Yak CRM

One of the greatest tools for sales reps of the 21st century so far is web conferencing. Products like GoToMeeting, Webex, and Sametime dramatically changed how sales rep work. These products allow reps to avoid costly plane and overnight trips to show a prospect or customer their products and services. It has become the single most important technology in qualifying customers at a fraction of the cost it did before. While video conferencing has been around for a while it was too costly and complicated for sales reps that need speed, simplicity, and flexibility.

Any CRM solution you want to use should have direct integration with a web conferencing tool. The ones I have used like Relavis CRM and SalesForce.com have integrated these solutions directly into their activity management component. When scheduling a meeting within CRM you are able to hit a button on the form that will automatically create the web meeting, place all the connection and phone information into the invitation and mailed to the attendees. It is a great time saver for reps as well as allows you to track these meetings back to a specific lead, opportunity or contact. Web conference solutions keep track of number of attendees, length of time and you can record the entire meeting for play back later.

While I am sure many reps are now taking advantage of this technology with either corporate or individual accounts you should be tying it into your CRM solution so you get to create and track it in one place. It is an amazing time saver especially if you need to go back to review the history of the account. Or if a team member or manager missed the meeting and wants to review what happened.

Prospects and customer find web meetings far less intrusive on their time. It can be done totally at their convenience and at their desk.

Web conferencing should not totally eliminate visiting with your customers and prospects. Remember 90% of closing business is showing up. But it is a great tool for qualify and delivering information quickly and cost effectively.

Example of Web Conferencing Integration When Creating a Meeting in CRM

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Tags: crm productivity

Purchasing consulting services is key to a successful implementation. I am not talking multimillion dollar Accenture engagements (amazingly there are still those still going on) but a reasonable amount to help jump start the project. You should expect to budget about $0.5-$2 of services for every dollar of product. This will vary whether you have chosen an on-premise or hosted solution.

For end-users the key services you should not skip on are configuration and training. You will get your biggest return here. You do not want to spend time drilling through manuals trying to figure out what all the different parameters are and how they interact. Having someone with you to ask the right questions about your business and take you through the configuration process will save you a lot of time and money. And do I need to say anything about the importance of training other than don’t make it the first thing to cut when your budget is low. Getting users up and running and feeling confident with the solution is cornerstone for success, Cut somewhere else.

If you are using an on-premise solution then IT would need to know how to maintain and support the system. While a class is great, IT folks are very good at drilling into manuals to find what they need. Also software support is kind of universal. The backing up, archiving, security, etc… are consistent items they deal with on all the software they support? The technical manuals are usually all they need. For hosted solutions very little will be needed from your IT staff.

A programmer will probably need to get involved if you are integrating other backend system data to CRM. Depending on what the goal is it might be cheaper and certainly much faster to contract that service out. If you see this as an ongoing requirement then sending a programmer to class will be worth it.

When budgets are tight, carefully evaluate what will give you the most for your dollars but also what the true cost will be if you did it yourself. The extra hours people spend trying to figure it themselves might offset any savings you think you are getting.

Tags: Add new tag, Consulting, CRM Basics

I thought the topic was worth talking about again as I continue to find lead handling one of the biggest challenges companies face.

Companies spend a lot of money generating leads, the life blood of their organization, but allow the lead process to break down as soon as they are entered into a system (even worse if there is no system to collect them). They complain that their leads fall into a black hole. So just having a place to collect them does not solve the black hole problem.

Lead capture should be as automated as possible. Only buy a CRM solution that gives you the capability to capture and route leads into a database. There should be a plug in for website capture as well as the ability to manually enter them. Most CRM systems provide a utility so you can input leads or lists as well. It should also allow you to easily track activities against them and convert them to an opportunity.

Now that you have them in one place you need to ensure you are tracking things like source (where did it come from, i.e. web, tradeshow, campaign, etc…), status (suspect, prospect, hot lead, etc…), and rep (who is initially responsible for it). Of cause you need the usual fields such as contact info and what products they are interested in. By carrying this information you can always see what has transpired with the lead. Even if leads are sent to channel partners this information is even more critical so you have a complete record and can question your partners about it. You want a system that has seamless integration with your email platform and a workflow process that automatically notifies the appropriate rep via email of a new lead. This really helps timely responses back to any lead inquiry.

