Sunday, December 27, 2009

Don't Sabatoge Your CRM Software in 2010

In the holiday rush, I overlooked CRM Buyer's feature article, "5 Painfully Common Ways Managers Sabotage CRM." Christopher Bucholtz highlights some of the top ways that teams can inadvertently cause CRM software implementation to fail, such as:

  • Focusing CRM software on managers instead of rolling it out as a benefit to the entire team.
  • Using CRM software solely to call out team members on poor performance, instead of leveraging it as a coaching tool.
  • Forcing team members to use every feature within a CRM software suite, even if that results in "premature optimization" of processes.

Those aren't the only ways that managers sabotage CRM software, however. Baseline Consulting Group's Jill Dyche notes that some teams place emphasis on having a "CRM strategy," even though they lack an overall corporate strategy for customer relationship management. Having a relationship with software is a lot different than developing real relationships with clients. Remember, CRM software is only a means to the end goal of leveraging solid partnerships with customers and among team members.

Of course, some members of your team may actually want to sabotage your CRM software. If you're a manager, it's up to you to develop training and development programs that help your team understand how CRM software enhances their role. Many teams fear the change that a new software platform brings, hoping that new tools don't cast doubt on their previous performance. Instead, you can focus on ways to help your team use CRM tools to shine even brighter. Positioning customer relationship management as an opportunity for personal growth and rewards can demystify the process, eliminating the fear that automation is just another step toward downsizing.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Eating CRM Software Leftovers in the New Year

Very few companies want to spend money on CRM software in 2010. Frankly, very few companies want to spend money on anything in 2010. Ironically, most customer service experts already note that the right CRM systems could actually save a company from the fallout of the global recession.

Still, most systems managers will find themselves with smaller-than-ever budgets for CRM software maintenance and expansion. Here are three strategies for making effective and cheap CRM software decisions over the coming months:

  • 2010 may not be the best year to undertake a total CRM software overhaul. However, it could be a great time to invest in middleware tools that can bridge legacy systems with the web or with more modern interfaces. In past years, "putting lipstick on a pig" might not have appealed to CIOs. In today's economic environment, a new interface or a cobbled-together functionality may be just enough to breathe life into an aging CRM application.
  • Vendors of existing CRM systems are eager to keep your company's long-term business. Many vendors have announced special pricing packages for upgrades, along with freezing or rolling back seat license fees for 2010. If your CRM software contract is up for renewal this year, you may want to leverage the buyer's market by locking in better rates.
  • Layoffs at major software development companies have pushed talented programmers into the role of entrepreneur. A new wave of web-based CRM applications is hitting the market, going beyond the hype of "web 2.0" with heavy duty features at minimal cost. Some companies may have to look past the previous-year dealbreakers of "cloud computing" or "shared data center" to see the real benefits of scrappy, new CRM systems.

Companies can learn to navigate 2010 by being frugal without giving up on their core customer service beliefs. CRM systems and their vendors are changing, too. This could be the year that the overall value of CRM software really shines in your organization.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Open Source CRM Software: "Tricky," Impossible, or Troublesome?

At Inc. Magazine, Bryce McDonnell offers a testimonial of how he uses free, open source CRM software to track leads from Twitter, Facebook, and online advertising. His promotions have been successful enough to generate more than 1,000 leads, requiring a strong CRM software solution for filtering and follow-up.

Open source solutions, like the Fat Free CRM package McDonnell uses, often attract attention for their price tags: "free." However, McDonnell offers a caveat for company leaders hoping to score a big win with free CRM software:

One word of caution: Installing Fat Free is a bit tricky, especially if you're not comfortable with software code. But once the application is installed, you don't have to be a Web developer to use it.

For small office/home office CRM users, this warning can lead to a big money drain. If you're not a professional web developer, free CRM software may require hours of tedious installation on the front end of a launch. A consultant who charges $100 per hour could lose thousands of dollars in opportunity cost on an installation that requires server provisioning and custom installation, especially on low-cost, shared server accounts designed to save money.

At larger organizations, free CRM software that gets tagged on to the responsibilities of web teams can often sour a whole enterprise on the idea. Although the work that open source teams do can be impressive, the challenge of keeping servers secured and code updated against threats often falls to the end user. Marketing teams won't like hearing that a critical website push is being delayed by the maintenance of an internal application. Likewise, users will get frustrated if a CRM system crashes during a time when no dedicated technicians are available to help.

SugarCRM has already shown the market potential for a hosted CRM model based on free software. Understanding that "free" doesn't mean "instant" or "maintenance-free" is the first step toward successfully integrating open source CRM tools into the enterprise.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Is Your CRM System a Hoax?

That's the question Jerome Pineau asked clients of CRM software purchasers in a recent post on his personal blog.

Pineau was reacting to an article by Matt Wallach for Destination CRM Magazine, exploring the blurred distinctions between hosted CRM and on-premise CRM systems. Wallach called out unscrupulous vendors for passing off hardware installations as "SaaS" products, leveraging the hot market for cloud computing in the C-Suite.

Putting aside the ethical debate about how some vendors sell CRM software, Pineau challenges customer service professionals to ask what they want to get from CRM systems in the first place. Business intelligence tools have evolved to the point where they can generate reasonably good insight from the types of data once stored exclusively in CRM systems. What else, Pineau argues, can a company leader learn from CRM software that he or she cannot learn from taking their top five clients out to lunch?

For large companies with a handful of key clients, this might be the case. However, the CRM software market thrives by meeting the needs of small to medium business owners who rely on increasingly distributed sales and service teams to provide consistent client experiences. Companies may not have as simple a choice as abandoning CRM software for BI tools, but they do have the power to implement CRM systems more effectively. As Pineau points out, many failed CRM implementations stem from false hopes about what new software can do for a company's culture. When tools support a team's shared vision, that team can succeed.

Ultimately, the search for the best CRM software comes down to a solution that fits a team, a business, and a collection of customers. No CRM software can completely automate the customer relationship. And, as Pineau argues, a totally automated solution often loses credibility with customers who crave the insight and the empathy that only human agents can provide.