The following concepts are at the heart of CMR. Keep them in mind as you strive to meet the challenges. They will help you keep your thinking on the larger goals and set you on the best course for letting customers manage the relationship.

What CMR is:

• A philosophy of doing business that will affect the entire enterprise
• Creating an experience, developing relationships, and personalizing the interaction with individual customers in ways directed by the customer
• Commitment to changing results by changing what you really do and what you really believe
• A combination of processes, people, and technology that develops intelligence about the customer
• Learning what the customer wants and delivering no more, no less
• Investing in the customers that represent the greatest growth for your business, those you can best turn into assets
• Letting your customers tell you what they care about
• Prioritizing customer investments to grow your business

What CMR will require:

• Customer engagement, enablement, and empowerment
• Dialog: listening to customers and letting customers connect to each other
• Aligning your strategy with your company’s profitable growth objectives, and getting the strategy right before searching for the technology
• Driving the vision down to the execution level, making sure the entire workforce believes in your CMR initiative and can effectively use the tools
• An open exchange of information, not just with customers but within the enterprise
• Customized services and messages that are timely and relevant for your customer
• An ROI model with measurable metrics in place
• Customer permission
• Intense leadership from the top of your organization