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CRM in SmallBiz: Disappointing Misconceptions
Thou Shalt Not.Have you ever read the Ten Commandments and paused at the words, 'Thou Shalt Not'' I have read many an ..... ...... everyone else will. Assign him full
time as a liaison, and let him guide the implementation. Have
everyone know all the doors must be kept open for him. Remember,
CRM implementation is about KNOWLEDGE of how your company
functions. It is about how EXISTING customer care procedures
(remember misconception number one') are automated (complemented,
modified) by computers. And if there is no such person(s) within
your company' Well, that leaves YOU. I bet you didn't want to
hear this, but remember that everyday customer relation
procedures will be done by your people, not the SW vendor.
Which brings us to misconception number four.
CRM is sales automation. No, no, no, it is customer support. No,
no, no, it's the lady who says hello answering the phone on the
helpdesk. No, no, no, it's the operator who chats with the
potential customer on the web site. Actually, it is all of the
above. In a company, sales people seldom talk with the support
people. And vice versa. As if those were two different
non competing companies so they have little to talk about. Last
few months everybody talks about customer retention. Which is
normal as it is much easier and cheaper to sell again to an
existing customer, than to get a new one. But only if he
received good customer support and service, that is. So a good
CRM SW solution would have some data common to everybody (name,
address, phone, etc), but also data needed by sales,
procurement, helpdesk and support. This does not mean you have
to have an ERP system, it just means that you need some extra
fields which are specific to each department. Ideally, you
yourself would be able to add some extra fields as needed,
without becoming a programmer. Which brings us to misconception
number five.
After the first year of coughing and hiccuping, your CRM
solution is finally in place and humming nicely. You are getting
all that nice data you needed, and you are finally able to watch
and build your customer relations. So you are home and free. If
you need an extra report, or an extra field, you'll call the SW
vendor and he will make the necessary changes. Well, that's not
entirely true. The life of your company is not static. It
changes daily. The same way, your CRM solution cannot be static.
If your sales person needs to call an IT liaison, explain to him
the change he needs, then to the SW developer, then wait for
implementation, you can be sure that he will not do it. He will
rather scribble it into his note book or the Excel sheet on
his notebook. He should be able to do just that in your CRM
solution. Which means you should have a modifiable solution, one
in which you can add fields and tell the system how to handle
them. But that means you will have to invest time to learn how
to do it. Or leave it for later when you will have more time.
Which is misconception number six.
People tend to search for a CRM software solution when they
cannot cope any more with the traffic. By then, it is too late.
It is late in the sense that you have to implement a solution in
which you have to invests time, and time you don't have. That
means that the implementation will be much longer, it will cost
much more in hours, lost business, poor customer service, which
means you will spend more hours dealing with a customer, you
will have less hours in sales, you will have to hire more
people... There is no nice way to tell you, so I will say it
straight out: You should start implementing a CRM system, the
moment you start using PC in promotion and sales. And that is
now, isn't it'
So what really is the difference between a CRM software system
What A GiftClose the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you. Figure out ..... and old, traditional relations with your customers' Documentation
and analysis. With a CRM software system you have historical data
which you can analyze. Analyzing our customer support data we
found out that about 60% of our helpdesk activity was done with
new customers (within 2 months of purchase) which is normal, but
about 90% of those incidents were trivial questions about simple
use of functions. Although we were issuing three manuals and
giving a six day course to our customers, we decided to issue a
special cookbook for novices, based on the most common questions.
The style was light, simple and straightforward, one page max per
function. It was a double jeopardy. Novice interventions dropped
to about 30% and the customers had a feeling they were driving
the system, not the other way around. So we were both happy. And
that's called customer satisfaction, right'
About the Author Dinko Bacun
CEO of Tendriks
dinko@tendrix.com
http://www.CarpioHelpdesk.com
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