Customer Centric Business Strategies Blog

I agree with the Gartner analyst, Ed Thompson’s report on CRM’s Past, Present and Future with the Key Message – Change is happening fast!

I have seen that companies are continuing to spend money on CRM projects even with the current economic downturn.  Mobile CRM, Social CRM, multi-channel service and business analytics are continuing to drive the CRM market forward.  I forsee with the economic downturn bottoming up, there will be a revival of customer-focused initiatives soon as a Gartner survey found that a CEOs are more focused on retaining existing customers as a top strategic priority.  Customer needs are in fact driving the CRM marketplace as indicated by the growing market trend of business analytics and Social Media influencing the CRM marketplace. 

In closing, I find that the following Ed Thompson quote shows the immense impact that Social Media will play in the future customer relationship and sales processes for companies:

“Consumers are more skeptical, more willing to complain, more willing to leave you for a bad experience.  And 89% will tell their friends about their bad experience. Twenty-five percent do that on Social Media. That is going to shift rapidly.  By 2015, 75% will tell other people about a bad experience with a company via Social Media”.

Posted by - Barton Goldenberg @ 8:57 pm

Here are some comments concerning the necessity of Training in an CRM initiative:

The combination of training, an effective help desk, and comprehensive systems administration all play key roles in ensuring that CRM system users are happy and determine the long-term success for the system.  Based on actual customer data that I have compiled over the past 24 years, I have concluded that for every $1 spent on CRM automation technology (e.g., hardware, software, communications equipment), $1.50 should be budgeted for training over the life of the project (typically five years). These training costs are spread over the life of the project. In other words, if you have $1 million in technology costs, you can allocate $1.5 million for training costs, which can be spread over five years (or about $300,000 per year). A greater percentage of this funding needs to be allocated to the first year of the project for application training. Other consulting firms like Gartner have over the years published a cost ratio of up to $15 of training for every $1 of equipment. While the latter ratio may be high, the message is the same: Never underestimate the importance of training for your project’s overall success.

Posted by - Barton Goldenberg @ 9:12 pm

Mastering the people component of any CRM implementation is often the most difficult challenge for any organization, given the sensitivity of users to change.  To reiterate again, ‘People’ issues are the most important aspect to the success of a CRM initiative.  In this third example, the ‘People’ component impacted CRM initiatives in a very positive way.

Publishing Example

An international publishing company established a super-user group to help launch its CRM initiative. This group remained active and engaged throughout the implementation, helping to select the CRM software vendor, reviewing software screen customizations, and taking on training roles during the system launch in many cases. In addition, the company launched a comprehensive communications program that included issuing a weekly memo that updated potential internal and external users on the status of the initiative; creating an intranet site; and scheduling question-and-answer sessions at key company meetings (including the annual company meeting, regional sales meetings, and customer service get-togethers). When the time came for CRM applications training, an internal argument ensued between users and the training coordinator as to which users would get trained first: Almost all users wanted to take part in the first training session. This CRM initiative ended up delivering an average productivity gain of 22 person days per user in the first year alone.

Lesson learned: Get users involved early on, and help them to manage their own change.

Posted by - Barton Goldenberg @ 5:37 pm

Mastering the people component of any CRM implementation is often the most difficult challenge for any organization, given the sensitivity of users to change.  To reiterate, ‘People’ issues are the most important aspect to the success of a CRM initiative.  In the following example, the ‘People’ component  severely impacted CRM initiatives negatively.

Services Industry Example

A leading service organization launched a global CRM initiative a few years ago, and formed a core team consisting of senior managers from technical, business, and training functions. Business users were not involved from the outset because the business manager felt he could speak on their behalf. This turned out to be a mistake. It was evident early on that the business manager was out-of-touch with the needs of business users and perhaps even saw these users as a threat to his next promotion. He refused to collaborate closely with users and, after a year and more than $10 million invested, the organization put the CRM initiative on hold until a reorganization (which included replacing the manager) could take place.

