Customer Relationship Management – News

In a joint announcement Business Objects is integrating Crystal Xcelsius within the new Salesforce dashboard framework, available in the Winter ’07 release, as the first partner to participate in this new analytics mash-up category. Both announcements were made at a salesforce.com AppExchange event in London where Crystal Xcelsius was demonstrated. Salesforce Winter ’07 is scheduled for availability in the fourth quarter.

The addition of Crystal Xcelsius is said to provide an interactive visualization solution to help better present business data to customers, prospects and colleagues. Customers can choose the analytical components from several companies and combine them into a single view or dashboard.

“Business Objects is continuing to demonstrate our vision of providing the best business intelligence solutions for customers regardless of deployment model,” said Steve Lucas, vice president of strategic markets at Business Objects.

“Crystal Xcelsius within the new Salesforce dashboard framework, available in the Winter ’07 release, will provide our joint customers with the most advanced, stunning graphic visualization of their business data, while providing what-if analysis and full interactivity with live company data.”

“Salesforce Winter ’07 will continue to deliver on unlimited customization, delivering new levels of granular control and creativity for customer to create unique reports, dashboards, and analytics,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com.

“This new level of freedom and flexibility is only possible through the power of mash-ups, open APIs and Web services on which salesforce.com is built. This new open strategy for mash-up analytics and dashboards continues the shift away from monolithic stacks and toward heterogeneous Web services.”

Winter ’07, salesforce.com includes the AppExchange multi-tenant on-demand platform and directory and combines them to create customized dashboards. Users can create “what-if” scenarios, do supply-chain analysis, Web analytics, profit analysis.

Salesforce.com will preview “Unlimited Customization” of Winter ’07 applications and AppExchange platform at Dreamforce ’06. The industry’s largest on-demand event, Dreamforce ’06 will be held October 8-11 at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco.

“We need an instrument of demand that works from the demand side, outside of any of the media’s own systems. We need something that works in a free-range way, by and for individuals. Something independent. We need something that expresses the user’s or the customer’s intentions.
Think about it as Vendor Relationship Management – and the reciprocal of Customer Relationship Management. It’s what Drummond Reed calls CoRM, for Company Relationship Management.

It’s vigin territory. And you can’t get to it from the sell side. You have to approach it from the buy side. From the customer’s, or the user’s, side of the relationship.

Obviously, this is a development project. In fact, it’s the project I’ll be working on with the Berkman Center over the next year. I was thinking in that direction during this interview, but we made a lot more progress in just the last few days. I’ll be writing more about it this week, mostly in Linux Journal and IT Garage. Naturally, I’ll be looking for help.”

In June of 2005, I wrote:

“What’s been broken with so-called ‘Customer Relationship Management’ systems so far is that, well, they don’t really focus that much on the customer, do they? Under the rubric of ‘CRM,’ there have been three primary classes of systems: sales force automation, customer service and call center automation, and marketing automation. All of these look at the world from the seller’s point of view. And all of them focus on how the vendor can crank more customers through a particular process in a given unit of time. They don’t necessarily help to truly build relationships between individuals. In fact, they are more likely to commodify it.

There has been a considerable amount of research done in this area, and there in an increasing body of data that suggests that building this kind of ‘enterprise social network’ has measurable benefit for both customers and vendors alike. Perhaps the cornerstone of recent work in this area was done by Lichtenthal and Tellefsen, and is called ‘Toward a Theory of Buyer-Seller Similarity.’ L&T write: “These findings suggest that internal similarity [perceptions, attitudes, and values] can increase a business buyer’s willingness to trust a salesperson and follow the salesperson’s guidance, and therefore, increase the industrial salesperson’s effectiveness. In contrast, the literature also indicates that, under most circumstances, observable similarity [physical attributes and behavior] will exert a negligible influence on a business buyer’s perceptions or a salesperson’s effectiveness. Thus, the key finding is that it is more important for buyers and sellers to ‘think alike’ than ‘look alike’.”

To date, there just haven’t been tools like this aimed at the enterprise, that take this idea of creating real relationships between individuals and providing a means for customers to explicitly state their case, and determine with whom they want to do business at a real, interpersonal, non-synthetic level. So, we built one.”

Of course, what we built to address this problem is now widely known as Haystack networking.

So, it’s not quite virgin territory, but we, as both customers and as an industry that connects customers to the people and things they need, certainly have many miles to go before we sleep on this. Doc, greatly looking forward to the work you’ll be doing on this at Berkman.