Another must have is the ability to see lead to opportunity statistics. You want to easily analyze the effectiveness of various lead sources with statistics on closed opportunities resulting from leads. This is the only way you can really see if your marketing dollars are being spent wisely. My guess is most companies would be very surprised on what is really working. Solutions like Relavis CRM provide both real time analysis as well as reports you can run.

Some other nice to have features are:

• Lead Categorization and Search
• Duplication of lead handling
• Automatic Lead Routing
• Lead Scripting
• Lead Conversion
• Lead History
• Rep Generated Email Prospecting

Example of a lead form

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Tags: crm, CRM Basics

A friend of mine shared an experience he had at the new Yankee Stadium a couple of weeks ago that I felt important to share concerning customer service.

When he arrived at the stadium there were dozens of people with signs that said” Hello, may I help you?” This was the first time he had seen this at the stadium. They were there to help people find their gate and answered any questions they had. My friend did not need this help and proceeded to this gate. Upon handing the usher the ticket the guy said “Thank you, there are people inside that will help you”. As soon as he walked into to the main area someone came up to him and said “Hello, may I help you?” He gave her the ticket and she told him to go down the corridor and take the elevators on the left. When he got to the elevators a person was there that said, “Hello, may I help you?” He presented him the ticket and told to take the elevator to the 250 level and someone will help you. When he was exiting the elevator, sure enough there was person there and said, “Hello may I help you?” That person proceeded to escort him to the suite. Since this was my friends first trip to the new stadium he was looking at all the great pictures and stories that lined the corridor. The customer service person shadowed him far enough behind so that my friend did not feel rushed. When they got to the suite there was a person there that greeted him with, you guessed it, “Hello may I help you?” He was then shown into the suite and given a tour and had all his questions answered. Throughout the entire game he was asked if there was anything they can do.

The story amazed me for two reasons. The number of people visibly out in the open proactively trying to help their guests and the consistent mantra they all were using. There was no question they were all taking their customer service role seriously. When your customer is spending their money and time with you, the Yankees, at least for the time being wanted to make sure you have an easy and enjoyable experience. You never had to look far for help.

My friends totally experience left him feeling really good about wanting to come back for more.

Tags: crm

One of the most basic features of any CRM solution is the ability to manage your calendar. Sounds simple, but with the way sales people work there is more to it than meets the eye. There is your CRM calendar, your Lotus Notes or Outlook calendar, your BlackBerry/iPhone/Nokia/Motorola/G1 calendar. While many companies have been trying to standardize many still allow a combination of devices. And even if you do need to use one type of PDA for business many reps will then have a personal PDA.

Besides the different phones and operating systems there are also the types of entries you want to keep track of. Lotus Notes and Outlook keep only scheduled activities on the calendar. That means things like phone calls will not show up. Many CRM solutions have their own calendar which allows you to see all your activity types and also synchronizes with your corporate calendar (less calls and to do’s). I have found it to be more work and not as reliable. You really want to use your corporate calendar and a CRM solution that uses all the native forms of it. It makes it much easier for users since they are already familiar with it. It allows them to work right in their calendar and still be using CRM.

In order to make using CRM easy and part of your day to day routine you need to have all activities show up on all the clients/devices you use. This means there will probably be some IT involvement in making it happen. The good news is it does not take a lot of effort. Lotus Notes and Outlook calendars have synchronization between Blackberry and Windows Mobile calendars. Some CRM solutions like Relavis CRM allows you to easily track not only synchronized activities but Call’s and To Do’s in the same native calendar view. Dynamics CRM keeps track of it in a separate section plus those calls will not be synchronized with your PDA device. Integration with iPhones and other devices is available but not yet widely used with CRM.

Finally there are the issues around seeing your team’s group calendar. It is important in order to better track and work together as a team. While Lotus Notes has group calendaring built in Outlook requires a third party tool.

