Customer Relationship Management

This section of our technical library presents information and documentation relating to CRM Vendors and Customer relationship management software and products. Providing customer service is vital to maintaining successful business relationships. Accurate and timely information provided in a professional manner is the key to any business and service operation. Telemation, our CRM software application, was built on this foundation. But the flexibility to change is just as important in this dynamic business environment. Telemation call center software was designed with this concept from the very beginning. That is why so many call center managers, with unique and changing requirements, have chosen and continue to use Telemation CRM software as their solution. Our Telemation CRM solution is ideally suited for call center service bureaus.

The following is an article relating to the CRM industry.

By: Glen S. Petersen, GSP & Associates, Inc.

In Search of a Charter

Customer relationship management (CRM) represents a powerful and sophisticated set of software applications that are designed to leverage the efforts of customer-facing functions such as sales, marketing, and customer service. The CRM industry continues to flounder due to high costs and perceived high failure rates. Despite thousands of pages of analyst reports and hundreds of books written on the subject, the industry and the end user community appear to miss the point that the technology has outpaced the development of a management strategy to use it. Experience has shown and statistical research verifies that success comes when senior management is directing the effort with the right level of leadership. If the industry wants to reduce the “road kill” of failed projects and help user organizations get on track, it needs to adopt a new set of best practices that will lead to economic success and prosperity for the industry. This article is part of a two part series that will define the framework and rationale for such a set of best practices.

In Search of a Definition

Despite the fact that CRM has been part of the business vocabulary for seven or eight years now, the exact definition has eluded the industry since its inception. Some definitions have emphasized that CRM involves technology while other definitions balance this orientation with references to business strategy or culture.

From a technology standpoint, few professionals would argue that CRM embraces an integrated set of applications (referred to as a suite of products if sourced from one vendor) that address the functional needs of sales, marketing, customer service, help desk, and field service. Applications are linked to a database that contains all the interactions with prospects and customers. The database is integrated with an analytics tool that can be used for report generation and the identification of patterns in customer behavior that are not discernable through human observation and analysis.

In Search of Success

This brings us to the tricky part of the definition. What is the purpose of deploying these tools? For the most part, the objectives have revolved around vague notions of being customer centric, being closer to the customer, or making the customer more satisfied. So user organizations have essentially been told that they need to purchase very expensive technology for the purpose of being customer centric (a concept whose definition remains illusive). Is it no wonder that the industry has a problem with achieving much less defining success?

From the outset of the industry, analysts have challenged the CRM vendor community to justify the large investments required to deploy this technology. The vendor response has been to identify case studies that demonstrated success. Although some analysts have attacked vendor credibility in terms of user satisfaction with their respective system, an equally fundamental issue can be raised regarding what constitutes success. According to various vendor web sites, success can be construed as any of the following:

• The application works according to specification.
  
  
• The application was deployed on-time and on-budget.
  
  
• The application was deployed in a short time period.
  
  
• The end user reduces operational costs.
  
  
• The end user claims success.
  
  
• The end user organization claims a return on investment (ROI).

• The IT perspective could focus on application functionality and reliability.
  
  
• Project management emphasis could be on budget and schedule.
  
  
• User’s focus on the friendliness of the interface and the ability to meet personal goals.
  
  
• Functional management is oriented to meet goals and stay within budget.
  
  
• Senior management tends to focus on profit and budget levels and may or may not view CRM as a business strategy.

In Search of Best Practices

Within the CRM industry, the term best practices can be defined in a number of ways depending on context. Each context has evolved over time. When the industry was in its infancy, the question of best practice revolved around the notion of the “ten do’s” (or “don’ts”) associated with deploying the technology. These lists typically addressed action items such as gaining end user participation, proper budgeting for training, phased implementation, etc. Most of these admonitions are still applicable but do they guarantee success in the context of financial objectives? If success revolved around this sense of best practice then is it reasonable that the industry would experience the current level of failure?

As the industry matured, some vendors created comprehensive vertical applications that eliminated the need for extended design and configuration lead-times, and associated costs. However, the downside of this capability is that user organizations must essentially adopt the embedded processes to avail themselves of the benefits of rapid deployment and manageable software maintenance costs. To make this situation more palatable, the processes are referred to as best practices. Again, in the vendor’s defense, the embedded processes do often represent an improvement in approach and design. Nevertheless, there is an obvious trade-off of acceptance versus deployment cost.

The last set of best practices address CRM more holistically by addressing the strategy and change management aspect of the initiative. These best practices embrace the principles of the prior two sets while addressing the need for senior management involvement and an understanding of CRM results in a cause-and-effect perspective. Before describing the nature of these best practices, the next section will summarize the discussion regarding the creation of an actionable definition for CRM.

About GSP & Associates

GSP & Associates, Inc. is a consultancy that is dedicated to helping user organizations to leverage their investment in CRM related tools. The company provides expertise in the strategic and operational application of CRM tools, sales tools, sales process modeling, and business case development and ROI analysis.

About The Author

• High-Impact Sales Force Automation: A Strategic Perspective
• CRMS: ROI & Results Measurement
• CRM Leadership and Alignment in a Customer Centric World
• ROI: Building the CRM Business Case
• CRM Best Practices: Self Assessment
• Making CRM An Operational Reality