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Chaos Theory Invades CRM
July 01, 2006
Automating mistakes is a solution; it's just not a very good one
By Dave Stein
Technology is critical for success in selling and marketing today, but even the best technology is only as good as the way it's deployed. When implemented strategically and effectively, it can provide a host of benefits. Investing in technology without an understanding of how it will (and will not) improve your business can slow or reverse any progress you hoped to make.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is an example of a technology that can provide substantial business value for your sales and marketing functions. The CRM vendors will be delighted to tell you about that. But CRM can also automate broken processes or, as a result of the way it might be marketed and sold, support the impression that it is, in and of itself, the entire solution to a myriad of sales- and marketing-related problems. It isn't.
Steve Andersen, president of Performance Methods Inc., based in Alpharetta, Georgia, points out that the typical CRM user is very different from the one who uses accounting, manufacturing, engineering, statistical, or desktop publishing software. "If you don't assess your sales team's readiness, and instead just install some software, you're headed for a disaster," he says. In other words, you could be automating chaos.
What do I mean by automating chaos? Let's look at the marketing side for a moment. If your spanking-new CRM system was acquired, among other reasons, to build brand value with your customers and prospects, but your messages are confusing and your marketing team is working without a plan, you are going to damage your brand faster than without the technology. Blasting out e-mail campaigns in situations like this is like giving the keys to an 800-horsepower Ferrari to your 16-year-old.
If your sales reps are forced to spend some part of their day inputting information about their prospects into a CRM system, but without gaining any value from the process, they are going to resist, get demotivated, and wind up selling less. Too many vice presidents of sales ask me what the trick is for getting their salespeople to cooperate and use their CRM system. I ask them a simple question: "Do they understand precisely how using the CRM system will help them sell more?" The lack of a response is quite revealing.
The problem, according to Donal Daly, the Dublin, Ireland–based CEO and founder of Select Selling, a sales methodology company, is that CRM is a tool designed to benefit only management, rather than including salespeople among its beneficiaries. Why? Management holds the checkbook. "CRM has traditionally been implemented as top-down, without enough thinking about how it adds value to the job being done by the salespeople or customer service staff," he says.
Do you want to maximize value from your CRM solution? Customize it to support processes already proven to advance your selling and marketing efforts. For example, if all your salespeople employ a standardized qualification process, customize the CRM software to automate what they already do manually. This will assist them in tracking the progress of sales opportunities, provide greater visibility into their pipeline, and give you the reports you need. Properly training and supporting the users is a given.
When CRM is implemented correctly, with its focus on the user (not its purchaser), it will help you manage customer relationships and sell more. And that's supposed to be the point, right?
Dave Stein is CEO and founder of ES Research Group in Mahopac, New York, and author of How Winners Sell. He can be reached at edit@salesandmarketing.com.
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