The article Walk Before You Run discusses the importance of a proactive CRM and the need to become more interactive with clients, while preserving the focus on the basic requirements for successful management of the relationships with customers. The article emphasizes the role of platforms and systems, in particular SugarCRM, that help to manage the complexity of customer relationships and to take advantage of the opportunities as well as to become more social with the customers.
In order to support the claim about the need to closely monitor customer demands authors provide statistics of the importance of high service level for the customers, as well as illustrate the number of channels customers may use in order to share their experiences and information, thus amplifying the effect of CRM.
After describing the recent trends in technology and social media development and emphasizing the importance of interacting with customers, the authors try to encourage readers to use the open, standards-based technology, similar to SugarCRM, in order to make CRM activities more effective and enjoyable both for customers and employees.
While the article reveals very important trends and concepts, which could be interesting to CRM professionals, however the purpose of the article is somewhat unclear. On the one hand, the authors provide information, however one can easily feel the underlying attempt to promote SugarCRM solution to the readers. This purpose duality may confuse the readers and decrease the perceived importance of the issues discussed, thus reducing article’s value and effectiveness.
