HOWTO: Sonoma Partners Universal Search

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Sonoma Partners a récemment édité un add-on pour Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 permettant de chercher une chaîne de caractères dans les enregistrements de plusieurs entités simultanément. 

1. Installer le moteur de recherche

1.1. Télécharger la solution.

Pour installer le moteur de recherche, il faut dans un premier temps télécharger la solution qui contient l’add-on.

Pour cela, aller sur le site de Sonoma Partners en cliquant sur le sur le lien suivant.

Cliquer sur « download and try Universal Search from our website ». 

Remplir le formulaire et cliquer sur « Submit Request ». 

Un Email avec un lien va être envoyé à l’adresse email indiquée. 

Cliquer sur le lien pour télécharger la solution « Sonoma Partners.UniversalSearch-Managed » (fichier zip de 192 ko). 

1.2. Importer la solution

Ensuite, il faut importer la solution téléchargée dans le CRM. 

Aller dans Paramètres > Solutions et cliquer sur « Importer ». 

Importer la solution téléchargée. 

Une fois que l’importation a été faite, on peut utiliser le moteur de recherche en cliquant sur le bouton « Universal Search » dans le ruban du menu général. 

Dans la colonne « record summary » se trouve l’ensemble des entités sur lesquelles la recherche peut porter. On peut choisir d’effectuer une recherche sur toutes les entités (All) ou sur certaines d’entre elles seulement, en les cochant. 

Le moteur de recherche propose par défaut les entités suivantes : Comptes - Contacts - Incidents - Opportunités - Prospects.

Il est toutefois possible de définir les entités disponibles à la recherche en utilisant le configurateur. 

2. Configurer le moteur de recherche

Pour configurer le moteur de recherche, aller dans Paramètres > Solutions.

Ouvrir la solution « UniversalSearch ». 

Dans la colonne de gauche, intitulée « Available Entities », se trouve la liste des entités disponibles pour la recherche. Dans la colonne de droite se trouvent les entités sélectionnées. 

Il est possible de supprimer et d’ajouter des entités pour la recherche à l’aide des deux boutons situés entre les colonnes. 

Dans ce cas, je n’ai pas besoin des entités sélectionnées par défaut. Je les supprime donc toutes en faisant une multisélection et en cliquant sur le deuxième bouton. 

Inversement, je sélectionne dans la colonne de gauche les entités qui m’intéressent et les rends disponibles à la recherche en cliquant sur le premier bouton. 

Une fois que ma sélection est faite, je l’enregistre en cliquant sur « Save ». A tout moment, je pourrai restaurer les entités sélectionnées par défaut en cliquant sur « Restore Defaults ». 

Je peux également modifier le nombre de colonnes apparaissant dans le résultat en modifiant la valeur dans le champ « Columns to display ». Par défaut, la valeur est 4, ce qui signifie que les quatre premières colonnes de la vue « Recherche » seront affichées dans le résultat. 

Le champ suivant, « Max. records returned », sert à définir le nombre maximum de résultats à afficher par entité. 

3. Lancer une recherche

Après avoir configuré le moteur de recherche, je l’ouvre à nouveau. 

Les entités disponibles à la recherche sont bien celles que j’ai choisies. 

Pour rechercher un enregistrement, je saisis une chaîne de caractères dans le champ de recherche.

Je vais, par exemple, effectuer une recherche sur tous les enregistrements contenant la chaîne « Kery James » en tapant « *kery james ».

Le moteur de recherche m’indique le nombre d’enregistrements trouvés par entités. Dans ce cas, j’obtiens un artiste, 6 disques et plus de 50 titres. 

Je peux ouvrir l’enregistrement qui m’intéresse en cliquant sur le lien. 

Remarque : les champs disponibles à la recherche sont les champs définis comme critères de recherche. Lorsqu’on modifie les critères de recherche d’une entité, il faut supprimer puis rajouter l’entité en question dans la solution « UniversalSearch » pour que le moteur de recherche prenne en compte cette modification. 

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It is now possible, in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, to look for a character string in various entities simultaneously thanks to Sonoma Partner’s new add-on. 

1. Installing the search engine 

1.1. Downloading the solution 

To install the search engine in the CRM, you should first download the solution which contains the add-on. 

Go on Sonoma Partners’ website by clicking on the following link.

Click on « download and try Universal Search from our website ».

Fill in the form and click on « Submit Request ». 

You will receive an Email with a link. Click on the link to download the « Sonoma Partners.UniversalSearch-Managed » solution (zip file, 192 ko). 

1.2. Import the solution 

Once you have downloaded the solution, you need to import it in the CRM. 

Go to Settings > Solutions and click on « Import ». 

Import the downloaded solution. 

