Tattoos, Sticky Notes and CRM

Tattoos, sticky notes and CRM

Whenever I watch a movie I get inspired with a small idea or concept that wasn’t necessary a big message in the movie.

A movie called  Memento released in 2000 is a story of a man named Leonard who suffered from short-term memory loss. In the 113 minute mind bending movie the main character Leonard was determined to get even with his wife's killer. However, Leonard was unable to remember anything that happened day to day because of short term memory loss. To help himself remember the normal events of a day, he used sticky notes and had tattooed on his body with messages. The movie goes back in time to expose each little bit of the puzzle as he tries to find out the person who killed his wife. Here comes the movie spoiler! Towards the end we the viewer’s find out that the notes and the tattoos that he was writing to himself were according to the way he wanted to remember the event not the way they truly happened.

1. If you have any type of contact with your customers, whether it being from the office of your powder coating shop or from face to face sales, you are more than likely using a (CRM) Customer relationship management system. In short a CRM is a place where you can store customer and prospect contact information, accounts, leads and sales opportunities. A CRM whether cloud based or software is a lot better method of saving information than tattooing your body or writing sticky notes.

The reason we make notes after a sales call or visit is so the next time we go talk to that customer we wont forget specifics about the last meeting or conversation. So we do things like taking notes in CRM to make our customers feel like they are the most important and only customer we have.

Well what do we do if the last time we talk to that customer they had a complaint? If you are anything like me you write the note down RIGHT AWAY with all the drama of the conversation and of course with a little bit of a twist. The twist is how they were way out of line and you add a little self-justification just to make yourself feel that they wronged you. Two or three weeks later you are making the rounds with the customers again and you see its time to contact that dreaded customer. You remember that something went wrong last time but you don’t remember exactly what went wrong so you start reading your CRM notes. As you are reading the notes you take a trip back in time reliving the event once again, then you start acting like my  dog. You mentally put your tail between your legs and start to pee on the floor at the thought of having to call THAT customer again. 

This is where we need to act like Leonard in the movie Memento, write your CRM notes with a positive twist. Describe the problem that the customer had from a positive point of view without any drama or self-justification. When you are taking the note about the complaint, write to you future self with a positive encouraging note. And remember, more than likely your customer isn’t going to remember specifics of the situation either. When you call them back or visit them with a good positive attitude the relationship will be like old times. So get back out there and act like an old politician with a good positive outlook and kiss some hands and shake some babies!