The last two posts have been pointing to the limitations of CRM software. It is true that software functionality has not changed much since the first CRM solutions were offered, but usability and flexibility has shown a massive improvement.
Why do the applications not develop? Basically the tools customer oriented users require are not that complex and are limited in number and type. The tools are available and have been for some time. A tool alone will not help you however, just as little as owning a hammer will drive a nail into a wall. There is nothing wrong with the hammer, but you need to know what to do with it. The same applies to CRM Products. As stated in a previous post, there are solutions available for almost any CRM requirements, but first you must know your requirements.
These are the steps you need:
- Define your business aims with regard to your growth plans and planned customer base. Then define your strategy for reaching these aims from the point of view of the customer.
- Define your business processes in relation to your business aims. Business processes in sales and support are not in any way complex, but they do need attention to detail and need to interface to back office functions. Sales processes must remain flexible. Back Office processes tend to be more strict.
- Translate your processes to software requirements that support your information flow and work processes. Do not let your IT-Department talk you into making a check-list of functions and certainly not into a technology oriented selection process. Your processes are important.
- After all this, go ahead with the software selection process. Let suppliers show you how their software can support your process. In the short list stage it may be worthwhile investing in the development of a module from all short listed companies.
Many CRM projects start with having an IT-oriented employee research information on existing solutions and the development of a list of requirements based on the functions offered by products favored by that person (or team). This is the wrong track. Start a step 1, not at step 4!
Tags: CRM Applications
Contrary to popular practice, CRM consulting is about putting the customer at the center of your business, not about internal efficiency. In most of the cases I have been recently involved in, customers have been primarily concerned with the improvement of existing internal processes. This makes life easy for the consultant or software sales person, but will probably neither lead to reduced costs nor to increased sales.
Finding and retaining customers is becoming increasingly difficult as loyalty is no longer to be expected and competition increases at all levels. To be successful, it is essential to look at your company from the customers point of view. Is your company behaving the way in which your customers expect? Are you supplying sales and support services which your customers expect? Or is your company more concerned with internal efficiency than with customer needs? You do not need a CRM product to increase sales efficiency – most sales people require little more than a good contact management tool, CRM becomes effective when you prospects and customers notice an improvement.
CRM is not software and in fact most available solutions can support your operation. CRM is about knowing your customer’s requirements and putting a strategy in place to find, develop an keep them. Are you looking at your CRM Software with regard to this aim?
Generally, software suppliers will suggest a workshop to define your requirements. That is generally correct, but whether before or after the sale, these workshops will always be conducted with regard to the limitations of the software offered. Sales people know that your budget is limited and will avoid suggesting improvements which, due to software limitations, will be too costly
You must define your aims and requirements without reference to a product. If you are unable to do this with internal resources, find a consultant who is not tied to a product. However, you are still the only person who can define your business aims.
There is no need to fear that you will then not find a suitable CRM product to meet your needs. There are enough excellent solutions on the market.
Tags: CRM Software
Sales Partners of CRM Software suppliers are by definition more interested in selling you software than in helping you develop a CRM solution. Most of them only work with one or two products, so to them, your problem always look the same.
This characteristic is unfortunately actively encouraged by buyers who look for functions and technical requirements but are not aware of the real business aims involved. There are probably no functions which can be requested which existing CRM solutions do not offer, so using lists of functions will not produce valid results. The quality and the usability of those functions in your environment is another question.
CRM suppliers and resellers can be exptected to have good expertise with regard to their products and good sales people who can show you their solution the way you like to see it. However, even though it is often thought that customer care and sales are the same everywhere, this is definitely not the case. Sales and support processes are always unique. Selecting CRM Software which has the largest number of ticks against your requirements list will not get you the best solution. You will hear talk of best practices from your CRM Rep, but there are no best practices which fit all companies.
If you are looking for more than simple contact management, CRM Software will always need to be modified, so you need to look for suppliers who can understand your business and convince you that the software they are offering can be modified to your requirements.
The sales person who points out these traps will bring you a better solution than the person who tells you the software will do it all for you.
The advice is as old as the hills, but is as true as ever: Don’t let software drive your business, define your requirements and then look for software which fulfills your business needs.
More follows.
