In the Customer Relationship Management CRM business, we are often called into an account after they have already decided on a contact manager/CRM application, and are embarking on the implementation journey.  We appreciate the business, don’t get me wrong, but in most cases, we need to do a requirements discovery or as we call it in the small business division, Feature Fit, before we can really progress.  In the perfect world, we would do a requirements discovery or Feature Fit before ever having the client purchase software–so that they are sure they are getting the right application for their needs.

 It’s an easy trap to fall into–a person recognizes the need for a tool to facilitate their business processes, and so begins looking at tools first.  They are dazzled by the applications out there–and there are many–and “fall in love” with one.  Like marriage, sometimes this process works.  But we would all probably fare better if we had put together a “must/want” list of characteristics that were important to us before selecting a mate. 

There are many ways to skin a cat, and one could say any application is better than none, but we would also say that by looking before the leap, you give yourself better odds to spend more wisely before investing too heavily.

One of our customers asked me for a white paper on best practices on CRM implementations.  It was a great idea, and I thought I would send him one from the several I had, but then had a better idea–why send him other peoples’ experience when our own experience was more near and dear, plus more applicable to what he was going to go through.  Thus Lessons Learned was born.

 I came up with about 15 items that we have found make for successful implementations–or not.  Each one of the points we have lived through–or not–because, as I have found, any CRM partner who has had any experience at all will have had some failures, too.  Customer Relationship Management is not easy.  It is a rigorous strategy that every member of the company should understand and implement.  Sometimes, just having a strategy is a rigorous first step.  We help with that, too.

As the economy runs its roller coaster path, there is no more important time than now to have a CRM strategy and process in place.  While it may be easier to spend money when things are fat, it is more important to invest when things are tight, because the payoff is at the end of the road.  Wait, and it may be too late.  The best companies understand that there’s a lag the sales cycle, and anticipating your pipeline is critical.

 Customer relationship management can help minimize the lows and increase the highs in your sales.  And that’s a lesson learned that isn’t yet in my white paper!

I have gotten several requests for a paper on best practices, and what is out there to help clients who are considering implementing a CRM system.  There are a few articles out there, but the other night as we were sipping wine at the end of the day, we started brainstorming on the topic.  We came up with 13-14 items that we felt were true best practices, and if followed would increase the odds of a successful implementation. 

It has been interesting working in this field, because the number of customers who have been “taken in” by consultants or companies is surprising.  How is it that I always seem to come in behind the implementation that went thousands over budget and had scope creep that would make your hair stand on end?  Then I become the fall guy–having to toe the line because the vendor just before me was out of control. 

That brings up another “Best Practice”.  Have a project manager who will keep the process going, watch the budget, and keep everyone on task.  The PM can be supplied by the vendor or the client, but the role is what is critical.

I have had about six months experience with my Blog and Bulletin Board, and my most avid fans are spammers…  Makes me think that people have way too much time when they blast me with crummy stuff. I got so much Spam that I ended up having to close down my Bulletin Board.

 But time really is the issue.  These spammers are sophisticated in that they have their computers surf the Bulletin Boards and Blogs and create automatic comments and posting.  They just sit back and watch their yuck hit cyber space.  And they suck up my time because I have to go through their comments and delete them from my sites.  It is a phenomenal waste of time. 

It is like so many of the viruses that are out there for no good.  I say, “Get a job and contribute to society.  Don’t be a drag.”

It is the end of another year, and it is time for our small company to work on goals and objectives for 2008.  Every year I write down my goals for the company.  My partner isn’t as engaged in the process as I am, but frankly, I believe it is a style issue.  I express my goals to everyone, and have them written on the wall.

 Due to many circumstances (too numerous and painful perhaps to expand on here) I did not get to my goals this year.  I am getting close but didn’t meet or exceed the goals I set out.  The rest of the year I will be working on our business plan and goals for the company, and then for all the staff.  But writing the goals down is only one part of the process.  Having measurements in place to determine if we are approaching our goals is the second critical part. 

