The very first time I heard the term "CRM" was at a Microsoft Partners presentation some years ago. This hotshot product manager was giving a presentation about the great new CRM product MS was introducing in the next quarter. We saw lots of great import/export features, web enabling, mail handling, how it interrelates seamlessly with their other server products, etc etc.. but at no stage in his 45 minute presentation did the hotshot ever use the words "Customer" or "Relationship".
I had never heard the term "CRM" before so i spent most of the time working on what it was this guy was talking about - trying to work out what a CRM was exactly. Was this thing anything i should know about? Was it something i could sell? To who? What the HELL is it???? Would i use it in my own business? What for? About half way through I noticed most of the people around me looking bored and not reallly paying attention. I asked the guy next to me if he knew what CRM meant. He said "Havent got a clue." I asked the guy on the other side. Same answer. All around us, no one had any idea what a CRM was, and we were all trying to grab a closer look at the screens that were flashing on the screen in front of us trying to get some idea of what a CRM was. But the screens were in typical fashion simply motherhood statements - "richly enabling the web", "improving corporate efficiency" etc - nothing there - every presentation ever done by Microsoft says the same thing. "multiple licences", 'compatibility with current and new server products", "sales incentives", "special pricing for partners for next 6 weeks" big deal - every Microsoft presentation says that. BUT WHAT THE (*&%# is a CRM product???? So in short, the entire presentation was completely wasted on most of the audience of about 3500 sales partners - none of us knew whether this great newfangled thingamejig was going to fit into our business plans or not. All he had to do was say "Customer Relationship Management" at some stage, early in the presentation, and it might have been useful. The moment afterwards when I told him he'd given the entire present and never once told us what he was showing us was magic. HIs face went pale and I thought he was going to faint. LOL It's amazing how often a similar thing happens. Look at your own software announcements ... "Bumfluff V 3.5 is now released!" Then a whole bunch of stuff about the bugs fixed, esoteric features added, Mac version now released, updated to work with IE7 and Vista, Great. What does it do? Do i care? Would i use it? I never saw Bumfluff V3.0 or previous versions, so why would i be interested? What does it do? Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com ColdFusion, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET hosting from AUD$15/month ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:297779 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
