In my experience, pipeline/forecast is one area of a CRM system that changes frequently. Fortunately, these changes require less coding changes through Windows Workflow Foundation (Dynamics CRM) and Workflow Automation (Salesforce). I have seen this both from the consulting side and as a user. Not going to comment on whether it is right or wrong, just that it happens, often, as a matter of fact in many organizations. Change in management, there will be a change to the sales process. New compensation model and the forecasts will change. It happens all the time and makes numbers from sales very short term and difficult to do long term trends. The best way to improve accuracy, find a sales process that works and then measure the core of that process. Less change, more value.
All consultants like to ask questions. Sometimes too many questions. Here are 5 that I keep on hand for initial client engagements.
- What do your expectations of a service provider?
- How do you see out team helping you address challenges and opportunities?
- Why are you changing providers?
- How do we learn about the business to relate action and implementation to ROI?
- What are the good, the bad and the “do not repeat”?
What questions do you use or what to see asked?
This year, I know a ton of people headed to Dreamforce. Sadly, I will not be among them due to scheduling. If you are going let me know and your interests and can match you with some of the people I know.
The first priority of a CRM deployment should be to learn about existing customer data within the enterprise. It is obvious, but often overlooked. I often make it the top priority when scoping CRM services. Is all that customer data in all of the right hands? 99% of the time it is not. It needs to be in the hands of the people working with the customers. My approach is to get that data to them. Usually, this is an instant success which give a solid foundation for future successes.
Second priority is to understand cost per call. Before the deployment, I have to be able to calculate cost per call (the $ metric). This is true for a services or sales force automation deployment. By correlating the cost per call to improvement, I can calculate a cost per call improvement. This is ROI. Automate your internal processes so that you can pull everything you know about your customer into a single view for your rep (sales or service).
Keep these two priorities in mind and your CRM implementation will be on the road to success.
Nice article on Gist and the impact of Office 2010. If you have not tried Gist, check it out.
WSJ: Updating Office on the Cheap
For more of my thoughts on Gist, check my earlier posts. 12Sided on Gist
A “Know your customer” re-post. Have a great weekend.
“Know your customer” is the mantra.
When you know the customer, good things happen.
– Example, Client A increased user adoption to 70% of total call volume. ROI increase 25% in one quarter.
When you know your customer, you can spot trouble a mile away.
– Example, Client B re-organized and has a new executive sponsor. He has called the ROI model into question.
When you know your customer, the relationship goes beyond business.
– Example, Client C asks for advice on improving the ROI model and photography equipment for his vacation.
Nice review of Gist on ZDNet: The business-to-business of Gist
I have been a beta user of Gist for awhile and have been pleased at the improvements that they have been able to make to a very cool product. I see Gist as a great Sales CRM play in the sales force automation area. There are Sales Enablement applications as well. For more of my thoughts on Gist, check my earlier posts.
Sales Enablement offers some unique advantages to drive Sales user adoption. The ability to create new and custom collateral and to effectively collaborate on accounts address big pain points for sales. The CRM world has not implemented these technologies on an industry scale.
Sales Enablement also addresses today’s market realities. Customers and prospects today take more time to educate and filter themselves from the pipeline. Due to this change, Marketing now owns the early phases of the sales cycle. This is positive. Sales can now spend time adding value to the sale rather than educating a prospect about the company and product. Solutions to real business problems has been and will remain at the heart of the complex sale. Sales today needs the skills to focus on the complex sale.
I have enjoyed reading Steve W. Martin’s Heavy Hitter Selling. Having implemented CRM and carried the bag for many years, his message is right on. Sales Enablement will succeed or fail as a methodology based on user adoption. Marketing and Sales need to find ways to work together to make it work. As the article below describes, this is easier said than done.
Heavy Hitter Selling: Why Sales and Marketing Are Always at Odds
Happy Monday.
My $0.02 on questions you need to answer in mapping out your Social CRM strategy:
- Where are your customers?
- Where do they go when they have issues with your products and services?
- How open is that conversation?
- How are you making them successful?
- What keeps them from flaming the CEO?
- How many are willing references?
- Where is your organization’s focus?
Any others?
In a recent conversation, the topic turned to the future direction of CRM. Normally, I would wax philosophic on this but it is really pretty simple.
Marketing is taking over more and more of the traditional sales cycle. Sales will spend less time educating and more time selling qualified prospects. Marketing will own the wide part of the sales pipeline more than it ever has before. Prospects can gather a wealth of information by themselves and they will do it. Prospects will self-qualify more than ever before. Sales Enablement solutions are finally getting traction. Sales will adopt CRM because sales enablement will finally offer them value rather than “sales accounting”. Social CRM plays to the marketing side of CRM and early indications are that it will lead to bottom line results.
The enterprise can and will learn from early adopters. In the end it all comes down to the community of customers that your enterprise builds and nurtures. How do you grow prospects? How do you nurture them into customers? How do you show the love to those customers post-sale? These will be the macro-trends that CRM will see in the next few years.
All of these new services will be hosted software as a service solutions in the cloud and the challenges around integration will still be there. I look forward to checking this post 2-3 years from now and seeing how I did.
