GMail Outage Raises Concerns About Hosted CRM Backups

CRM software experts have expressed their concerns about hosted CRM applications for the past few years. Even as modern web scripting makes hosted apps more desktop-like, their issues are with the challenges that CRM software vendors face when choosing an interoperability strategy.

From a programming point of view, some vendors prefer not to spend time on a feature that makes it easy for users to export data to a competitor's service. And for marketers and sales professionals, even hinting at the possibility of export functionality seems to feel wrong -- like you're bringing up the possibility of a failed implementation right from the start.

It's one thing to debate this issue in the wake of the Entellium fiasco. However, the need to ensure backups of both systems and data emerged recently when Google's GMail service experienced a four-hour outage. Business customers, who pay fees for additional features, were incensed. And critics of software as a service wondered aloud whether any provider could offer truly error-free service.

In my experience, it's better to think about when a vendor will experience an unexpected system failure -- not "if." Thinking this way puts an outage into perspective:

• What's your threshold for failure?
• How long could you run your business without a hosted CRM tool?
• How quickly could you migrate to a backup solution?
• How much extra are you willing to pay for a feature that you may never need?

While some vendors have made export functionality part of their sales pitch, others leave it up to you to ferret out the information. Based on advice from industry experts, here are some tips that can help you get over your fear of leaving data on the cloud.

• Learn how your team can backup and restore data from your hosted CRM software on a regular basis. A legitimate vendor will have some way to do this, even if it lacks official documentation.
• Ask for specific details about how a prospective hosted CRM vendor operates their servers, especially their backup systems.
• Make the right decision for the kind of business you operate. A mom-and-pop marketing agency does not always need the kind of redundancy as a bank.

Following these steps can reduce your stress level while opening up real opportunities to save money and to improve customer service.

Irish Police Detain CRM Software's Public Enemy #1

Did you hear that Irish police have finally nabbed their island's worst driver? Prawo Jadzy showed up in the database over fifty times, with a different address listed under each record. As it turns out, "Prawo Jadzy" means "Driver's License" in Polish. Irish traffic cops, when stopping Polish tourists and guest workers for minor traffic infractions, simply copied the phrase as if it were a name. An honest mistake, repeated a few dozen times, gave police administrators the impression that a manic driver with a history of giving false addresses was wreaking havoc throughout the country.

How does this story relate to your CRM implementation?

Think about how your customer service agents and your sales professionals enter data for new customers into your CRM system. When confronted with incomplete data, are your users entering jibberish? More likely, are they entering placeholder text, like "none@none.com" for an e-mail address? Are they entering their own zip codes or your company's zip codes if a customer doesn't provide that information? All of these common CRM software workarounds may help your team members get past "required fields" screens, but they could be wrecking your data.

CRM software developers encourage system administrators to take two points of view when tackling the problem of bad data:

First, don't assume you won't need a certain piece of data at some point down the road. Therefore, you should make sure that team members collect accurate data now, especially if you have the opportunity to clean up data during repeat visits with a customer.

Second, assume that as much as 25% of your data may be flawed. Under that assumption, you may think differently about using systems that require unique names or e-mail addresses as identifiers. You may also consider filtering out a few "hot zips" that employees are likely to substitute.

This way, you can still leverage the power of the accurate data in your CRM system -- without wondering why Prawo Jadzy places dozens of orders per month.

Cash-Strapped Sales Managers Embrace CRM Applications

Across the United States, sales managers are trying to figure out how to close more deals with fewer resources. Lavish corporate expense accounts are suddenly passe. You can't fly on the company jet anymore, especially if you're taking any federal bailout money. And you'd better not let anybody see you trying to entertain your clients at a company sponsored sporting event.

In this environment, smart sales managers have decided to get even smarter by deploying CRM systems. Yes, even those sales managers who have resisted CRM software implementations for the past few years have rethought their positions. The monthly seat license fee for a hosted CRM application is a fraction of what it used to cost to foot the bill for a three-martini lunch with a customer.

For IT managers and other implementation leaders, this sudden embrace of CRM applications comes at a cost. The pressure's on to deliver solid improvements in sales and service metrics, just on a shorter time table than typical installations. In-house users still require training, and still present the kind of resistance that CRM developers hope to overcome.

New CRM software modules have been designed with today's power users in mind. Chat systems that integrate with public websites can be used to manage more incoming communications at once than current call centers can handle. Stronger e-mail tools can filter inbound messages into quality leads and follow-ups. And task lists tied more tightly into customer time tables help sales professionals understand who to call, when, and why.

