Grandma's Award-Winning CRM Recipie

The United States and Canada are arguably no longer agrarian farming economies, and nowadays families are usually more likely to eat buffalo wings and chicken nuggets than to grow and eat their own fruits and vegetables. Nonetheless, the annual autumn-harvest festival of Thanksgiving is still a time where families gather together to celebrate, and to eat — mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and turkey. There are actually quite a few ways to prepare a Turkey (Google search for “turkey recipes” returns a 579,000 results). Some traditional (and some not so traditional) techniques including baking, rotisserie-roasting, grilling, smoking, barbecuing, sashimi, and even — my grandmother’s award-winning technique for cooking almost anything — deep frying!

My grandmother was an amazing woman. But her answer to almost any question or problem invariably involved one of three things: elbow grease, churchin’ up, or deep frying. For example, Grandma didn’t know much about CRM. Clearly, “deep frying” is not the answer to the question, “What is the best way to implement CRM?”. So, what is the recipe for perfect CRM, crispy-golden brown on the outside and tender and moist inside? Unfortunately working with CRM is not like cooking a turkey (although there are definitely some turkeys working in the CRM industry). There is no recipe for CRM. In fact, people don’t even agree on list of key CRM ingredients. And to make things more difficult, unlike cooking a turkey, CRM is never really “done”. Regardless of the initial scope of the project, there are always additional features, users, support packages, and releases. In this respect, CRM is more like an elephant than a turkey. You can’t stick the whole thing in your deep fryer, but rather need to do it in small pieces.

So, if CRM is not like following a recipe, then what is it like? CRM is more like finding your way home safely after being dropped off in Detroit at night without any clothes, money, or cell phone. Most people will probably never be heard from again, but a few will come home wearing an Armani suit, a Rolex, and a smile. These people are called survivors. And survival skills are what you need to deal with CRM. Here are three key skills that can help you survive even the nastiest CRM encounters:

1. Think ahead! When implementing CRM, make sure to plan ahead and consider the roadmap of future add-ons, adjustments, and enhancements. Don’t box yourself into a corner tomorrow by cutting corners today. For example, assume that you plan to start by implementing a small 30 user telephone-only call center for North America customer support. At some point, as your organization grows (perhaps via acquisitions and mergers) and/or consolidates disparate IT systems, you might want to extend your call center to other regions. You might also want to shift from a telephony-only call center to a full-feature interaction center including communication channels such as email and chat. Finally, you might even want to offer the interaction center to internal users as part of a shared-services organization for internal IT Help Desk, Human Resources (HR) Employee Interaction Center (EIC), or Finance/Accounting Interaction Center. In order to keep your options for growth open, you should consider future requirements when making current hardware/software decisions. For example, instead of buying proprietary hardware routers and switches, you might consider an all-software Internet-Protocol (IP) based solution for multi-channel communication.
2. Think big (but start small)! Consider how the tactical topics you are working on fit into the larger, more strategic project or program. Even the best individual features are of little value if they don’t play well with the complete application. For example, you can go on a shopping spree and purchase stand-alone, best-of-breed systems for Trouble Ticketing, Workforce Management, and Knowledge Management. However, if the systems don't integrate effortlessly into your CRM and ERP systems, then those bleeding-edge systems end up creating more work, bigger headaches, and higher Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) rather than adding value. Also, instead of rolling out the entire CRM suite at once, consider a phased/controlled roll out beginning with a small (but strategic) piece of CRM such as the Interaction Center or Internet Sales.
3. Don’t panic; stay focused! Panicking leads to hyperventilation and dizziness. Take a minute to clear your head and assess the situation. It is critical to stay focused on the long-term project plan and not get side-tracked by short-term obstacles. As your CRM project moves forward, it is natural that more people will start to get excited and want to add cool new features and capabilities. However, scope creep can dilute key, limited resources and lead to soul-crushing delays and postponements. Additionally, things never go exactly as planned. Bad things will happen. Very bad things. However, chances are that things are not as bad as you think. Or, even if things really are as bad as you think... they could always be worse. You could be a turkey about to be deep fried! Stay focused and stay the course. Things will be OK.

Note to vegetarians: please replace the words “turkey” and “elephant” above with “potato” and “pumpkin”.

Comments

[pakistanjobspk]

so great, thanks for sharing

[Shazia]

Thank you for sharing this. Its very interesting and informative.

[Bill]

Hey John

Great article on CRM. And the 3 key skills keep things simple to begin with.

Ingredients? I'd add a lot of perseverance, willingness to change as things become more obvious and the biggest thing would be a healthy smattering of communication and involvement with those charged with actually implementing the processes on a day-to-day basis.

Cooking: allow a little heat, check frequently and allow to slowly simmer ... forever! :)

[SHiv]

Hi,
reading all about those recipes did got me hungry. Now I have to take a break....

In the meantime, perhaps you could explain how I can convince a cost center head to part with more money today (and probably get kicked out for it) to reduce the TCO in the long run (so his successor can build on the someone else's success?). Add to that, some of the giants using SAP CRM today are more concerned with spending less money to maximize their own bonuses instead of actually saving money in the long term for their employer. If you can figure that out, I'll buy you a bunch of turkeys with recipes to go with them (from the ole google hit-list of course).

Have a good one.
Shiv

[Narendra Kumar]

Hello John,

Its a nicely narrated with blend of cooking and business. It would be nice if you also quote some success stories of companies (especially SMBs) which implemented CRM and how it improved numbers in balance sheet of their company. This would give some leads to prospective CRM buyers.

Warm regards,
Narendra