In his recent post, and last week’s “This Week in the Rear View Mirror” (a weekly interactive series) Chris Bucholtz talked a lot about the importance of analytics for CRM, especially when arguing that CRM or Social CRM are good investments. He says that unlike most other “technology-driven” trends, analytics and social CRM are evolving at nearly the same rate, which ultimately means less pain and suffering for the rest of us.
A major point he’s made is that analytics need to be flexible enough to add value on an individual basis, for companies that have different needs. He says “the analytics vendor that succeeds in this era will be the one that understands that analytics can be a competitive advantage. That will mean a flexible analytics platform that allows users to set up their own metrics in addition to the basics, and it also means a bit of evangelism by the analytics vendors to spread the word that in this new era how you think about what you’re measuring is critical to really understanding what’s happening with your social efforts.” Because every company’s customer is different, how they look at analytics must be different too. Analytics are not one-size fits all.
Another point he made was the fact that successful organizations (like the Analytics vendors in the above example) will truly know their customers and be sensitive to unique and individual needs they may have, and be able to adapt themselves around those needs. The focus has shifted to the customer, and analytics will only help you understand and therefore serve them better.
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