Interview with CRM Blogger and Industry Expert Esteban Kolsky

Esteban Kolsky, Customer Experience researcher and consultant, and former head of eservice research at Gartner, attended the CRM Evolution conference in New York, August 24-26, 2009. Participating in some of the engaging debates on social CRM and customer experience, Kolsky has some very unorthodox ideas on CRM and the future of customer relationship management.

He takes a pragmatic approach to CRM what he sees as a stark contrast to systems thinking, value co-creation, and other approaches to improving operations and processes. Kolsky does admit to adopting some of the elements from each where appropriate. He still believes that the majority of organizations are nowhere near being able to adopt most of those methods. Some organizations are satisfied with the risk inherent to taking on those methodologies, but the vast majority of organizations at this point cannot. Call centers are revenue generators (or at least contributors), and Kolsky feels they should be measured as such.

In this podcast Kolsky explains why call centers have traditionally been seen as cost centers, and how the only way to manage cost centers is by reducing the costs through optimized operations. He also discusses some of the most insightful idea at the CRM Evolution conference, the future of CRM, and why Social CRM is the weave of the future. Hear more about why Kolsky believes AHT is preposterous and his experience at CRM Evolution in New York City.