“CRM SUCCESS…..”
BY-
PROF.ASHOK SINHA
&
PROF.NISHA SINGH
Seeing CRM initiatives take hold and begin to pay off is often a waiting game. It’s not a “flip
the- switch” product that automatically spits out results or something that will take affect overnight and cause profits to skyrocket while you sleep. The puzzle must be completed and time must play its part before true success will be seen. However, through dedicated and smart planning, businesses should see markedly increased profits, as satisfied customers will continually re-visit them. Gradually, as businesses get to know their customers, their customers get to know them, and a closely aligned partnership is formed. This one-to-one relationship is the catalyst sparks both lifetime customer loyalty and revenue increase.
In the true spirit of thinking outside of the box, experts at the Gartner Group believe “the most successful organizations will be those who, through innovation and focus on business effectiveness rather than merely efficiency, manage to break the mold of traditional business thinking”. Being effective is paramount. The end goal of better serving customers and enabling a high percentage of customer retention cannot be met with out creative thinking and effective planning and actions. The task of perfecting the relationship between business and customer is always on going and requires special dedication and innovation as the commerce markets continually change and fluctuate. And over time, customers change, as does their behavior and needs, and business must be able to respond to that.Being on the cusp of the industry and always having a hand on the pulse of the customer is key for success. As the CRM initiative begins to take hold, key players will soon see patterns emerge among customers, will discover what a productive strategy is and what is not. This is the essence of a successful CRM project: being able to really know what will work for your customers, what satisfies them, and what keeps them loyal. The ability to get an accurate gut feeling about the marketing campaigns, new products, and the type of policies customers will respond to is invaluable. This kind of customer knowledge only comes from really digging in and being savvy about how you go about understanding the people that you hope will continually call on the services and products of your business. The ROI in this case would be compelling indeed.
12 TIPS FORCRM SUCCESS
1. Buy the best package you can afford. Choosing a high-end system that allows for growth is key, Monster.com’s Liddell says. Monster.com has rolled out Siebel Systems’ sales force automation software to 800 users since implementing the software in November 1998.
Where low-end packages break down is in their ability to handle complex definitions of customers, he says. Monster.com established formal guidelines for defining customers across divisions and applications so salespeople can access clean, consistent data.
2. Choose wisely. Figure out who you need to reach and then find the software that will help you accomplish that. Before settling on RightNow, USF scrapped a previous CRM project a month into the implementation after concluding the software didn’t work the way the university wanted. Too often companies choose software before they have defined the problem, Akin says.
“I’ve seen it lots of times – ‘Hey, this is a neat application. Let’s buy it and then figure out how we can use it here.'”
USF tapped Right Now Technologies’ e-mail management software to help the IT department, financial aid office and other administrative groups that were bogged down with customer service inquiries from 40,000 students and staff.
3. Build and maintain a relationship with quality consultants. Consultants are important not only in an initial deployment, but also as project parameters change – which they will, Liddell says. Monster.com works with CRM consultant Akibia, which lets the company quickly expand its CRM resources when necessary. Each time Monster.com acquires a new company, Liddell’s priority is to quickly get those new team members up and running with Siebel sales tools – a process that sometimes requires extra hands.
4. Rely on internal resources. Consultants are helpful, but it’s important to maintain ownership of a CRM project. “Nobody’s more interested in our success than the team at Monster.com,” Liddell says. Plus, somebody has to run the software once the consultants are gone.
5. Make sure everyone is onboard. It’s important to have buy-in throughout the organization, Akin says. Financial support is necessary, he says, “but more important is an agreement to use the product universally.” It’s frustrating for end users if they expect to find a single source of customer service information online and it turns out a key department is missing from the site.
6. Align your project goals and implementation schedule. Berkson and his team at Thomson Financial try to stick to eight- to 12-week projects, rather than rolling out everything to everyone at once. Plus, no department is going to need every function in every application; users would be overwhelmed, Berkson says.
Thomson Financial is in the process of upgrading its Vantive applications to PeopleSoft 8 CRM – the new Internet-based suite from PeopleSoft, which acquired Vantive in 1999.
“We tend to implement in small, manageable phases,” he says. Companies should identify their biggest pain points and greatest opportunities for return on investment, and make those an implementation priority.
7. Start with a low-risk pilot. One project up and running quickly can validate your CRM concepts, Berkson says. Choosing a relatively simple, straightforward project – such as outfitting a department that doesn’t require integration with other back-end systems – is important. If you start with a complex trial, it can really drain momentum, he says.
8. Aim for configuration, not customization. Take advantage of today’s CRM tool sets, Berkson says. Vendors have built more robust configuration flexibility into CRM applications and recommend that users minimize customizations. So if you can break the habit of writing custom code to accommodate unique business processes, it will be well worth the effort when it comes time to upgrade, Berkson says.
9. Don’t underestimate data requirements. The time and resources needed for data conversion and cleanup will always be more than you think, Berkson says.
10. Provide adequate training. “If you have the time and the resources, train in advance of rollout,” Akin says. The university departments that are least enthusiastic about the RightNow products are the ones that weren’t ready for it, he says.
11. Set communications standards. In hindsight, Akin wishes his group had set content standards among departments before going live with the project instead of trying to do it later. At USF, e-mail inquiries are routed to as many as 30 different departments. Setting standards for formatting responses can help maintain consistency of service.
12. Watch the details. CRM requires a team that is willing to take ownership of even the most minute details. Monster.com has team members who maintain the software, team members who constantly handle requests for changes and team members who police data quality.