Successful CRM Depends on Communication

To Succeed with a CRM Implementation You Need to Communicate, Communicate and Communicate

The most important lessons from past CRM implementation failures has more to do with how people were organized, managed, trained and led than with what software was used. The best practice to ensure the success of your CRM system implementation, especially those that will involve human interaction, rests upon the design a robust comprehensive communications strategy and how you implement it. The plan should be to map everything you will do throughout the CRM implementation's life cycle from the very start, and you should do this before any part of your CRM system is delivered. In addition the communications program must be an integral part of any change efforts.

Money is Just One Factor

All too often, once a CRM solution has been approved and the necessary spend has been committed, there is little left in the kitty for managing the psychological transition¹ that is necessary to make the program a success. It may be a case of champagne dreams on a beer budget, but many CRM failures we have read about in the past can be explained by the failure to make adequate provisions for the "human factor" rather than just not having enough money to spend. It is often the case that the real impact of the human side of the equation was just not adequately thought through, understood or funded.

The Soft Issues

These "soft" issues cannot take care of themselves, and survey after survey has shown that no single software package or method of implementation has a better success rate than others. "Very few CRM initiatives fail because the software didn't get implemented," says Erin Kiniken, vice president of CRM at the Giga Information Group. Yet getting the human aspect right can make a success of the most mediocre of technology solutions.

Many companies get bogged down in their CRM journey by not realizing the need to put in place a customer-centric strategy that is supported throughout the organization. This strategy should underpin any investment in the people that will ultimately implement and use whatever CRM solution is implemented. This inability to clearly articulate the strategic importance of implementing CRM within an organization is what caused many of the early failures that we have read about and that have ultimately stigmatized CRM as either a costly waste of time or at best something with low returns on investment.

When implemented as an operational tool that supports retail marketing and relationship efforts, CRM has many success stories across many industries including travel, telecommunications, financial services and retailers.² This analytical, consumer-based CRM relies heavily on data warehousing technology and the use of powerful data mining tools to identify patterns of customer behavior and leverage them to create value.³ This type of CRM has been, for the most part, successful and has been implemented over the last 15 years, showing at times enormous rates of return. However, process-driven, analytical CRM relies heavily on automating functions such as direct marketing, and its impact has appeared evolutionary. These types of implementations did not require the kind of psychological evolution of an organization of the current B2B sales force automation (SFA) CRM incarnations.

Sales Force Automation Systems

SFAs are built to allow customer information to be single sourced or centralized rather than rely on multiple systems, either computer or paper based. In addition, information and reports that were hand collated or created locally in Access or Excel will all be handled by the new system.

Although some changes are inevitably needed, notably in processes and working methods; there will also a need in some cases acquiring new skills, knowledge and procedures.

The benefits are felt over time as the data is cleansed, verified and analytical tools used to enable individuals to spend more time with the customer instead of manipulating pieces of paper. The success of an SFA enables an organization to improve on its cross-selling, up-selling, retention, acquisition, reactivation and enhanced customer experience (CURARE)⁴ activities.

Typically, SFA-based CRM systems are used by sales teams, their managers and numerous other team members to track, forecast and generally manage a business. While the older CRM systems could use numerous channels to market and affect a CURARE-based success story, the SFA/CRM systems are there to support face-to-face communications and to support management in leading their teams. However, the success of an SFA implementation is directly related to the people that will use it. These are those individuals who must be convinced that the new system and its accompanying new processes are ultimately in their interest.

Reasons and Pitfalls

Failure to take the needs of employees into consideration can lead to costly failures. Gartner, the research and analysis company has identified seven key reasons for CRM failures of which the last is: "No attention is paid to skill sets. All the money in the world can't save a CRM project if, at the end of the implementation, it is put in the hands of underskilled and undertrained employees. By doing so, enterprises reveal that they believe employees are unimportant. Nothing could be further from the truth. CRM is an opportunity to put powerful tools into the hands of employees...."⁵

Similarly, Jim Dickie, a partner at Insight Technology, has put forward a list of nine pitfalls of CRM implementations. Once more, employee participation comes in at number seven. "Pitfall #7 - Avoid the Human Side of the Equation: A critical pitfall to avoid is focusing too much on process and technology and not enough on the people who will be using the system. You can design the best process in the world, and back it with the latest and greatest technology; but if your people don't buy into the project, it won't work."⁶