Elephants, ponies and cats.

• Author: Hall, Robert
• Position: Marketing Solutions - Customer relationship management systems

"I knew a man who grabbed a cat by the tail and learned 40 percent mare about cats than the man who didn't."

Mark Twain

The Elephant. There is almost always an elephant in the conference room. In almost any of our client conversations about managing customer relationships more effectively and profitably, someone innocently mentions it by an acronym.

"Ah, yes, our ybtx was supposed to fix that." Dead silence, all parties intently intrigued by their shoes. Then someone else volunteers, 'Well, the ybtx can twirl, yodel and dice."

More silence. Then someone else, red-faced and steaming, "Well, it is not being used, and I am telling you it is worthless."

Then the designated harmonizer tiptoes in. "Certainly, it is not perfect, but it has great potential." (Coach Bear Bryant comes to mind: "Nothin'll get you fired faster than potential.")

On that blinding flash of insight about ybtx potential, we resume our discussion, turning our backs on the ybtx elephant in the room. Topic non grata.

Until later, during a break or subsequent meeting, someone helpfully whispers to me the explanation that the ybtx is a piece of very expensive technology or large consulting engagement or major enterprisewide "initiative" that was to be the major force for successful customer relationship management. It cost a bundle. The board was told it was the second coming of profitable revenue growth. Then it petered out. Now there are all kinds of undercurrents about who bought the elephant, or who should clean up after it or maybe even shoot it. So there sits the elephant, in every meeting about customer relationships--big, white and unmentionable.

The Pony. In the muck and mire of so many disappointing customer relationship initiatives, it probably doesn't look like it, but what if the elephant is really a pony?

If we can decide it is a pony, a curious thing happens. We stop focusing on the cost of the investment and begin to look at the potential return on the learning. The single most important asset an organization has is what it has learned. Education is not cheap, and we should not expect it to be. When we move our focus from return on investment to return on learning, we find that we have learned a lot, The remaining question: How do we translate the learning into enhanced return?

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