A few data points:

Steve Gillmor raps on two different ways that the actions and behaviors of customers (he calls them “users”) are captured into the emerging world:

“By definition, the Windows data represents behavior under the terms and conditions of the Windows/Office/DRM/PlaysForSure contract with the user — managed via IT, structured around the corporate hierarchical notions of enterprise ownership of user data and behavior, and so on. And in turn, the same can be said of the Google/Skype/Yahoo/Salesforce contract — different in that users can navigate across corporate domains but remain subtly constrained by, as Doc suggests, the tyranny of inference derived but not related from the user’s behavior. Both clouds are captured, prisoners of war in the battle for access to the intentions of the user/creator of these signals.”

Doc Searls cuts to the chase:

“It’s a market opportunity to equip the demand side with better tools for relating to the supply side. That’s what Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) is about. When we have that, the supply side will start rebuilding their CRMs as systems that actually relate to us, rather than try to corrall and milk us like cattle.”

Dave Winer thinks it’s about getting critical mass:

“If I had a place where I kept my movie ratings and gave [Netflix and Yahoo] a pointer to it, they could read it and I would control the data. It would be very easy to set up, the technology is no trick at all. The hard part is getting enough users to do it this way to gain critical mass.”

[ed. - I'm a technologist, and I'm also a pragmatist. There are some portions of this that will be solved via technical means, naturally. But, in my gut, I still feel that a big portion of this will be solved the way that business has been done for the past few millenia, by way of actual people connecting with each other and building trusted relationships.]

The secret to getting sustainable repeat business is to follow up with every customer, and an effective follow-up begins immediately after the sale. You should give the customer 24 to 48 hours and then phone them up just to say thank you and find out if they are pleased with what they purchased.

1. Educate Customers

Intentionally make a habit of pointing out to customers what excellent service you provide. Failing to constantly and repeatedly get in your customers face highlighting your over-the-top service is equivalent to losing customers. If you want to talk with customers in store, be sure to use a newsletter. It is a good idea to have an online newsletter as well.

2. Keep it personal

Instead of sending an e-mail, send a handwritten letter. Or at least follow up and leave them a voice message. Failure to be in constant communication is equivalent with the customer percieving that they aren’t getting any additional service at all.

3. Be Aggressive About Collecting Data

If you need to collect data, be aggressive about it. Most people won’t want to take even a moment of their day out to tell you about your business. Keep things simple and short – ratings should be out of 5 or 10 and never require a written response. The total time needed to do the survey should be under 30 seconds. You should give incentives to the customer such as a chance to win $1,000.

4. CRM in Business

The use of internet sites and specifically e-mail, in particular, are often touted as less expensive communication methods in comparison to traditional ones such as telephone calls. These types of technologies service can be very helpful, but it is completely useless to a business that cannot reach its customers. Some major companies believe that the majority of their clients trust other means of communication, like telephone, more than they trust e-mail. Clients, however, are usually not the ones to blame because it is often the manner of connecting with consumers on a personal level making them feel as though they are cherished as customers. It is up to companies to focus on reaching every customer and developing a relationship.

It is possible for CRM software to run an entire business. From prospect and client contact tools to billing history and bulk email management. The CRM system allows a business to maintain all customer records in one centralized location that is accessible to an entire organization through password administration. Front office systems are set up to collect data from the customers for processing into the data warehouse. The data warehouse is a back office system used to fulfill and support customer orders. All customer information is stored in the data warehouse. Back office CRM makes it possible for a company to follow sales, orders, and cancellations. Special regressions of this data can be very beneficial for the marketing division of a firm/company.

Allowing for a more versatile, mobile workforce and faster access to information, mobile CRM is here to stay. Here are the top ten reasons your company should consider implementing a mobile CRM system.

Faster access to data

Sales professionals can access data in real-time, so it is always the most current, up-to-date information available. If you need to know about a client or lead, you can find what you need to know immediately via phone, laptop, PDA, or other mobile device.

Central data center

A central data center allows you to access all the information all the time. No one person has longer access to a file or case; you can look at it simultaneously without slowing anything down. And if a client id shifted to you suddenly, you have access to all their information in a matter of minutes. Thus, mobile CRM is an extremely effective, efficient ancillary to your normal CRM system.

Leads stay hot and glide down the pipeline

Leads don’t get cold because there will always be someone to pick up the slack. Mobile CRM also makes it easier to ensure the lead gets nudged down the pipeline gently but effectively and ends up in the correct place.

