When the time comes to work out a customer relationship management solution, you have a lot of factors to consider, and you have a lot of pressure to do this right. CRM and by extension CS are the things for which your company is judged first in all things. This means that your CRM and CE systems must be ship shape and they must work right the first time. This is a place where second chances are a myth, and you must take that to heart right now.

So, what variables do you have to consider in customer relationship management solution decision time? Well, for starters, you must know your demographic. Different demographics are the results of different philosophies, cultures and ways of life. As a result, different demographics will have differing expectations when it comes to CRM and CS.

So, knowing your demographic will point you along the right direction. Some demographics will expect a lot of self service, while others will want classic call in centers to handle their customer service issues. Still others hate human contact and want to handle everything through an anonymous web layer.

It didn’t used to be so complicated, but with advancing technology comes inherent complications in things. Such is the sacrifice for convenience in technology, folks.

So, with that said, there are quite a lot of solution potentialities there, aren’t there? Classic call in centers are an old standby, but they do have their share of problems, including hold times, communications barriers and just a general lack of a stronger infrastructure to support demand. Some demographics may not be inherently patient enough for this to be a good mainstay.

Others want to use the internet, because they’ve grown accustomed to the cold embrace of machines. For these people, solutions like using social networking (mainly Twitter) to facilitate lesser issues is a good way to go. It’s fast, convenient and impersonal, which some appreciate.

Self service is a different animal altogether. This is web interface on steroids, where an automated website with onboard interfacing allows the customer to handle all complaints, transactions and other actions completely on their own with no administrative involvement. It’s a loaded topic right now in the industry, and you can read more about that in some of our other pieces, in fact.

However, it’s very rewarding, with minimalist load on the customer service people, and a lot of automation for CRM, which can integrate with SaaS like Salesforce to make a seamless system of absolute convenience.

Honestly, you’re probably going to want to hybridize, and work with all of these solutions in different balances depending on factors on your end. These balances should be obvious, after looking at the solutions available. What solves what problem for you? Don’t worry about picking and mixing, this is just a common tactic now.

You can devise a pretty tightly-working customer relationship management solution this way, just be mindful of the various tactics at your disposal, and don’t marry any particular one. Be adaptive and flexible, and you’re going to have a lot less stress with this topic.