Soo...What is CRM?

Today, even as you read, traditional ways of conducting business are being rewritten by technology. As part of this shift, key words such as agility, cloud, customer stories, big data, the Internet of Things, and the customer experience have come to propel a data driven, client-centric business model. Incredibly, the culmination of these innovations and insights can be leveraged in a unique business solution known as CRM. In this blog post, I'd like to touch on CRM from a high level and uncover what it is and why it is important to any organization, big or small, start-up or Fortune 500 company.

CRM is an acronym for customer relationship management. It is therefore, a platform with which to manage connections and interactions with customers. These must be scalable, flexible and customizable enough to support how your organization does business: B2C, B2B, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.

However, CRM is even broader than just technology. It describes the strategy that a company uses to handle customer interactions. One example of a common CRM strategy is the rewards card program offered by many supermarkets. The store gives its customers a free card that gives them access to special deals and discounts when they swipe the card during checkout. But that card also tracks everything the customer buys and allows the store to create an extremely detailed customer profile based on his or her purchasing habits. Armed with that information, the store can then offer its customers targeted coupons and other programs that will motivate its customers to buy more products from that store.

There are several CRM solutions available to help companies manage their external facing processes. However, CRM is again, deeper than that. As a concept and an ideology, it has existed for generations and centuries longer - as long as people have been buying and selling. Technology has enhanced CRM as a process because key to this process is uncovering, storing and offering insights into the customer. Undoubtedly, the more an organization knows about its customers, the higher the potential for a greater relationship with them.

CRM software can help by storing all this information in an easy-access format. With a typical CRM program, new leads are entered into the program's database and salespeople add notes throughout the sales cycle. It's then easy for a company to compile reports from this data that help it to design a CRM strategy that's tailored to its customers. The CRM software can also automatically send out emails to individual customers as designated by the salesperson. For example, a salesperson might program his CRM to send out a thank-you message whenever a customer reaches his or her one-year anniversary of purchase, or to send an e-card on the customer's birthday.

Once a company has collected information about a customer, the next step is training its salespeople and other employees in using that information to keep the customer relationship strong. Because salespeople are often the 'face' of the company, theirs is an important role in any CRM program. Frequently a customer who runs into a technical problem will phone her salesperson instead of calling up the customer service team. She already knows her salesperson and probably has good feelings about him, or she wouldn't have bought the product from him. It's safer and easier to reach out to someone she knows than to try to explain her problems to a stranger. So even after the sale is complete, salespeople often continue to speak with customers on a regular basis.

These customer interactions can be a burden for a salesperson, but they can also bring a blessing in the form of future sales. When a salesperson helps his customer overcome a difficult problem, it's much more likely that she'll get in touch with him for future purchases. And there's also a good chance that she'll send her friends and family to him as well. And this is exactly what a customer relationship management system is trying to accomplish. It's critical that the sales team understands and implements its company's CRM strategy.

For this reason, the sales manager should make a point of keeping on top of the company's CRM strategy and should pass along any changes to the sales team immediately. She should also counsel her team on how to build and maintain a good customer relationship. Most salespeople are happy to do so once the fruits of this labor start rolling in in the form of additional sales.

Now, for smaller organizations, start-ups, niche markets and the like, CRM still matters! You should pick a strategy ( a combination of both philosphy, management and technology) that is again, able to scale with your organization as you meet company specific milestones, grow and prosper. CRM can offer great a great ROI if your company:

• Has already implemented enterprise platforms for ERP and Office functions;
• Needs to move into the next generation of B2B Commerce – Digital Demand Creation;
• Considers end-to-end productivity, cycle time, and margin management key to success.

What is a CRM Platform?

I think we all get the idea of a platform as a foundation.  NASA (and now Space-X) know all about this for putting big things into space.  For us in the world of B2B Commerce, in simple terms, it’s a broad foundation to create demand, support the entire cycle and care for customers.   The best known example of a platform is ERP.  There was a time (long ago) when companies bought ‘best of breed’ applications (systems) to meet specific needs (e.g. General Ledger, Purchasing, Order Entry, etc.).  Then SAP came along with a true PLATFORM and changed that game forever – and behind SAP came a host of other ERP’s.  Today everyone knows what ERP means and why they need one.
Specifically, CRM platforms today integrate the key functions necessary to seamlessly manage the entire Channel Facing and Customer Experience.  Core functionality includes at least these components (and more per specific business needs):

• Sales Force Automation – this most widely accepted functionality was the starting point for CRM.  It offered the tools for sales forces/channels to manage their contacts, leads, opportunities, quotes, orders.
• Portals – The common entry point
• Guided Selling – Intelligent search, cross-sell, up-sell, and tools to solve user problems
• Sales Tools – Intelligent, knowledge-based guidance on trade-offs, configuration, price, quote and proposal management.
• Digital Marketing – Management of the new generation of tools for identification, qualification, generation, tracking and measuring leads and opportunities.
• Social Media – Social monitoring, linking and promoting relevant content and activity on the web
• Customer Life Cycle Management – Case and content monitoring, tracking, and activity on all customer interactions.  Initial sales and life cycle management.
• Business Analytics – Measurement, tracking and reporting of all of this key data and turning it into actionable responses that feed into all of the above.

Why does it matter to you?
Because a CRM platform is the only affordable and sure-fire way to get your next generation of Demand Creation and Customer Care to really perform.  I mention affordable first – to contrast PLATFORM value with the numerous ‘point solutions’ from many very fine vendors.  The point-solution issues all become larger as you move across the full lifecycle and functionality.  Don’t fall for the stock answer that ‘middleware’ will take care of the integration.  It doesn’t!  It is expensive and falls short on seamless transaction and data flow.  The PLATFORM advantages are in the built-in integration of all of the key functions, data and processes into a seamless experience for all users.