You can now use the search engine by clicking on the « Universal Search » button on the main menu’s ribbon. 

In the « record summary » column, you can find the entities available for search. You can either search in all entities or only in the checked entities. 

The following entities are available by default : Accounts - Contacts - Cases - Opportunities - Leads. 

You can nevertheless choose which entities are available by configuring the search engine. 

2. Configuring the search engine 

Go to Settings > Solutions. 

Open the « UniversalSearch » solution. 

You can see two columns, one with the available entities, one with the selected entities. 

You can add and withdraw selected entities with the two button between the columns. 

Note: the search engine can only be configured in the CRM’s native language. This is why the entities appear in French on this example. 

In this case, I don’t need the default entities. To withdraw these entities, I select them and click on the second button. 

Then I choose the entities I need in the « Available Entities column » and add them by clicking on the first button. 

Once I have chosen my entities, I can click on « Save ». I always have the possibility to restore the default entities by clicking on “Restore Defaults”. 

I can also change the number of columns displayed in the result by modifying the value of the “Columns to display” field. The default value is 4, which means the first four columns of the “Research” view will be displayed. 

In the same way, I can change the maximum number of records returned by entity in the following field “Max. records returned”.

3. Launching a search 

After configurating the search engine, open it. 

The available entities are the entities I chose while configuring the search engine. 

To look for a record, I enter a character string in the search field. 

For instance, I click “kery james” to look for all the records with the “Kery James” string. 

The search engine tells me how many records were found in each entity. In this case, I found one artist, 6 discs and more than 50 tracks. 

I can open the record I want by clicking on the link. 

Note: the available fields for search in the search engine are the fields you made available for search in the CRM. Each time you change the available fields for search in an entity, you need to withdraw this entity and add it again in the “UniversalSearch” solution to make the fields available for search in the search engine. 

13 CRM Best Practices for 2013

13 CRM Best Practices for 2013 by Paul Pitman at Collier Pickard (11/10/12)

With less than 12 weeks to Christmas, now might be a good time to start planning for 2013. Too early? With these 13 CRM best practices there is no time like the present. Whilst individually each of these will help get your CRM system ready for the New Year, the more you can do, the better the results.

The pundits are in agreement - 2013 will continue the austerity we have seen in 2012. Making sure that your CRM system is delivering in the essential tasks of Acquiring, Retaining and Developing customers need not cost the earth. With careful planning, getting the best out of your system is a team effort that will cement CRM as “the way we do things”.

1. Perfect data is a myth.

Or perfect data is an expensive illusion. Either way, focus on the 20% of your data that yields 80% of your revenue. Don’t ignore the rest – but don’t throw money at trying to achieve perfection in every piece of data.

2. If it is important enough to record, it’s important enough to back-up.

You probably haven’t thought about your back-ups for a while. Sure those nice people in IT are backing everything up – but how long would it take to restore? How up to date is the last backup? A quick email may just save you a time and money in the event of a server crash.

3. Don't assume that it's safe in the cloud.

Feeling smug because your data is in the cloud? So, there should be no problem with checking how easy it is to get a backup, just in case you need to move systems in 2013. Some of the leaders in cloud-based CRM are going to disappear in 2013 – you don’t want to be caught out.

4. Set your users free.

The CRM market has been screaming mobile for the last 5 years. 2013 is the year it becomes reality. Windows RT devices will be appearing near you soon. Does your current CRM platform deliver?

5. Manage your access points. 

With more connected users comes the need to manage more access points. Bring your own device (BYOD) and home working necessitates a review of your security settings. How easy would it be for someone to steal your data?

6. Share the burden of data cleaning.

Not just internally by getting everyone to keep their slice of the data up to date. 2013 is the year that social and other data cleaning services will enter the mainstream. Often thought of as only relevant to larger organisations, plunging prices and easy availability will help to automate data cleaning for everyone.

7. Invite your customers in – and ask them to help with the clean-up.

Sounds bizarre? Customer portals are set to take off in 2013. Make sure that there is a compelling reason for your customers to come to your site and update their details and preferences. No compelling reason? What about linking access to content in LinkedIn, Facebook, or other social media? These are all great sources of extra data.

8. Review how you're using your CRM system.

Your relationships are multi-faceted – use the right part of your CRM system to reduce the effort in recording and storing data. Try implementing those bits of the software you never bothered with. No need for Customer Services? Try thinking of it as post-sale customer care. Don’t track opportunities? Think of it as a way of developing a playbook filled with tips that work!

9. Direct mail is making a comeback.

Perhaps in the recent past it was sufficient to just hold email and phone contact details – but as direct mail proves its value, get ready to hold postal address data. Now would be a great time to look at integrating access to the Post Office Address File (PAF).