Lessons learned: Don’t be afraid to let users drive the system’s specifications and implementation.

Posted by - Barton Goldenberg @ 7:49 pm

As I have often stated in my public speaking presentations, mastering the people component of any CRM implementation is often the most difficult challenge for any organization, given the sensitivity of users to change. The following  example is one in which the people component derailed or severely impacted CRM initiatives.

Telecom Example

An international telecommunications company launched a global CRM initiative a few years ago that included the formation of a “super-user group” consisting of 12 to 15 representatives from sales, marketing, customer service, e-business, and other customer-facing functions. This group, which was formed at the outset of the initiative, was responsible for providing user needs input throughout the implementation.

Senior management had doubts about the company’s ability to meet the initiative’s deadlines and made the decision not to communicate or actively promote the initiative to potential internal and external users until the implementation neared completion. As with virtually all complex initiatives involving people and technology, a number of minor glitches emerged early on. While the glitches were eventually resolved, the company’s internal rumor mill elevated them to the level of major problems—even system killers. By the time the company was ready to invite internal and external users for training on the CRM application, nearly half said they knew little about the initiative, and from what little they did know about it, they were not interested in participating. Many staff members declined to accept the training that was offered. The initiative struggled along for four more months, but in the end, the company pulled the plug on the project and absorbed a loss of more than $800,000.

Lesson learned: Launch a full-fledged communications program about your CRM initiative from Day One, and ensure that key personnel and users understand how the new system will impact their day-to-day work and then update them regularly on how the implementation is progressing.

Posted by - Barton Goldenberg @ 9:06 pm

I just saw the Salesforce.com Webcast on their new Chatter application today, in which Salesforce.com CEO, Marc Benioff, gave a preview of Salesforce.com’s Chatter, a collaboration application for the enterprise to connect and share information securely with people at work in real-time.   What I saw was  a Facebook-like application that provides employees with the ability communicate with one another via Social Media.  Each employee can set up a personal profile and set up access to groups, document sharing, status updates, feeds and automatic links to other external Social Networks (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

Salesforce.com’s Chatter application is all part of the impact that Social Technologies will play in the business world now and in the immediate future.  I would recommend that all of my blog readers read “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” (by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff) to understand the immense impact of Social Technologies that will occur in near future. 

My company, ISM will be reviewing the latest Salesforce.com application, with an in-depth analysis of the Salesforce.com Chatter product by the end of July 2010.   So be in the look-out on the ISM, Inc. Website of when we will be releasing the latest Salesforce.com software review, along the ISM 2010 Top 15 CRM Software reviews around the first week in August 2010.

Posted by - Barton Goldenberg @ 9:29 pm

In any business, the key to success is to maintain and grow your profitability.  In essence, cash flow is key and money is the “Blood” of your business.   Therefore, I would like to remind all of my Blog Readers that in any business initiative, be sure to keep your eye on what really counts: how it will affect the cash flow and “money” situation.  Keep this in mind whenever you launch a major undertaking such as a Social Media initiative.  Many Social Media consultants are using “buzz” as the key element of success such as the number of Twitter messages or followers, blog entries or mentions on other Websites, etc. rather than “Tried and True” measures such as Return on Investment.   One may have a large following on Social Media Websites, but if much of the feedback is negative, that represents a tremendous problem for your Social Media efforts.

In addition, there have been some cases where companies have purchased software systems for example for CRM, Marketing Automation, Email Messaging or Social Media, etc. and yet the software initiative failed due to the fact that the company’s employees did not want to use the system, leading a complete loss of the company’s money spent on the initiative.

I would recommend that any company starting a major initiative, monitor exact numbers concerning this initiative such as number of persons using a software system, process, Return on Investment, the number of new customers gained from this initiative, etc.   Be sure to shift the focus away from promises and potential towards what really matters: RESULTS!

