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.
Avoid the project road to nowhere with these 3 common sense tips:
- Align technology and business process.
- Proactively drive user adoption.
- Never “package slam”.
What does it mean to be proactive in customer service? The goal is simple. Customers do not want to have to tell you there is a problem. To get there is long and often elusive. Understand your support process. Take the time to truly understand what causes customer support problems and then fix those problems.
Most of the time an enterprise customer is calling because a service is down. They want it back up — fast. I have never known a customer who wants to follow a support process that inconveniences them, such as collecting log files. They want you to know the issue, and your credibility is at stake. Focus on proactive. You may find out that it improves your customer care metrics and support process at the same time.
Increases in customers means increases in customer support. An effective tactic when starting a self-service initiative is to reassure Customer Support that the organization has to do more with less. Positive and forward looking initiatives will gain traction. More with less does not mean less people. More with less means more support with the same number of people. It is about getting more efficient. Simply it is about getting better.
Several clients have enjoyed a lot of success with this forward and positive looking idea. Try it out. The results can be surprising.
Great video above on the power of blogging. I find myself talking about my tiny little blog more than I ever thought I would. I blog to build my brand and make me better. The blog forces you to think and stay relevant. It is mental pull-ups, push-ups and sit-ups all in one. When I discuss blogging, the conversation turns into why I believe that everyone should blog. The video above sums it up. I have been reading Tom Peters since high school thanks to my father, an entrepreneur. Peters’ statement in the video is powerful and compelling.
A few conversations on SaaS based CRM have recently centered on privacy. The SaaS problem regardless of solution is privacy and integration into core corporate systems. Always has been. Always will. There needs to be a dose of reality though. Cloud based e-mail is reality and many companies are moving that way. Those systems have the same or greater privacy concerns, yet that never seems to be the objection. Maybe if user adoption was higher on CRM systems, they privacy question would be moot.
Interesting read on the Verasage Institute blog on consulting. Check FORD – a model for consulting. The Findings, Options, Recommendations and Decisions steps bring to mind the keep it simple mantra.
Question: How do you know if you are overpaying for consulting?
Answer: If you ask the consultant the time and he asks to see your watch.
Gist makes the move from private beta to public this morning. I have been a beta user for awhile and think highly of the product. If you are in Sales, Sales Operations, Sales Enablement or just want your inbox to be more functional, try it out.
Check out my earlier posts on Gist for more details:
Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation blog is a must read for marketing, branding and social media. Check his What’s In Your Bag? post for some an interesting take on Amazon Widgets.
I took a turn creating my own widget about some of the coffee related products I have blogged about and a few that are essential. This is a very cool way to talk about the things you love and generate word of mouth.
Disclosure: The wife is employed by Amazon, but she does not read my blog or drink coffee.
