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
The importance of information gathered during a customer call cannot be exaggerated. This means that calls to customers should be carefully planned and the results recorded in way which allows later analysis of the information gained.
Good sales persons will know how often they should visit their customers and have a good knowledge of customers attitudes and requirements. However even the best sales person will sometimes forget a call and information not stored online is not available for analysis. A well designed CRM system will provide means for suggesting calls to be made on the basis of the date of the last visit and the potential of the customer. Going into more detail, a CRM-System can support sales people by offering a customer-specific check-list of important points and will make the job of entering call data simple.
This is basically a very simple process and is often, exactly for this reason, overlooked during application design. Some of the most succesful companies guide the frequency and content of customer visits very closely – CRM in practice!
Tags: call scheduling, crm
The World Cup is here again, cars and houses are once more flagged and the streets are empty during games. The key word here is loyalty. Why are people loyal to the team they support? At a time when companies are looking for ways to promote loyalty, people are turning to sports and social media. There is a lesson to be learned from this. People can only be loyal where emotions are involved, and emotions are built around people. There is a strong need to identify with a group of people with similar attitudes and opinions.
Companies which attempt to reach customers by offering the lowest prices or the newest technology may have success so long as they are the cheapest or the best, but they will not keep their customers when conditions changed. This may be one recipe for success, but companies able to generate an identity to which people can relate will do better. Evidently, creating and maintaining the identity is a case for the entire staff of a company, but a good CRM concept should provide the organizational basis by supplying the right information at the right time.
Loyalty is more important than the promotion of special offers and technical gimmicks.
Tags: crm, Loyalität, World Cup
After all the hype on the use of social media, the time has come to think about what has happened (or not happened). One thing is certain – using and keeping track of social media is a time consuming activity. Following LinkedIn, Twitter, XING or Facebook, can fill your day and often produce no useful results. So time consuming that there is a definite danger, that real life contacts and opportunities may be overseen.
While social media to produce sales relevant information, the task of separating the relevant from the mass of irrelevant data requires considerable effort and this should not be the task of sales persons. Further, the mass of information must be processed before any of the the data is entered into your CRM system. Further, it is important to decide how the information is to be used before starting down this road. is it your aim to create new contacts for your sales organization or to keep track of the activities of current customers?
Talking to a group of sales people recently, the general view was, that personal contacts are becoming more rather than less important than before. Certainly in B2B business, prospective customers are becoming increasingly resistant to E-Mail and Call Center contacts.
Unternehmen geben viel Geld aus um festzustellen, was Kunden wollen. Erfolgreiche Unternehmen nutzen die Erkenntnisse um eine Strategie für Kundengewinnung und -entwicklung entwickeln zu können. Politiker scheinen dagegen nur die Interessen Ihrer Parteien in Betracht zu ziehen. Herr Gauck hat recht, unsere Politiker haben sich von der Kundschaft, vom Volk, abgekoppelt. Kein Wunder, dass die Kundschaft abwandert und nach Alternativen sucht.
In diesem Fall, ist für die Regierung ein Problem Herrn Gauck in Betracht zu ziehen, weil der Vorschlag von der “falschen” Seite kommt, obwohl die Einstellung der Wähler erstaunlich klar ist. Meint die Regierung alles besser zu wissen, oder ist die Parteilinie wichtiger als das Wohl des Volks?
Tags: Bundespräsident, crm, Gauck
Selecting ten vendors out of the 140+ vendors in the (German) market is not a task for beginners. The tendency is to go for the big names, but this does not necessarily get you the best solution for your requirements. Many of the lesser known suppliers have excellent products and may match your needs better than a product purchased on the basis “the product has so much functionality, we will find what we need in their somewhere” (this is a quote from a recent prospect). Firstly, this may not be the case and secondly, disposing of unwanted functionality can be an expensive business.
These are the steps you need to take:
- Define your infrastructure requirements
- Name the required interfaces to groupware, ERP or other essential software
- Decide if you wish to be a small customer of a large vendor or an important customer of a smaller vendor or if this is a factor at all
- Name the major modules you require such as sales, marketing and support and the most important processes required
- Work with an experienced consultant or use online services to make a list of 20 vendors
- Reduce the number to 10 and off goes your RFP
Use the responses to the RFP to form your opinion about the product and the quality of the reaction to your request. Qualified vendors or partners will suggest that they need to know more about your application before sending you a reply. This is in fact correct and a sign of competence, but you cannot spend time with up to 20 suppliers. The RFP, as explained in a previous post, must allow suppliers to show their strengths and not just be a list of check boxes.
On the basis of the reactions you may want to invite around 5 suppliers to a presentation. It is better to have these people demonstrate one or two processed in detail than to give a general tour of their product. Any skilled sales person can make a good impression if he just shows the chocolate side of his product. Invite users to attend the presentations.
This process will enable you to select a maximum of 3 suppliers to run a preliminary workshop with you, the aim of which is to give you deeper knowledge of the product and the implementation partner and for the partner to be able to estimate the project costs and effort.
Tags: crm, CRM Investment, CRM Software
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