Posted by - Barton Goldenberg @ 9:07 pm

Two days ago, I provided a Webinar on The Five CRM Training Imperatives.   I felt that this Webinar was very successful as there were many Webinar attendees, who asked very inquisitive questions.

For all attendees and those who missed this Webinar, here are the highlights of my Webinar:

There are five CRM Training Imperatives:

1. Computer Literacy Training

2. Business Process Training

3. CRM Application Training

4. Remedial Training

5. New User Training

For Business Process Training, Sales Pipeline Management (A process that defines how we manage leads and opportunities from the time they are received until they concluded) is very important.   One must ensure that all leads and opportunities are handled in a consistent, timely and professional manner. 

A best-in-class approach for Sales Pipeline Management consists of these five steps:

1. All leads and opportunities are entered into your CRM system.

2. There is a standard approach to manage opportunities throughout your Sales Pipeline.

3. The status of all opportunities is managed and reported via the Sales Pipeline.

4. All opportunities get managed.

5. An incentive/rewards package reinforces Sales Pipeline utilization.

I would recommend a Sales Pipeline with six phrases.  As the sales opportunities passes through each phrase, the probability of closure increases by a set amount.

Here are my recommended Six Sales Pipeline Stages:

1. Qualification

2. Prepare Solution

3. Present Solution

4. Confirm Sale

5. Initial Production

6. Follow-up

Here are some of the benefits of using a Sales Pipeline:

1. To structure the sales process

2. To prioritize activities

3. To keep the focus on opportunities

4. To weed out unqualified opportunities

5. To help deliver expected revenues

6. To earn more sales commissions

To improve your Sales Pipeline, I would recommend that you ensure that your opportunities are evenly spread across all sales pipeline phases and your quota period.

There are two lessons that I have learned over my 25 years of experience in the CRM industry:

1. You cannot manage an inaccurate, out-of-date Sales Pipeline

2. One should review Sales Pipelines weekly and hold sales reps responsible for keeping the Sales Pipeline accurate.

The entire Webinar on The Five CRM Training Imperatives can be seen on the ISM Webinar Archives Section at this ISM Webinars Weblink:

http://www.ismguide.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=80

I will be holding additional interesting Webinars in the future.  So, please go to the ISM Webinars Weblink to register for my scheduled Webinars that will take place next month and after August 2010.

Posted by - Barton Goldenberg @ 9:52 pm

To my Blog Readers:

Next July, CRM Magazine will be publishing my article:  The Next 25-Years: Customer Centric Business Strategy.  This article will discuss my vision on the CRM marketplace for the next 25 years as the CRM industry shifts toward ‘customer centric’  business strategies that use sophisticated, easy-to-use CRM, Social CRM and Social Media tools and techniques.  The key thrust for the next 25 years will be creating and sustaining lifetime customers. 

In my article, I will be discussing three essential CRM developments that you will need to master.

1. Customer Relationship Management will move towards Customer Engagement as customer communications move from a one-way to a two-way dialog.

2. Mobile computing will be the future of enterprise computing.  With rapid advances in mobile technology and broadband, mobile devices linked to cloud-based apps will drive the next generation of CRM applications.

3.  With numerous advances in technology, there will be a new people, process and technology paradigm emerging, which will be crucial to CRM success.

My July 2010 Reality Check Column will be published in the July 2010 CRM Magazine and posted on www.destinationcrm.com.  There will be more details on my vision on the CRM marketplace for the next 25 years in this article.  So be on the look-out for my article as soon as it is published!

Posted by - Barton Goldenberg @ 4:03 pm

As a further sign that the economy recovery in the CRM market is taking place, my company, ISM, Inc.,  recently gained some new clients for CRM-related engagements.

To see  a listing of ISM’s new client engagements, please click on the following Weblink:

http://www.ismguide.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49&Itemid=82

Posted by - Barton Goldenberg @ 3:41 pm