10. Delete Data!

Yes, you read that right. In your CRM system there is data that needs to be deleted. The Data Protection Act (DPA) sets out guidelines on data retention. Use these to develop a data strategy and implement it. Do it quickly before your data embarrasses you.

11. Save money.

When was the last time you audited the usage of your system? If 20% of the users do 80% of the work, do you really need all of those licences? Do you really need people who can’t or don’t use CRM? If that sounds harsh, just think about the long term value of a customer you don’t know. Impossible to calculate.

12. Spend money. 

The flip side to point 11 is to spend money. Invest now for the future in things that can deliver a return. Invest in people, education and tools to make CRM work for your business. Invest in expertise to accelerate those returns.

13. Back your instincts with solid proof.

As a Sales or Marketing professional, believe in superstition. Nothing about the number 13 – or the effect of black cats. If your gut instinct tells you something then go straight to your CRM system for the hard proof.

There they are - 13 things that you can do in 2013 to make your CRM system even better. Of course, you could always get ahead of the crowd and start now!

Did I miss anything? What are your plans for 2013?

How to get users using CRM

How to get users using CRM by Chris Pennington at Professional Advantage

A customer relationship management is an invaluable tool for many businesses. Yet, licensing the software such as MS-Dynamics or SFDC is only half the issue. CRM systems are useful when they contain relevant data. Note the operative word “relevant”.  

Here comes the tricky part.  Ensuring relevant data is stored in the CRM system requires two essential ingredients; both of which rely upon the most variable component – the human element. 

Whilst it may sound obvious the two essential ingredients are:

a. The end-users must use the system.

That means recording and putting data into CRM. How often do we hear of proposals stored on someone’s laptop; Email correspondence with clients left in someone’s inbox; Meetings and phone calls noted in someone’s diary but never recorded against a client in CRM.

b. End-users need to be consistent in their use of CRM.

This is a case of garbage-in-garbage-out. Different users will approach the system in different ways and hence record information differently and to varying degrees of granularity or quality.

It is often the “obvious” that thwarts us. It’s so obvious that we fail to address it. Yet, ignoring these obvious ingredients often happens, because the remedy is not easy to apply. It is easier to ignore it and put up with the consequences. Then we hear the lamented catch-cries, “Why can’t I get 100% adoption of my CRM”, “…I can’t rely on the information – so I won’t bother”, or “you’ll never get sales reps to use the CRM system, it’s not in their DNA”

Here are some ways to help overcome the barriers, 

1. During implementation:

Remove superfluous fields on the screen

Make use of mandatory fields

Make field labels and data entry points intuitive

Think ahead about what information you need to keep that is relevant

2. Have visible and vocal executive sponsorship

A senior executive that continues to beat the drum about updating CRM will raise its importance in others

3. Training and re-training

Training existing staff on how you want them to use CRM (note this is different from training them on what CRM can do)

Re-training. Users will develop their own habits and will over time deviate from the procedures that company wants to enforce

New-staff training. In the first few days a new employee is often bombarded with information. If they are lucky enough to get any system training, the likelihood is they will forget it very quickly.  On-boarding training needs to be planned and delivered properly

Keeping training to bite-sized sessions, it doesn’t need to be full-blown classroom training.

4. Setting time aside in the calendar (records won’t update themselves)

Allocate a specific time for end-users to update their records. If the company knows that between 4pm-5pm every Thursday the sales team will be unreachable because they are updating their records it will build a culture of meaningful information.

5. Exception reporting

Look for exceptions and anomalies and then bring them to the individual’s attention to remedy.  (Note this rarely happens on a regular basis, since it is seen as nagging. Setting the scene in advance from the Executive Sponsor can help position why this is important).

Want to Future-Proof Your CRM? Get Flexible

Want to Future-Proof Your CRM? Get Flexible by Christopher J. Bucholtz (17/11/11)

When the so-called experts dispense advice about CRM implementations, whether they're first-timers or replacements of old systems, they always include a caveat about the future. You need to solve today's problems with the new system, but you also need a way to "future-proof" your investment so that the next set of problems to present themselves don't force you back into the CRM selection process.

The key, as I've heard it from one undoubtedly Canadian consultant, is to do as Wayne Gretzky suggested: Don't skate to the puck, skate to where the puck is going to be. OK, but how to I get to the metaphorical location of that metaphorical puck if I don't know where it's metaphorically going yet?

The secret goes beyond the CRM technology you may have on-hand. It applies to the technology too, but it's really an attribute that must be present across your entire customer-facing organization. That attribute is flexibility.

CRM's about people, processes and technology. All three must be flexible in order to keep your CRM efforts relevant and maximize your ROI.