Access to critical information anytime, anywhere

Mobile CRM allows you to access information in the central database from anywhere in the world at any time, provided you have access to a mobile device that works.

Easy to use

Mobile CRM is amazingly easy to use and takes much of the stress off of professional sales people. It allows them to stay in touch and get new updates.

Ideal for travel

Mobile CRM is especially conducive to sales professionals who travel a large part of the time. Because you can use any mobile device, traveling isn’t difficult, and it’s far less stressful. If you suddenly remember something you have to find or look up, forget a client’s information, or any other number of scenarios, mobile CRM can be the way you solve the problem.

Usable online and offline

Mobile CRM can be used online and offline. If the internet doesn’t work or the connection has failed, you can get on your mobile device; if you lose your phone but have your laptop or PDA, you’re covered. Thus it provides an almost fail safe way to get the information you need, when you want it.

Competitive advantage

Mobile CRM offers a competitive advantage because it offers a way to reach more customers than just using a traditional CRM system. It is quickly growing to be one of the de facto methods of CRM outside of the workplace.

Reasonably priced

Once priced ridiculously high, mobile CRM systems are now more reasonably priced, and this has added to their growth in popularity.

Allows for a highly mobile work force

Professionals are no longer confined to the office; they can leave for an appointment or business trip and still remain totally connected to the workplace and their clients.

There are a lot of companies who market to the mid to small businesses and spend a lot of money on advertising and talk a good Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Sales Force Automation (SFA) game, but remarkably, there are few who can actually deliver results which is what the small business needs. The bottom line for small business owners is to generate more revenue coming in than going out. This takes an affordable process that will increase the number of leads, referrals and more sales. Most CRM companies just don’t get it because it’s all about the results not about software or customization.

But in their defense, it’s not their fault. Most CRM/SFA software manufacturers and consultants have good intentions, but lack the complete understanding of all the skill sets required for a small business to be successful. Those skills are: (Sales + Marketing + Copy Writing + Human Nature + Technology + Process). They are very good at some of the skills, but not experts at all of them, and that is what a small business owner needs.

What makes matters worse for you as the owner, is that most CRM or SFA vendors (consulting firms) are in the pocket of one or more of the large software manufacturers. Manufacturers leverage the good will of consultants who direct you under the guise of consulting, as to which products you need to buy to better manage your customer relationships or automate your selling activities; based on which software they are aligned with, not the process you need.

Here’s an example: Most small businesses use some form of accounting software; Peachtree, QuickBooks, MAS90 etc. and the accounting software has automated processes built in that maps the whole accounting system out for them. The ability to produce accurate accounting is not as dependent on who you use as your data entry or accounting person, it’s controlled by the process.

So why shouldn’t it be the same for the sales and life cycle of a prospect to client to repeat client?

Please understand, the goal of the “consultant” is usually to get you to purchase more software, and most of their consulting time is spent configuring that software for you. (It takes months and years and can get quite expensive).

There are two basic types of CRM solutions available; the big expensive solutions and the affordable solutions. Some of the affordable solutions available to you can be found at http://www.salesforce.com http://www.plumtreemarketing.com and http://www.netsuite.com

What you should be looking for is someone that has a proven turn key system that is inexpensive and comes with a high degree of “certainty” that you will increase your sales and better managing your customer relationships, using inexpensive off the shelf contact management software

Remember, it’s all about one simple fact: You need to be making more money coming in vs. going out. Keep this in mind as you investigate the different solutions. Ask the vendors how they will accomplish this and demand they help you calculate a return on investment (ROI) to make sure you can recoup your investment within 1 year.

Whether you are a business user or IT user, you are guaranteed to appreciate the power and flexibility of workflow within Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0. Here are four easy ways to use workflow to automate tasks that support sales and customer service. By the end of this article, you will be able to automate your processes using Microsoft CRM and workflow.

1. Assign New Leads to the Appropriate Person or Queue

If you have multiple sales people to whom are assigned leads meeting specific criteria, then this is a handy way to use workflow. For example, let’s say that your territories are defined by state, and the Joe is the sales person for all of New York state. Upon the creation of a new lead with a state of New York, the lead can be automatically assigned to Joe so that it appears in his My Leads view. Then an e-mail can be sent, again automatically, to both Joe and his manager notifying them of the new lead.