In the Quality Process there’s a saying, “What gets measured, gets done.”  It is so true, and yet so many of us put the team out on the playing field, give them good equipment, teach them the rules of the game, but have no scoreboard to measure progress.  I am no different.  Even though I preach the process, two of my three major goals for last year had clear measures–the third one didn’t. 

My third goals was to have a business unit be “self-sustaining.”  It sounded good a year ago.  Now I look at it and wonder what I meant, and what “self-sustaining” was supposed to mean.  and that brings me to the third part of goal setting.  The goals need to be continuously assessed, and adjusted.  I realized several months ago that I wasn’t sure what I had meant about “self-sustaining” but I didn’t do anything about it.  I should have written down the number, the measure, that when I hit it, I would know that I had reached the goal.  Instead I just looked at the goal (almost daily) and did my mental check off–mechanical but unproductive.

So, I am at that point in the year that I assess how we had done, and what we want to accomplish next year.  It is a great exercise.  It gets the cobwebs of routine out and forces me to contemplate the future.

 And if every year I improve the process…and heed my own words, I figure I will be like that squirrel in the cage, chasing its tail.  Because business is continuous, planning is continuous, and improvement is continuous. 

I had to take my car in for service, and I am always looking for ways companies are improving their Customer Relationship Management. At this dealership, they have caught up with their Japanese competitors and have the spotless garage and so-clean-you-can-eat-off-the-floor service bays.  They’ve had that for years, but it always impresses me that the US has caught up because I grew up on a farm where we did our own maintenance, and I know how greasy and grimey garages can be. 

I came in early to drop of my car, and wanted to look at the new models (just looking) and began visiting with the car salesperson.  He and I got to talking about contact management tools, and he said they were using an online version.  He had been an ACT! user in the past, and liked the user interface of ACT!, but like many good salespeople, he really didn’t care what the tool was, as long as it served his purpose. 

Since  that day, I have received a couple e-mails from the guy, which tells me at least one of his sales processes is working.  Of course I did tell him to wait and contact me after January 1, but I figured I would get some kind of touch.  The problem is, I haven’t read his e-mails.  As I think about it now, it is mainly because the little part of the e-mail that I see isn’t “grabbing” me.  I can’t even tell you what it looks like.  It is just too easy to delete. 

Herein lies the problem.  It isn’t enough just to make the touch, the “touch” or communication has to be worthy.  If he had sent an e-mail touting the benefits of the van or suv that I was looking at, I might have been tempted to open the e-mail.  But a generic…or one that is difficult to decipher what the key message is, is just too easy to pass over. 

In ACT!, I would probably create a field with a drop down of the auto types that are of interest, so that I could target people based on their expressed interest–van, sedan, suv, pickup, etc.  I could sort on that field, and have template e-mails that I would send.  I could follow with generic types of e-mails with info on promotions, financing, and key pains that people buying cars have. 

 He had a powerful message to tell, that I, a past customer didn’t even know–that this dealership no longer negotiates either the selling price of the car or the trade in–they get web values on your trade in and use that number, and they have the one low price on the vehicles.  I had done business with this company before, and did know of their changed philosophy.  Now that’s a missed opportunity.

Take a look around you.  There’s got to be lots of missed opportunities to communicate powerful messages to your customers and prospects.  Identifying them and then sending them–ah, that’s the challenge!

Yesterday my business partner and I went to a partner kickoff for Microsoft Dynamic CRM version 4.0.  When MS CRM first came out three or four years ago, we jumped on the bandwagon and went through the partner training, seminars and kickoff events.  We invested several thousand dollars to become a Microsoft CRM partner. 

