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CRM system design : Primacy to sales or marketing?
On June 24th, 2010 Uncategorized 5 CommentsThere are two main ways of approaching the selection of a CRM software. I had written a post, in my personal blog months ago that the challenge in CRM implementation is mainly in adoption. We have seen nothing to change our view. It did not make sense to us to build a system that needs to be thrust down the throat of its users. And, most CRM systems continue to be built without thought about the principal usage model.
You can’t think about the usage model without thinking of the users. And, guess who will use the CRM systems the most? It is the sales team. But, most CRM systems start with the “marketing” side of the sales-marketing continuum. They build a great campaign management piece, with all the bells and whistles: segmentation and targeting, e-mail engine integration, opt-in and opt-out handling, drip-marketing, lead-nurturing etc.
Guess what sales does to all the leads those come to them after this? Delete or trash.
I have designed, used and deployed 3 CRM systems of varying complexity- one of them ground up. The biggest issue was that the sales team hated the CRM tools. Always, the information gathering was their headache and they were the guys to take the rap if things did not go well.
And, given the technology those days, CRM was an island as were all the other pieces of software that was needed to make it work. The sales and marketing guys needed to do all their work outside the system and dive back into the software for logging their activities. As an example, create a target list- use a query tool outside the system, send a mail: use a emailing vendor, create the templates: use another vendor too. Send a quote: use the quote making system with no link to CRM. After each of these activities, come back and MANUALLY log the activities into the CRM.
Okay, so, I was less than accurate. Sales hated it; so did marketing.
Did I mention customer profiling? We had each account and contact profiled multiple ways; industry, department, designation, product interest, literature interest.. and here in lies the rub.
Who input or update the profile data? It was sales. All those contact records with 27 fields and account records with 18 (I am making up these numbers, but you get the point).. all those fields’ data have to be entered by sales guys. And, they also have to keep them updated, in addition to entering sales leads that they get through their efforts and keeping them updated as well.
Life’s not fair if you are a sales guy. There is this blasted variable salary and weekly review with bosses and on top of it, “you want me to fill up all those records”.
And, since the CRM software was written with the primary goal of satisfying marketing, it will be high on reports and analytics but, low on usability and triggers and alerts which can make it useful to the sales people.
In a nutshell, the sales view of CRM software is: “It is software where I fill in all the customer data just so that marketing can look good; prepare those cool reports with colourful charts (and coloured data!).” In one word, trouble!
The other major way of approaching this is to take the sales view and build a Funnel Management System or a Sales Force Automation. Most of the contact management piece is common to both approaches.
The focus here is on workflows, sales reports, funnels and performance vs targets and so on. While this sounds great from the sales point of view, even this suffers from problems. For one, the data entry work for the salesmen is not any less. For another, since the focus is lower in the funnel, the organization has less long term view as a result and marketing’s ability to make sense of the present so that they can build the future prospects list is undermined.
So, when we built Salesgenie CRM++, we were guided by this core set of beliefs:
1. Have only those “profile fields” that you will seriously, seriously use for “active profiling” of your contacts and accounts.
By “active profiling” I mean, a profile that will drive action on your part. It is no use to know someone’s birthday, if you do not remember to greet her on her birthday. . Similarly, what good is knowing that someone attended a seminar on Topic ABC, if you did not have any follow up action planned, either by marketing or by sales?
2. Ensure that primary data-entry is automated.
3. Ensure that profile triggers action and the action and results are visible to sales people.
4. Drastically cut down on profile fields count; most, you will realise were not necessary.
5. Ensure that all principal activities of sales and marketing teams can be performed from within the platform: designing and sending mailers, sending literature, configuring and sending quotes, lead identification and dissemination, deal qualification and follow up.
6. Make it possible to distinguish between “activity profiles” (profile built over time based on the interaction history) and “static profiles” (profiling done basis demographics, designations, stated interests and so on).
7. Have good analytics, forecasting and targeting capabilities. It is important that everyone can use the same tools and for that, the tools themselves must be user-friendly.
Every CRM software is different- not just in workflows and capabilities, but also in fundamentals of how they view the marketplace; so, if and when you implement Salesgenie CRM++, ensure that the sales and marketing teams get training in not only using the software, but also in the core principles of CRM and how you are planning to use this software to enhance productivity across the sales and marketing functions.
Tell us how we did by registering and using Salesgenie CRM++ for a month. Absolutely FREE.
Hey dear can i publish some part of your post on my small blog of university.I have to publish a good articles out there and i do think your post Fits best into it.I will be glad to give you an source link as well.I have two blogs one my own and the other which is my college blog.I will write some part in the university blog.Hope you do not mind.Greetings
Which university?
You are welcome to publish part of my post in your blog so long as there is a link to my post.
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