As a small business, you may be bombarded with a torrent of market noise regarding the latest and greatest in customer relationship management (CRM) software. You will hear each vendor boasting about infinite features and benefits that differentiate themselves from one another. This makes it increasingly difficult to decide which CRM one is best for your business. Until now, your business might have been comfortable using a combination of Outlook and Excel to fulfill most of the basic CRM needs, and in all honestly, that would have been more than sufficient to start with. You also may be thinking of recruiting a distributed sales force to grow your saturated customer base, or even introducing new product line to augment your current offering. In the midst of looking into a crystal ball for your future, you may be apprehensive that the current systems in place will not able to cope with the influx of new customers when extrapolating growth trajectory. Like a ship entering into uncharted waters to reach a destination, you want to make sure that you have the right crew, procedures, and equipment in place to navigate the unknown of the open ocean. This article attempts to address certain questions. Do I need a CRM? What do I look for? Is it worth it for a small business?
The term CRM was originally coined from the high-end enterprise market. However, the benefits of a CRM system are palpable in industries of all sizes. The concept is simple and is defined in all marketing books. Technology tools may be new, but the underpinning idea of a CRM application has remained throughout the ages. An entrepreneur explained it to me the other day describing his business model, "Customers will buy from you through experience you provide them, make the experience as pleasurable as possible and they will keep coming back". Managing this customer experience at all touch points is the core function of a CRM system.
The fundamentals in adopting a CRM system are irrespective of company size. Before selecting any CRM vendor or even deciding if a CRM if even right for your business, have a deep look inside the company and its overall business strategy. Take an inside-out approach, do a reality check of where your business is, where you want to take it, and how you want to get there. During this analysis take into account your industry, competitors, customer segments, and economic environment when formulating a strategy. What you might discover is that your self-image is very different from how your potential customers perceive you. A thorough understanding of your corporate strategy will then dictate your marketing strategy moving forward. Here you decide on what are your marketing objectives: is it to enter new segments? Is it to change your position on the customer perceptual map? Or is it to increase repeat business? Once you have carefully considered all your strategic alternatives and decided which one to adopt, flesh out individual tactical steps, milestones, and measures on how to achieve the overall goal. The features you will require out of a CRM system will naturally fall out of this rigorous process and bubble to the surface. These are the functional features which form the basis of the selection criteria when short listing which CRM vendor to choose.
The relevance of doing this analysis is to make the CRM selection and adoption process as seamless as possible. Think of it as similar to building a house. The more precise description you provide to the architect on what you would like your house to look like, the better the end product will ultimately be. Although may not know every descriptive feature beforehand, and the fixtures could change during the process, the foundations remain the same. The quality of your input you can provide upfront will affect the end product you will receive at the end. This is the same process in adopting software. When you engage in a software vendor, you will disclose to the vendor what you know and require, and then an experienced vendor will probe through a structured discovery process for as much information below the surface. This is in the best interest of both parties to do this information gathering exercise before a solution is agreed upon.
Keep in mind that no software will ever be the single sliver bullet. There is no CRM that will make your sales reps sell more if they are the wrong people, nothing will make your support reps more proactive if there are no incentives in place to drive them, and it is impossible to eliminate customer churn if your product or processes are fundamentally flawed in the first place. All this change has to come from within and stem from your overall strategic objective. It is important to note that from experience, most CRM or software failures has little to do with the technology itself, but more the human problems. Enabling the key stakeholders and end-users to participate is the planning and selection process will help avoid this perilous fate. The more involvement the stakeholders play in defining and refining the requirements, the more efficient the selection process will be, and the more ownership your people will ultimately take of the solution. It is key to remember that a CRM, if selected for the right reasons, will provide support fabric and help facilitate the tactics to reach your overall strategic objectives.
Software should not be your only decision when choosing a vendor. Software is a commitment; you need to make sure that you find a vendor that will not only provide you the software, but one that will partner with you through your company life-cycle. Businesses are like organisms, they evolve over time. Market conditions change, industries change, and competitors come and go. For this reason you need to make sure that your software and vendor have the agility to change your processes incrementally as they evolve. If not, you will be constrained to with archaic processes that will dilute what you bring to the market.
Investing in a CRM application is a major decision for a small business. When selecting a CRM application, choose carefully as the costs to switch of the wrong decision can have serious consequences. Once you have performed a deep strategic analysis to derive your company direction, ensure you find a vendor that not only ticks all the functional boxes, but a vendor you can trust, one that goes out of their way to understand your business, and one you believe can be a long-term strategic partner. Relating it back to the ship analogy, when navigating uncharted waters, make sure you have the right crew on deck, collectively decide where you want to go, have the right procedures in place, and then identify the right equipment for your journey. The CRM should take part in the latter part of this process. Rushing this process will see your investment turn to dust, while thoughtful planning and analysis will help ensure that aligning the right CRM system to your overall strategy will be worthwhile for years to come.