The first meetings Microsoft held for MS CRM v1 were gala events–heralding their Customer Relationship Management application as the next best thing to sliced bread.  We were showered with literature & selling packets.  They had partner meetings and public meetings.  Casts of thousands (ok, I exaggerate) presented to us, with development partners pitching their services. At one of the public meetings, the ballroom at the Hilton downtown was filled to overflowing.  Everyone was thrilled.  We jumped to install MS CRM at a partner’s site for free, just to get an implementation under our belt.  The experience was disasterous!  The hardware and software requirements were beyond what most businesses had, and the product–well, suffice it to say there was more hype that substance.  The product was so elementary and hard to use we finally couldn’t in good conscience recommend it, and ended up abandoning our sales efforts.  There was no question in our minds that the first versions of MS CRM were not ready for prime time, and we represent ACT! and SalesLogix, two of the workhorses in the industry.

Then next version of MS CRM was v1.2, then v3.0.  Somehow v2 was totally missed.  At the v1.2 partner kickoff Microsoft filled a movie theatre auditorium mid morning.  We had a partner booth set up.  They didn’t serve popcorn, but they did dazzle us with all the “enhancements” they had done to v1. We got the revised selling materials and handouts, a Microsoft clipboard and a few other promotional items.  The best thing we got out of this kickoff was meeting a Microsoft business partner who turned out to be a really good guy.  The audience was a motley sort, many were individual Microsoft consultant “geeks” who weren’t CRM experts, but network or server jockeys.  Again, unfortunately, the product was less than satifactory.

The product just never took off–primarily because the it was truly inferior.  Those of us who were “real” customer relationship management consultants not only couldn’t support the product because it wouldn’t meet our customers’ needs, but in the end, Microsoft began to sell MS CRM like a commodity–to any partner certified or not.

We hung in there, believing that sooner or later Microsoft, because of it critical mass, would get a marketable product out.  When v3 came out, there was not a massive party, no movie theater venue.  It ended up at a smaller hotel across the street from the Hilton, with maybe 75 people in the room.  They had a nice video/powerpoint presentation, solid representation from MS CRM corporate, and we got a very nice binder with selling materials and updates in them.  The demo went fairly well, even though some of the functionality didn’t work.  Oh, well, we have all had demo’s gone awry.  But still we didn’t feel the product was truly ready for sale.

So when we went to the event yesterday, it was with a grain of salt.  The event was held at a  hotel along the Bloomington strip.  The two room ballroom had enough chairs for maybe 125 people.  One vendor had a tabletop sign and folder with literature and a free pen.  At noon I counted 50 attendees.  But this group attending were not network technicians–the names of companies in the room were mostly serious CRM businesses, accounting or consulting companies that were expanding their businesses into the CRM space.  I would guess there were 20 business partner companies represented, most had multiple attendees present. 

The presentation (for Microsoft) was pretty basic.  I overheard the vendor say that at other meetings, Microsoft had two presenters, but we had one guy, the product technical specialist, for the whole day–Powerpoint driven (at one point I thought to myself if I saw one more Powerpoint slide I would go catatonic).  There was a 45 second video of Steve Ballmer welcoming us and hyping the show.  Two add-on partners presented.  But the content was solid, the product improvements sound, and the overall gut reaction on my part was, “maybe they have a product that will make for satisfied customers.”  We got one paper handout with links to where we could get help online, and a CD with a virtual image of Dynamic CRM (the new name for MS CRM).  This was a far cry from the Hilton ballroom filled, slick selling tools, and promo items that we had received at every other event. 

But for those of us on the front lines every day, it’s not about the glossy stuff–it’s about products that perform, companies who support their partners, follow-through.  We are “cautiously optimistic” about this v4.0.  It won’t be released until Q1 of 2008, but in the meantime, we are going to be spending considerable time taking a deep dive into the workings of the product and support Microsoft is giving us.

Stay tuned, we’ll let you know how it goes.

Every fall we push sales for the end of the year.  It is also a time that we try to touch contacts in the database that don’t have e-mail addresses.  It is a cumbersome but necessary task to filter the database so that we can send a couple postcard mailers to clients and prospects who don’t have an e-mail with us so that we can capture their e-mail address and add them to our monthly communications.

