Observations on an independent CRM consultant's quest to help organisations get real value from CRM technology
posted by Richard Boardman at 7:59 am
I'm something of a grizzled veteran of the CRM space having worked in the industry for the last 14 years and having been involved in implementing over 300 CRM systems. In 2004 I went from poacher to gamekeeper, and left one of the UK's leading CRM vendors to become an independent CRM consultant with the pretty simple objective of helping organisations get a considerably better return on investment from CRM technology than was the traditonal norm. My company, Mareeba CRM Consulting (www.mareeba.co.uk), is based in Amersham in the UK.
1 Comments:
I can see how CRM systems seem to be well suited for left brain--following processes, making to-do lists, recording data, and measuring results. However, this way of thinking can actually be a detriment to a CRM implementation. Although those things appear on the ingredients list of the recipe for success, they are not the real flavor of success. Reporting what happened does not make the future any better UNLESS you are planning to do something different with that information. My theory is that it is the right-brained creative person who can bring that balance and strategy to an organization.
The goal with CRM is to keep it simple for the users with minimal data gathered, while explaining how every piece of information will be used. Results should be framed in many meaningful ways to the individual—
• How can we use this information to become better at what we love to do?
• How does what we do help the customer?
• What will I do differently in my job because of this information?
• What will our company do today with what we know that we might not have done yesterday?
• How does this help make our/my vision become a reality?
Some things we have done for more right brained organizations
• Conduct a good part of the business process analysis and design in more of a brain-storm, results oriented fashion
• In the design of forms, each piece of data gathered should have a result (e.g. if the contact is marked Gold, they will be invited to events. If they are marked silver, they will only get Emails, so you may never see them again.)
• Don’t force entry of FYI-type data and instead give the user several topic-based fields and ask for a narrative
• Each recording of activity should have a purpose—not just to be counted, but to drive value for the individual or the customer
• Allow for more gut-feel type fields such as Hot, Warm, Cold – or customer sentiment of Advocate, Neutral, Opposed
• Automate wherever possible to create more results with less work
• Provide personal charts for each user to show their meaningful results of their contribution
• Use a wiki format for knowledge sharing rather than documents or database records
The ideal CRM adopter would be balanced left brain and right brain--both process oriented and creative, but I think CRM can work with an emphasis on one or the other. I agree that anyone with an over emphasis must be achieving success in business in some other way, or perhaps they are close to failing.
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