sensational claims and exciting ideas that don’t seem to relate to the reality of your next newsletter or fundraising event.

But, despite the hype and fads, we believe that online social media does represent a profound change in the relationship between supporters and non-profit organisations.  This is not because the internet is cheaper or faster or funkier than the old methods; it’s because your supporters can get what they need without you!

 

Despite the theory, under the model of CRM in use by most fundraisers today, relationships are, in fact, geared around the cause and not the supporter.  Think about it; who decides what the key issues are, which people might be interested, and when to launch communications?  But with social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the balance of power has shifted to your supporters.

In the past, if your supporter wanted to find out about one of your fundraising events, they visited your web site.  If they wanted to complain about you, they wrote you a letter. If they wanted to find like-minded supporters, they phoned and you might direct them to a local volunteer branch. Now, they do all of these things without you even knowing!

 

Maybe you have already encountered social media and tried it out for yourself?  You probably have your own Facebook page or Twitter account? And perhaps you have identified ways to exploit it for your organisation?  But do you know how this affects all your other fundraising activities?  How does it relate to your events, your campaigns, your service delivery, and all that information in your CRM system?

See our full article at http://www.purple-vision.com/news-item.asp?Auto_ID=34

"It will never work"

We’ve been working on a project recently that aims to change the culture of a complex medium-sized organisation and create a customer-centric culture.

I can already hear you crying “don’t bother”! But before you scroll down to the comments window to tell me it will never work, let me share with you some comments from one of the working groups about their interactions with colleagues when introducing business process redesign:

“when told what successful CRM systems can achieve, they are very positive about it, and give every indication of committing to the change”

“it is difficult for people to visualise something that is not yet in place and the benefits need to be neatly described to those who don’t know much about CRM”

“can we think of quick and dirty examples of how the CRM will change the face of [the organisation] if we were all to sign up to it 100%. This is what we could look like it 3 years time ... paint the picture and tell the story maybe?”

“I think some of them will come from organisations that have successfully implemented CRM systems and can evangelise about them”

When I hear comments like these it brings a real sense of satisfaction and achievement. At Purple Vision we spend a lot of our time evangelising the benefits of real CRM (ie not just the database) to clients and others who typically see it as a just a technology solution.

Real CRM is about building a shared attitude where an organisation collectively places its customer (aka stakeholder, client, supporter, donor) at the centre of it’s work. We reckon CRM should be about 25% TECHNOLOGY, with the rest of the effort going in to PROCESS and PEOPLE.

The members of this project team are experiencing this for themselves – and reflecting it in their enthusiasm to spread the word! This is really encouraging for the chances of success for this organisation's ambitious plans.

OK, now you can be cynical (sorry, realistic) …

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck … it must be The Raiser’s Edge!

The Raiser’s Edge version 8 revolution is coming (in 2010 we hear).

Using an all-new ‘Infinity’ platform based on Microsoft’s .net technology, Blackbaud’s flagship product will be transformed into an open and accessible tool that integrates with a growing range of third party solutions, especially online tools.

When (and if) existing users choose to accept the upgrade to version 8 they will automatically adopt the new technology, but to ease this transition it will be built to look and feel (and quack) much like the current beloved product.

But the big change comes for larger players. The same Infinity platform will be used for a new product called Enterprise CRM. This will enable Blackbaud customers to mix and match different solutions to suit the needs of the whole organisation – including back office, local branches, head office, web, service delivery, marketing – all in one joined up architecture.

This is important because it takes a big step towards the holy grail of the 360-degree customer view and total relationship management. In future, you will be able to look at an individual and see not only their recent donations and communications preferences but also their history of services used, online interaction and any other relevant links to your organisation.

Our sources at Blackbaud liken their new technology to lego!  Buy the simple model and it comes out just like the picture on the box; buy the big kit and you can build it the way you want.  Crucially, it all fits together all the time.

“Bring it on” I hear you cry!  But Blackbaud are not planning to launch these new products until they have credible anchor clients up and running successfully.  We have all read that Oxford University is the first high profile early adopter, and we hear that others are likely to be announced in the next few weeks.