A main goal of CRM is too make life more productive for its users. A big issue is getting timely responses to questions reps and others in the company need. It is critical when selling technical products or services and you need expert help in answering prospects technical questions. But it is also critical for any questions that require subject matter expertise for prospects or employees.

You want a CRM solution that allows users the ability to log questions, categorize it and let the system determine who the best person is that can answer the question. The solution should automatically route the request to the person(s) that has been deemed the “expert” and assigned to answer this type of question. The system will notify the expert via an email with a link to the posted question. Once they have answered it, the requester will be automatically notified via email. The beauty of this type of solution is that the requester never needs to know who or where the experts reside in their organization. The system will automatically route, track and notify the appropriate people. You can even setup backup in case the assigned person is on vacation. Once the question is answered, it should be tracked within CRM and aligned to your contact or deal to retain a full history.

If your CRM solution does not have this feature, you might want to write a custom application and tie it in. While it will require programming work the added benefit to people out in the field trying to close deals and need their questions answered quickly is critical. They do not need to waste time trying to figure out who is the right person and if they are authorized to help.

Below are some examples:

Making a Request

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Request with Answer

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Tags: crm, crm productivity, knowledge management

In a previous post I talked about the importance of having a CRM mobile solution add-on to your application. I talked about the different ways you can store the application and data (Thin, Thick and Rich clients). While I am still an overall fan of the thick client, having any mobile connection will make life so much easier when you are on the road. In this post I will address the specifics the mobile solution should have.

There is some basic information you must carry. The first are your organizations and contacts. The benefits to look up company and contact information quickly are obvious. So at a bare minimum your want to carry: name, title, address, email address and phone numbers. I would also include personal info such as birthday and account type. The great thing about carrying email and phone numbers is all PDA devices will allow you to automatically dial right from your contact record on the device or send an email.

You application should allow you to create emails which pull the contact from your CRM application on the device and not just from your PDA address book. Some application will make you synchronize your PDA address book with your CRM contacts. This is not a great way to do it but better than nothing. You also want your solution to be able to store emails you receive or send from your PDA. If your solution does not do it then you will have to wait until you are on your laptop and grab the emails from your sent box and save them.

You also want access to your opportunities and leads on the PDA. Again, you only want to carry the fields that are important for you. A good way to judge is to ask yourself what you would need to carry in order to never have to open your laptop up when on the road.

Some solutions allow you to automatically link everything together. This means that when you open up an organization or contact on your PDA you will have a list of all the opportunities and leads associated with those entities. I have some really good examples below.

It is important that you are able to add and update all the data on the device in conjunction with your security model. And you should have security on the PDA that allows your IT group to purge the data remotely if it is lost. There is a solution from Vaultus that automatically locks the device when it is not authenticated within a time frame you set.

And finally if you are using a disconnected application you want to make sure the solution will automatically be synchronizing with the production server back in your data center on a regular basis.

Mobility is one of the most important futures for CRM and getting a jump on it now will really help your team’s productivity, responses times to customers and staying well informed so you can be more proactive in your business.

Organization List Organizations (click to enlarge)		Organization Details (click to enlarge)		Organization Details You can see all the related contacts, opportunities, etc… for this account (click to enlarge)		Contact Details You can see all the details about this contact plus what is related to them (click to enlarge)
Contact Details (continued) You can also see related leads and activities (click to enlarge)		Initiating Actions You can quickly call the contact, send email, get directions, create and update lots of information (click to enlarge)		Composing Emails You can have the ability to choose from your CRM address book or the PDA (click to enlarge)

Tags: crm, crm productivity, Mobile crm

A key benefit of having a CRM solution is to easily access as much information as you need about a customer or prospect. We talked about the usual items like contacts, leads, opportunities, etc… But what about unresolved issues or complaints that were reported. It could be issues on a product or service, or some open issues about a bill or shipment.

One of the key components of CRM is customer service and support. The most common information sales reps need from this area are tickets and activities. Before talking to a customer you want to know if there are any outstanding tickets or issues. This way you can be proactive in telling them you are aware of what is going on, any new status and when it might be resolved. When a sales rep can provide that level of knowledge, it is very impressive and not forgotten by the customer. You NEVER want to be caught off guard by a customer that has an open issue that they ask you about.

If your support group is using the service component that comes with CRM then you can usually have access to what you need through a simple configuration. If your company uses a separate service module it will require more work to get access within your CRM application. Your IT group will need to map the data you need to your solution. It then needs to be pushed to your CRM solution. It does not need to be real time. Having it batched hourly or even daily will suffice. Good CRM solutions will allow you to create tabs and pages you can easily map this information to.

Now when you look up a customer, you will not only see all the contacts, leads and opportunities people are working on but also any open and closed tickets as well as actions taken. While mapping from an external service application requires a little Yak Shaving, it will allow you to never be caught off guard on customer issues that can cost you dearly.

Sample of 360 Degree View with Tickets

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Tags: crm, CRM Basics, crm productivity

Your CRM solution is great for tracking leads. It allows you to do a few things. The first is it keeps all your unqualified leads and lists away from your good data. Never mix them into your opportunities or contacts until they are well qualified and you have determined they are worth closer tracking.

If you are buying lists, most CRM solutions will have utilities that easily import and map the data into your system. If no utility is available, get the list into Excel or a COL file. All solutions allow you to import that way as well.

The next thing is being able to easily track all you activities against it. It gets hard to remember conversations you have with so many leads. If you have a different group that qualifies your leads then you will really need for them to record their conversations. Make sure they have the ability to create activity reports so you can easily read up on what they discovered.

You also want to track the source of the lead. It is really important for whoever is qualifying the lead to ask the prospect how they heard about you. There should be a source field on the lead that the information can be recorded. This will be so important for identifying where you are getting the biggest bang for the buck with marketing. Once you have it well qualified, a good CRM solution allows you to click a button on the lead and convert it to an opportunity, an organization and contact. Most fields should be brought over when you convert a lead. If your solution does not automatically convert leads get the IT group to write some custom code to do it. This extra work will pay in dividends from a usability standpoint.

You should have simple reports that can track by source how many leads you got, the percentage that became an opportunity and percentage of ones that closed. This is so easy to do as long as you carry these fields in the entire process.

Whether you are tracking existing customer leads or bringing in cold lists, CRM is perfect for managing the entire effort. Getting IT to stream line the entry and conversion will really help with getting everyone to use it.

Sample Lead Form(click to enlarge)

Sample Conversion (click to enlarge)

Tags: crm, CRM Basics, Marketing