Do you assign leads by some other criteria, such as industry (e.g., equipment manufacturing) or region (e.g., Northeast)? Not a problem. As long as the data identifying the lead as an equipment manufacturer or as located within the Northeast is entered in CRM, workflow events can be triggered using this data.

2. Assign New Cases to the Appropriate Person or Queue

If you have a customer service or support function, or even an internal support function (e.g., IT department), then workflow works beautifully with the service management functionality within Microsoft CRM. A common use is to assign a new case to a specific person or queue, depending on specific criteria. If the case type is IT, then it would go to the IT queue. If the case type is a Contract, then the case would be assigned to the sales person assigned to that customer.

Another criteria is priority. Most companies treat emergency requests differently than normal or low priority requests. Depending on the priority, different rules can be triggered. For example, an emergency request could be routed to the Emergency Response team. If they don’t respond within five minutes, then a follow up task would be triggered to the VP of Customer Service.

3. Notify Customers on Status of Their Case

Not only can cases be assigned automatically, but customers could be kept informed about the status of their cases. Upon creation of a case, an e-mail would go to the customer who opened the case, giving them case number and who to call if they have questions. Once the case has been resolved, another e-mail could be sent to the customer informing them of the resolution and who to call if there are additional problems with the case. Constant customer contact is critical in service/support situations, and workflow can automate much of that contact.

4. Automate Creation of Procedural Tasks

Do you need to follow a procedure? Who doesn’t? Let’s say that upon creation of a new lead, the sales person is supposed to send a welcome letter introducing them to the lead. At the same time, the marketing department is supposed to mail a standard packet of information. Finally, five days after the packet of information has been sent, the sales person is to call the lead. How does everybody remember to do this stuff?

Workflow, of course.

Upon creation of the lead, a personalized e-mail based off of a specific template can be sent automatically to the lead.

A task would be created and assigned to the appropriate marketing queue, where a person assigned to monitor the queue handles it. Perhaps they even process the requests in bulk at the end of the day or the beginning of the next day. They may even use an external fulfillment center specifically for this purpose. Either way, the task is created automatically.

Finally, the phone call activity for the sales person is created with a due date of five days in the future, with the specific script included in the task. Now they have a reminder to call the lead and they know what they need to say.

Pretty cool, isn’t it?

Conclusion

As you have seen, workflow in Microsoft CRM can help anybody using CRM, whether it is the sales manager, sales person, customer service manager, customer service rep, or anybody else. There are many other ways to automate tasks, including using more complicated logic.The only limitation is your imagination. With the ideas in this article and some creativity, you should be able to think of other ways to use workflow in Microsoft CRM for your business.

It’s a nuisance and disruptive, and frequently breeds resentment against a software solution requiring employee cooperation to achieve the desired result. Training is difficult and the implementation frequently results in failure.

This is as true with CRM software (Customer Relationship Management) as it is with any other. Fortunately, Microsoft have come up with their Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 package that works the way you do. The way your employees work and the way your business works. If your business currently uses Microsoft Office and Outlook then Microsoft CRM software will slip seamlessly into your existing systems without any changes at all to your standard procedures.

Information can be transferred from the Microsoft CRM software to other Microsoft applications, and the mobile support is an extremely useful tool, allowing customer information to be obtainable to employees in the field through a PDA, palm computer or laptop. Employees have access to all the customer data they require, when they require it, and specific preferred views of data can be saved and reused with the elimination of all unnecessary information.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 can easily be customized to suit your current documentation style and flow, and will fit the needs of your business perfectly without disruption. It will work the way your business does, but do it efficiently and effortlessly.

This easy integration into existing business practices overcomes one of the major reasons for CRM software implementation failures: resistance to change. It is difficult to persuade employees that time-proven methods have to be modified to suit new systems. They will resent the change, and rather than strive to succeed, and will find excuse for failure.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM software is not subject to these problems since it not only fits in ideally with employees existing work methods, but also is also simple to plan and implement. Because it employs proven Microsoft platforms, training requirements are easy to understand and the software will be well received due to its ability to be moulded round your existing procedures.

Users will like the Microsoft Dynamic CRM software package since it will make their life easier, not harder. They will find that tasks that were once considered chores, such as sending out multiple emails or carrying out customer analysis, are now easily automated giving them more time to use their skills where they are most needed.

The major pitfalls in CRM software implementation can be overcome through use of Microsoft Dynamics communities technical chat, blogs and webcasts which is a major reason why any company using Microsoft Office and Outlook should opt for Microsoft Dynamics CRM if it want to implement an automated customer relationships system.