The market's only getting tighter, and it's up to company leaders to get behind CRM software -- not just look to it as the Hail Mary pass that can preserve this quarter's profit margin.

Get CIM for Your CRM Software ASAP, or Your ROI May Be DOA

Let's say your company has invested millions of dollars on CRM software, and that you're even start seeing a return on your investment. Outbound contacts to existing customers seem to go swimmingly well. Yet, when you look at retention and reordering rates, something seems odd. Numbers should be a little bit higher, shouldn't they?

The answer to this dilemma is surprisingly more common than you'd think. According to Brendan Read at TMCNet, many enterprise companies still have not invested the necessary time or resources in bridging the gaps between front line call centers and sophisticated CRM solutions.

Customer Interaction Management (CIM) and Computer-Telephone Integration (CTI) are two of the latest acronyms to cause your CIO to seek an MRI. Read interviewed Chris Mills from CIM company Servion, who notes that many companies still haven't fully embraced technology's ability to help provide stellar customer service. Leaving these two tools out of a CRM software implementation is akin to leaving money on the table.

For example, if a call center's inbound CIM system doesn't automatically recognize a caller ID, customers may need to punch in account numbers or other identifying codes into their phones. While it simplifies the account lookup process for CRM software, this task often frustrates and confuses callers.

Even worse, without the right CTI tools, a live agent may require customers to identify themselves again. Either of these experiences can cause a customer to feel less valued, possibly encouraging them to take their business elsewhere.

Companies that recognize their best customers and differentiate them from first-time buyers can win repeat business by providing service that replicates the personal attention once reserved for small, mom-and-pop retail shops. Even a well-programmed IVR can provide this kind of service, provided it has the right CRM system on the backend to make the experience feel part of a broader relationship.

Managing Customer Privacy with CRM Software

From today's tweets...

For the past three decades, if not longer, privacy advocates have been worried about the possibility that large corporations could use CRM software to build dossiers on customers that rival J. Edgar Hoover's background files. What happens to the knowledge that a hotel clerk adds to your frequent stay membership files? Can a credit card company hope to derive insight from the unique combination of shops that you visit? Most importantly, will companies make assumptions about you based on coincidences, or can profiles really help marketers understand their prospects?

The latter question is what concerns critics of "social marketing," a practice that uses CRM software and the latest social media to reach new customers. On my Facebook profile, I may list myself as a "fan" of a certain hoagie shop. What I don't know is whether that hoagie shop will use my image to market to my friends. It's already happening on Facebook, and some marketers are experimenting with reaching out through text messages and Twitter. Americans may love to share a little too much personal information on their social networks, but they hate it when third parties use that information against them.

According to some experts, using social media ineffectively generates privacy concerns because data is incomplete or inaccurate. When customers and prospects self-select information, marketers can end up chasing leads that have no interest at all in their products and services. It's just as bad as the classic technique of forcing customers to write down the names of five friends as referrals -- with incomplete or unrefined data, customers will often choose the first people they can think of instead of the likeliest candidates for sales calls. Likewise, social CRM software that doesn't distinguish between deep and casual relationships can shotgun ads to confused acquaintances, hurting brand perception.

Instead, marketing professionals recommend using CRM systems at the hub of campaigns to cultivate customer loyalty. By allowing customers to reach out directly, social marketing programs give customers control over their own privacy. In addition, when customers are more highly motivated to talk about a product or service, their recommendations are perceived as being genuine and valid. Instead of worrying about buying CRM software that can automate "viral" campaigns, marketers should look for CRM systems that moderate social discussion and referrals.

How does your CRM software connect people?

I've been seeing this re-tweeted a lot today, and it dovetails with a lot of the issues I've been thinking about related to CRM software over the past few weeks.

When I encounter sales managers who think that CRM software will be the magic bullet that turns an underperforming team into super-achievers, I get worried for them. And, often, a little scared. When you're placing so much hope on a piece of technology, no matter how impressive, it's often in place of the attention you may need to lavish on your team.

Not all of that attention needs to be good attention, either. Even the best CRM software on the market won't help a team member who doesn't understand how to close a sale, or how to take detailed notes on a call. Automating direct marketing mailings and outbound phone calls won't help when team members don't know how to speak courteously to customers.

The best sales professionals always put the customer first, using technology as a tool to support their personal relationships. The better a CRM application is at cataloguing the evolution of a personal relationship, the better equipped a team can become when it's time to collect orders.