To really empower your CRM users try to do what is necessary to keep all their calendars in sync so they can be just as productive out of the office as they are at their desk.

Tags: crm, CRM Basics, crm productivity

There is a new acronym you might not be familiar with in the world of customer satisfaction.

Customer Experience Management (CEM) is about moving beyond traditional CRM, which for the most part is about automating customer touch points, and addressing a full end-to-end customer experience. CEM is about emotions. According to thought leader Colin Shaw you are trying to address two key questions: “What’s the experience you’re trying to deliver?” and “What emotions you’re trying to evoke.

To do this you need to go beyond conversation logs and call reports. You need to get more in the head of your customers. You need to know what is stressing them out. What is keeping them up at night? What challenges and obstacles they are facing?

I do believe that sales reps know a lot about their customers at a micro level. But we need to get a macro level understanding of the customer. Social media technology is paving the way for vendors to better understand, address and work with their customers on a more macro level. I plan to go into social media in a future blog.

But to address how you can start today working with your customers on a macro level here is a simple way to get started. Define a Business Objectives and Relationship Rules section on your Organizational profile. This is where you define things such as: customer’s business objectives; customer’s relationship expectations; and your objectives with the customer. This will allow you to chart a much broader strategy in helping your customer achieve their short and long term objectives. It is not just about your product line. It is about you caring and taking an active role in helping move your customer’s total agenda along wherever you can.

Supporting this within your CRM solution allows your entire team and company to always be aware of what everyone’s expectations are for the relationship and what everyone is looking to accomplish.

Below is a simple addition you can easily add into your CRM solution to start to track this information. It is just the beginning of a broader strategy and technology you might eventually consider to share ideas and issues, solve problems and co-design design new products and services with your customers.

Organization Profile Example

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Tags: crm, crm productivity

Many people use the terms on-demand, SaaS or hosted interchangeably. But they are not. Let’s take a look at their definitions.

Hosting means someone else is managing your application remotely.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software distribution model where hosted applications are made available to a customer over a network, typically the internet.

On-demand describes applications that are available via a SaaS or hosted model.

On premise is where the application resides at your site. It is on your machines and managed by you.

Multi-tenancy is where multiple companies are using a single, remotely hosted database. Each company’s data is stored in the same database but kept separately. Many people believe SaaS or on-demand is always multi-tenant. That is not the case. You can also have on-premise applications that are multi-tenant.

Single-tenancy is where each customer is provided their own dedicated database and application instance.

Hybrid is a deployment strategy that is a combination of on-premise and on-demand. It is seen in companies that have a lot of small offices using a hosted version while headquarters uses on-premise.

On-premise option
This has been the traditional way to buy software. You purchase bulk licenses with maintenance and support costs from year to year and have a staff of IT folk’s onsite to maintain it. For companies where sensitive data is an issue, this model offers the most secure option. For larger companies that need to integrate CRM with other legacy or third party systems, on-premise offers the easiest way to do it. Cost is always a driving factor. On-premise software is typically front loaded, so you pay your costs upfront. Remember that when evaluating costs, licenses only account for about 9-14% of the total cost of ownership. So you need to factor in all the other costs associated with maintaining the application.

SaaS Option
Over the last 10 years SaaS based CRM has really come into its own. It has addressed many of the support issues that plagued it early on such as system down time and security. When having to integrate with other systems, SaaS CRM is more complex and usually more costly. In fact if you need to make substantial code changes to the software SaaS is probably not your best choice.

Hybrid Option
This model offers a combination of the two. Some vendors like Microsoft say you can start with one and move to the other with no loss of data. Or you can have your remote offices using on-demand and headquarters using on-premise. But this option has its challenges. Switching models could entail more work like switching domains and carrying over customization.

So which model is best for you?
For smaller organizations, SaaS CRM could offer cost savings. Forrester Research defines 100-249 employees with 50 users as a good fit for choosing SaaS CRM. It provides a better Total Economic Impact (TEI) through a 10 ownership as well as lower cumulative costs.

