An interview with Mitch Lieberman: “Look for opportunities around the edges and expect more from your solutions.”

Editor’s note: The customer experience is becoming a key success indicator in a modern business world. Clients’ feedback is a barometer that shows how efficient is your company working and predicts its future. Anyway, it is all about innovations.

That is why today we present an interview with Mitch Lieberman – a transformation leader who helps organizations to implement new approaches and technical novelties to develop a strategy and become a success. We will be talking about his work at  SugarCRM, recommendations on choosing a suitable CRM solution and thoughts on a future of customer service.

1. As a transformation leader, who helps companies in defining strategic goals and implementing structural changes, can you enlighten our readers about most important tips how to make your business efficient.

There are two critical factors that represent the starting point towards business efficiency. The first is to make sure that each part of the business working towards the same vision, goals and objectives. If different teams are working towards different goals, this misalignment will cause friction, friction is wasted energy and causes inefficiency. The second critical component is making sure each part of the business is at an equal capability level in regards to technological maturity. Some call this digital maturity or digital transformation. The name is not as important as the notion that different people, different teams and different parts of the organization are typically at different maturity levels and creating parity across the organization is an important first step.

2. As it is written in your LinkedIn profile, you worked on SugarCRM for many years. Why did you choose this exact solution?

I did work at SugarCRM and I was part of the partner ecosystem for many years as well. In the early years (more than 10 years ago), this was more about being part of an early movement in open source technology at the business layer. Over time, this transformed into working with a powerful and flexible platform that helped business to achieve successful outcomes. SugarCRM has been innovating within the CRM space for 12+ years and I would look for them to kick into another gear (disclosure: SugarCRM has been a client on and off over the years, it would be improper not to note this fact).

3. Along with SugarCRM, which CRM systems can you recommend for our readers to succeed and why?

This is dependent upon the needs of the business. The most important part of the success in any technology deployment or program is to focus on meeting the needs of the users, helping employees (knowledge workers) to achieve successful outcomes. Involving users in the selection process will increase their investment in the system, increase user adoption – if they like and use the system, it will be a success. Establishing a relationship with the Vendor is also important, as well, trust is more than trust in the technology. The number of CRM solutions available on the market is very high, each have their strengths. I look for some of the thinkers in the space who can drive innovation within their products. The teams at Nimble, Freshworks, and BPMOnline are continuously innovating in the space.

In the end, I have stated on man occasions that it is less about the technology and more about the ability to transform the business. Technology is simply the enabler.

4. You’ve had a publication in 2014 – “Five Years of Social Customer Care”. Can you define top highlights of the work and how it can be helpful for customer service specialists?

What is even more interesting is that companies have been trying to do Social Customer Care since even before 2009. Social was new, Digital was arriving, and Customers decided it was time to talk…back. What we did, lots of smart people involved, was simply to highlight the need and share some early thoughts. It would be laughable to suggest there were any ‘best practices’. The business relationship had changed. Conversations were now public and not everyone was behaving; yeah, even me. The simple fact is that we need to spend more time reading, understanding and caring about intent and context. Conversations happen really fast in Digital, but thinking takes time.

5. At last, the new year is ahead of us, what predictions or parting words can you say for business owners or marketing and sales specialists to follow in 2018?

Look for opportunities around the edges and expect more from your solutions. At the start, you asked about efficiency. It is time we should expect our systems to make us both smarter and more efficient. It is not about Artificial, just yet. 2018 is going to be about Assisted and Augmented. Let people be people, and computers be, well, computers.

We’d like to thank Mitch for his insightful and practical advices on building a successful customer experience and running a business. Hope they will help you to establish an innovational vision of today’s market and attract clients.

P.S. If this interview inspired you to choose a new CRM solution, wait no longer – contact us for useful insights.