Let’s start with a list of things sales people do not like doing:
- Writing monthly/quarterly reports
- Looking for marketing collateral, product descriptions
- Entering data
- Processing documents
This is evidently not an exclusive list but one which relates to CRM systems. When new CRM Systems are put in place, too little attention is paid to the real requirements of sales people. They are regarded as a source of information and are often left with little more than an automated address book with contact history and opportunity management. Even the opportunity management is more often oriented towards management information requiremens and not to the need of sales people.
The remedy is not tricky. When a new sales support system is to be introduced, ensure that exisiting information is imported for each sales person, provide interfaces to back end systems with sales and product data and ensure that reports and forms exist to relieve the sales force of routine tasks.
Looking back to the beginnings of software for sales and marketing, we have seen “Computer Aided Selling”, “Sales Force Automation”, “1to1Marketing” and now “Customer Relationship Management”. Although suppliers and experts speak about the need to communicate with customers and offer 360 degree customer views, the majority of the RFPs I see tend to center arount the improvement of sales efficiency.
This can probably be explained by the increasing cost of sales and decreasing sales margins but does ignore the advantages which could be gained by looking at sales processes from the cutomers point of view. Aiming at decreasing costs usually involves simplifying current processes and not on reviewing the processes in total. It also has the side effect that products promising simple and quick implementation tend to be preferred.
Increasing efficiency and reducing costs are certainly valid aims when introducint a new CRM system, but the real advantages of a new system should include processes which would not be possible without the use of software. Sales, Marketing and Service functions can be integrated to improve the total service level to the customer not only be reducing administrative loads, but also by offering new services.
Once again iPhone-Hype is everywhere and CRM-suppliers are quick to offer interfaces. The approach differs from product to product – some provide online access to the database, others download date to the phone. The most common use is to check or find customer names or contacts when on the road, but most apps go further with a variety of functions. E-Mail and Call are of course to be expected on a phone, but some products provide access and edit functions for activities, opportunities or orders.
While the access to address and contact data is certainly useful, it is worth thinking if further functions are worth what they cost. This will vary from application to application and certainly from industry to industry, but in many cases the small display and limited data entry speed on the iPhone (Blackberry is faster for most users) limit the practical usage. it is probably better to turn to a notebook witha larger screen and a real keyboard – it may not be trendy, but it does encourage more careful use.
Tags: Blackberry, iPhone
International companies will tend to centralize IT-applications where possible and it appears that CRM-solutions are now being targeted. This may seem reasonable but there are many arguments against centralization in this area. One recent example I found in a large pharmaceutical concern. A regional manager was looking for a CRM-solution for his agents in the Middle East, the agents being anything from a one-man company to a specialized sales organization with up to 15 employees. The manager was told by his IT, that the only CRM-solution allowed in the company was SAP. I need not comment on that. The manager was determined to find a solution and in fact did – the solution he found was not declared as a CRM-system.
The point is, that CRM-solutions are only effective when the local sales processes can be supported and a one-man company just does not have the same processes as the German operation with many thousands of employees and a gigantic sales force.
Adapting an enterprise application to suit local conditions has two major disadvantages:
- the cost of customizing is extremely high, and
- the massive customizing produces an application nothing like the original.
It is in fact often more effective and much less costly, to install suitable products in each country and to generate interfaces as required.
It is also absolutely essential to analyze and react to local requirements, even within Europe methods and processes change from country to country. Further, requirements vary according to the size of the sales operation. One memorable near-fail of a project occurred for example when a company in the automotive industry assumed that all vehicles could be identified for their lifetime by the registration number – the system designers were based in the UK.
Tags: CRM Projects
In most cases, in Germany at least, customers are categorized as A, B or C customers based on the volume of business. At first, this appears logical but at a closer look more factors should be regarded:
- business volume in relation to the customers total budget
- the customers growth plan
- marketing prestige
Just looking at achieved business volume is a very one sided view of a customer. More important is the size of the customers budget, assuming that there is no reason why you should not expand your share. Some customers will clearly grow rapidly and these need to be handled with particular care since this is a chance to establish contacts and loyalties which will keep competitors out when the company grows and more people are involved in purchase and development decisions. Some companies have a lighthouse function in their industry which makes them a generator for new business if they can be referenced.
Basically, there is nothing wrong with an ABC analysis, but the process for the classification needs to be well and clearly defined and classifications should be reviewed at least annually.
The main argument against the ABC classification, is that C customers tend to be ignored. This would lead to problems, since the rule that 20% of customers create 80% of revenue will always apply. Cutting away the C customers will only reduce revenue – it will not change the 20:80 relation!
Tags: B2B, Customer Value
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