Inevitably we get many cards back with non-deliverables.  Making the updates to our data keeps it fresh.  But it is a lot of work none-the-less.  Likewise when we e-mail.  We get bounces or non-deliverables.  We update the database.  Keeping databases fresh is critical.  But touches, by e-mail, phone, mailer, face-to-face are all key to keeping customers.

I have found that e-mail is fast becoming the communication tool of choice.  Trying to measure effectiveness of e-mail messages is becoming an art.  Many of the e-mail sender services out there (we use SwiftPage www.swiftpage.com) are focused on measurement.  Don’t be using an e-mail program that won’t measure results–there are too many products out there that will, and you don’t want to be sending items off into a black hole.

Swiftpage will count the number of clicks and opens, map which links were clicked on, and then rank the recipients in a call list.  We have gotten great results following up on an e-mail send by using this call list.  Instead of randomly calling, you can call based on how interested in your e-mail a recipient seems to be based on what they have clicked on.

In today’s busy world, having a qualified list makes our work more efficient and effective.  We can’t afford to operate any other way.

Yesterday I had the privilege of driving my college student daughter to several appointments.  She is in her first year at the University of Minnesota, and discovering a bunch of stuff about herself and a lot about how much she didn’t know about us, her parents.

 One of our discussions yesterday was how ideas become products and then become businesses.  It was revealing to me how much has changed since I taught the MBA Marketing class at St. Thomas University here in town.  I taught in the late 90’s when the internet was just becoming a household word.  I remember philosophical discussions in the class about what we speculated the impact of the internet was going to be on business!!  The first classes I taught, we didn’t have e-mail addresses.  By the time the last class was held, e-mail was the main means of communication. 

It’s much the same with the lifecycle of ideas-products-businesses.  The impact of the internet is phenomenal.  As we were talking about how ideas become reality, I realized how much we now rely on the internet for our information, polling, testing, and communicating.  We hardly move without somehow “googling” this or using Wikipedia for that. 

On the other hand, my daughter astutely pointed out that there is so much information hitting her on the net that many times the information bounces off, and never registers.  And because of that, the messages must jump higher, be faster, and more captivating than ever before. 

And I have noticed I have taken to hand writing thank you’s and recognition notes more and more–consciously staying away from the quick e-mails that are so tempting.  Getting a letter in the mail that is written in ink on a notecard is rare indeed.  I figure because of that, the hand written note stands out more now than ever.

We also are working on our post card drops as we speak.  While I have succumbed to the e-mail blasts that are so prevalent, we do revert back to the direct snail mail to change up the communcation, and to make sure we don’t neglect the e-mail challenged clientele. 

 The moral?  Variety is the spice of life.

Interlinx Associates has been in the Customer Relationship Management business for over seven years now.  We started as many small businesses–out of our home, two people, everyone doing everything.  We have now grown to a group of six full and part-time employees with many sub-contractors who feel like our own.

 One of the best resources I have used to grow the business is a book by Michael E. Gerber called “The EMyth Revisited.”  Gerber originally wrote the books on E Myth in the ’80s, and updated it in 1995.  Gerber draws a distinction between working on your business and working in your business.  One of the most helpful tools he touts is building an organizational chart for your business that you can grow “into.”  The org chart has helped me determine where I needed to add and where my bottlenecks in the organization have been.

Right now my bottleneck is in sales, and my goal for the year has been to add a salesperson.  I am still working on that goal! 

Since reading The E Myth Revisited, I have used it as a basis for several consulting jobs, helping other companies who have hit a plateau move above and beyond.  I have found that recognizing the problem is a huge step–but even more so, doing something about it can be paralyzing for the “expert” who needs to give up control.  And that is precisely the problem–the “expert” who grew the business originally and was fabulously successful can also be the barrier that stymies growth.

In any organization, there are Farmers and Hunters.  Farmers are the people who are good at cultivating the current business and keeping it healthy.  Hunters are the people who are good at new acquisitions.  Every organization needs both, sometimes to varying degrees.  Which one are you?