Many industries, from the smallest to the largest, focus strongly on their processes and pride themselves in excellent consistent products. Not all place the same emphasis on the processes they use to track their customers and their requirements. By focussing on the customer, a company can make more money. By adopting Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 software, all of the various processes and procedures involved in customer relationships, whether lead management, quote generation or management of a complete sales force, can finally be brought under the umbrella of a single software solution.

Integration is the name of the game and Microsoft Dynamics CRM software solutions provide it.

Well, planes of course, but let’s say you have a bundle of these. What do you really need to make them work?

That’s right – pilots! So how are you going to train them? Will you introduce them to an airliner? Take them up the steps and show them the insides – the aisles, the seats, the toilets? Why not take them into the cabin and show them the instruments, the dials, the communications system, the . . . Or how about showing them how it works. That’s right, get a pilot and get him to take off, fly about a bit while they watch, then land.

Then would you give them their wings, fill the plane full of passengers and ask them to do just what the pilot did? No, of course you wouldn’t.

Then why is it that this is precisely the way that many companies train their employees in how to use newly installed Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software? Failure to train staff properly is the path to failure. Your business will crash just as effectively as that plane would – and just as quickly, without effective CRM training.

The major reason for the failure in implementation of CRM systems is the failure of a planned and structured training and implementation procedure. That is the Number One reason. CRM training is essential for success.

Customer Relationship Management is a science – it is not the art that the old-style reps would have you believe. It absolutely true that the personal touch is with the customer is critical to success, but the day-to-day management of a CRM system requires the application of science and the provision of adequate tools to manage all of the stages of an integrated customer relationship management system.

There are many companies that provide computer CRM training classes, though the corporations that develop the software frequently develop the software with the customer’s training requirements in mind. Microsoft, for example, integrate training resources right into the software systems they develop, and this is as true for their CRM software as it is for Office applications.

Applications such as Marketing Analysis, Event Managing, Sales Forecasting and Incentive Compensation and Bonuses are but a few of those which computer based CRM training cover, though the Microsoft CRM 3.0 training course is more easy to understand than most due to the seamless integration with Microsoft Office applications and Outlook. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 software sits nicely alongside other Microsoft suites and integrates perfectly to provide a CRM solution for small to corporate size businesses which is simple for employees acquainted with Microsoft Windows applications to learn.

CRM training is essential for success, and it is essential that it is carried out effectively. How much simpler to do so if it is already programmed to be an integral part of an accepted suite of business programs! CRM training will not only be easier, but accepted by employees as an extension of their existing knowledge, rather than an addition burden placed upon them.

First Sandy Kemsley had included a link in one of her link posts and then Colin over at Bankwatch posted this nice summary – ‘gethuman’ standard and some thoughts on customer service.

Now I have posted about gethuman before and on how I think banks can build a better customer experience with decisioning (as well as a couple of general posts on how decisioning can improve customer experience). Seeing these posts though made me want to ask some specific questions of those out there using IVR (interactive voice response) and other self-service systems:

• Do you decide what options to offer each customer based on what you know about them or do all customers get the same options?
• When a prospect calls, do you prioritize the options for a prospect or are they the same as they are for a customer?
• Do you make any attempt to predict what your customer might be about to do based on what you know about them so you can prioritize those options?
• When you add an option to your IVR, ATM or other self-service channel do you think about each customer (or at least each micro segment) and decide if they will want to see or hear that option?
• When your automated systems refer a caller to a person to make a decision does that person do anything to make the decision that the system could not do?

Most companies would have rotten answers to these questions. Why? Because they are not thinking about these decisions at a granular level – they are thinking about them only at a macro level. The trouble is that each customer assumes, consciously or unconsciously, that these decisions were taken specifically for them. If you make them listen to the same 5 options every time, even though they always pick one of two, then they assume you don’t know them or don’t care. Every time you or one of your systems interact with a customer you make a decision about that interaction. If you choose to make it the same way every time then that’s your choice but you are still making that decision. I call these “hidden decisions” in that most companies don’t even think about making them.

How many of the folks who really want to talk to someone human want that because the systems feel so useless? Do they really want to speak to a person (some do) or do they really just want to be treated like an individual and helped as quickly and effectively as possible (more, I think). Make your systems respond to your customers as though every decision matters. And then see how many still press “0″ for a person.