For business with 500-999 and 250 users, on-premise shows TEI advantages in year six and total cumulative costs advantages in year seven.

The idea that SaaS is always less expensive than on-premise software is not true. According to Gartner it’s only true over a two year period but may not hold up over five years because of the capital asset depreciation. Gartner also challenges the notion that SaaS is priced like a utility, charging only for what you use. Most companies are forced to commit to a pre-determined contract that is independent of their actual use.

With on-premise, you have to pay up-front costs for licenses, hardware, maintenance, upgrades and support. For SaaS you often have to pay for extra features like mobile and offline access, vertical functionality, extra storage and premium support. And you pay for as long as you use the software.

Summary
In summary the benefits for SaaS are independence from IT, quicker upgrades and deployments and improved usability. On-premise provides greater integration, stronger customization and tailored configuration capacity. While results will vary for different companies, do your cost benefit analysis over a 10 year period. Make sure you factor in the total number of users and take a close look at hybrid models that could work for you.

Tags: crm, CRM Basics

One of the best productivity features I have used with CRM is the bookmark. It allows you to create bookmarks on any record, document or website. I used it extensively when working on proposals or documents so I can easily locate them. You avoid having to go to Word or Excel and looking for the right document and version in the open/file pop-up box. I would also bookmark my most active contacts and opportunities so I never have to go through more than 1 click to bring it up. As I finish with a document or contact I will remove them so that I continually have what is requiring my most attention over the immediate days and weeks to be 1 click away.

While operating systems allow you to setup bookmarks, having it within CRM allows you deal with it all in open place. It also allows you to have them available on your mobile device, if supported.

There is a saying, “It is the little things in life that are the most rewarding”. I find this true when working with not only CRM but any system. The little shortcuts and simple features end up saving you the most time. It is the 80/20 rule. 80% of your productivity savings is accomplished by 20% of the features.

Sample of a Bookmark in a CRM Solution

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Tags: crm, crm productivity

The demo has been done. Questions have been asked and answered. A proposal has been submitted. So why are we afraid to ask for the deal? Do we think that by asking it will sour the deal? Of course not. Prospects that have identified their need or pain and have a budget in mind are looking for reasons to do the deal with you. They look for reasons to qualify you in rather than out.

As sales people we need to be very careful of our time management. We can easily get caught up in chasing hope rather than substance. We feel that we need to be playing more defense because it feels less threatening and keeps the hope alive. But in reality it is a weak place to be. Games are won on offense. Playing a strong offense with customers builds a lot of credibility and makes the customer feel more secure. Of course it needs to be done sincerely and with a solid business case.

Remember a sales cycle should be driven as a continuous qualification of an opportunity. Each call and meeting is a constant test to see where this deal falls on your qualification meter thus allowing you to determine its priority in your pipeline. It also should tell you when it’s time to ask. A real prospect will never be upset when you ask for the deal. You will not always be the solution for them but they will not look to waste your time any more than is necessary for their vetting process.

Tags: crm, CRM Basics

One of the most overlooked components when trying to manage a complete picture of your customers is your post sales activities. This includes all project services that were part of your deals. It is important to track these projects in CRM so anyone looking at this account can see what projects were completed or in progress. It allows others in your organization to leverage post sales activities in deals they might be working in other divisions or locations. It also helps transition teams be consistent.

Tracking your post sales projects helps new reps be credible when talking to the account for the first time. What can be more embarrassing than not knowing your company has a services engagement currently active in the account.

Project management with CRM is not meant to replace software like Microsoft Project. It is only meant to be used as a place holder and track some basic information. Most customers will attach the detailed project plan to the CRM project record. You can also track all your activities against the project.

Post sales activities should round out your 360 degree view of your customer. Many CRM solutions will have a component for it. If your does not you can create a new activity type and use that as your place holder. I have included some basic information you might want to track on the project record. Again, remember this is not meant to replace project management software, it is just a way to account for your post sales activities within CRM.

Sample Project Management Record

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Tags: crm, CRM Basics, crm productivity