Limber Up, People

Let's start with people. The people you hire and the people you promote need to be flexible in how they think and how the input they receive modifies their approach to customers. Rigidity is a concept that favors business-centric approaches; customers evolve, and so the flexibility to evolve the way you relate to them is in itself a customer-centric trait.

This ability to be creative in the context of the way one works is important in front-line workers, but it's even more important in managers. Front-line people see the evolving customer on a daily basis, but managers can be removed from this reality and thus need to work at being flexible in the way they manage to let front-line workers' insights guide strategy.

Changes to Process

Next comes process. Unbending, rigorously adhered-to processes were great when Henry Ford was rolling Model T's down the assembly line. But customer relationships can't be mass-produced -- they can be replicated to a degree, but each customer is slightly unique. To meet the needs of each of these relationships will require the ability to spot where your processes need to bend or even change to accommodate the needs and desires of customers.

Not changing a process that clearly fits with the new tendencies of the customer because it works best for the business is no longer an option. It's not about your business -- it's about the customers, and they know it.

Application and Vendor

Finally, there's the technology -- and when I say "technology," I really mean the application and the vendor. Both need that attribute of flexibility.

The CRM system ought to be configurable, customizable and personalize-able easily. If the user can't make changes, they should be easy for others with more technical acumen, and those changes should be inexpensive and quickly made thanks to the way the application is built. This is the key to taking the things your people discover about customers and converting them into new processes that introduce the right data into your CRM system.

Your application vendor should reflect this. If it insists that you make your processes conform to the way it works, you're dealing with a vendor that fails to understand the value of flexibility. And beware any vendor that wants to charge you a premium for providing flexibility; in this era, that's like a car dealer trying to charge you extra for wheels.

When selecting a CRM solution, you must look for solutions to today's problems, and you need to consider features that can address problems you anticipate -- but flexibility in all three key components of CRM is the only way you can prepare to handle the issues you don't anticipate.

CRM Project Evaluation

CRM Project Evaluation by John Eccles from Magnestism (20/10/11)

After about 4 weeks of operation there should be a formal evaluation of the system to assess user-acceptance of the system and overall user-friendliness of the system. The evaluation will highlight any misalignments, software bugs, ideas/needs for software enhancements and any further training required. In addition, the overall project should be evaluated.

Why 4 weeks? Of course this is flexible. But time is needed for users to become familiar with the system and be in a position to comment constructively. And to long a delay may allow issues to “fester” and make it more difficult to recall details of the project.

How to conduct the Evaluation

At Magnetism, we send an evaluation to our Clients after 4 weeks via email. The first page of the evaluation explains the purpose and process:

Purpose:

• To evaluate the system delivered in order to learn how to improve it. 
• To evaluate the service provided by the Supplier to provide constructive feedback. 
• To evaluate the change process in order to learn how future changes can be managed better.

Process:

We recommend that the process should be managed by either the Project Manager or the Project Sponsor.

1. The evaluation forms should be completed by all staff involved within 5 working days.
2. The completed forms should be collated by the designated manager and forwarded to the Magnetism Project Manager.
3. Magnetism will prepare a summary of the responses together with details/recommendations regarding the following:

• a. Outstanding software bugs that will be addressed 
• b. Other outstanding issues 
• c. Further training 
• d. Software enhancements and extensions

What should be evaluated?

The users and their managers should evaluate the system and the training provided:

1. How well the system does what it does?

• a. User-interface 
• b. Ease of use 
• c. Reliability 
• d. Ease of training new users 
• e. Usefulness of user-documentation 
• f. Pleasing aspects 
• g. Annoying aspects 
• h. Confusing aspects 
• i. Ideas for improvement

2. What else could/should the system do?

• a. More reporting 
• b. Charts & dashboards 
• c. Automation – workflows 
• d. Reminders 
• e. Integration with other systems 
• f. Use in other parts of business

3. How helpful was the Training?

• a. The course 
• b. The trainer

The Project Team should evaluate the Project and the Supplier:

4. Objectives

• a. Re-state objectives 
• b. Were objectives met? 
• c. Are there new objectives for the system?

5. Deviations from plan and their impact

• a. Re-state project plan 
• b. List deviations 
• c. Evaluate impact

6.Change Management 

• a. Preparation for change 
• b. Training of users & managers 
• c. User perception and acceptance 
• d. Resolution of issues 

7. Supplier

• a. Communications 
• b. Understanding of Client needs 
• c. Responsiveness 
• d. Professionalism 
• e. System deployment 
• f. Training (Also Users) 
• g. Post-go-live support

CRM Analysis

CRM Analysis by Luneos (29/06/10)

If you want to invest a couple thousand dollars into a CRM solution, it really pays off to perform initial requirement analysis. This analysis provides help when you are selecting the right CRM vendor and later also during system deployment and testing. If the analysis is done carefully, it helps to distinguish between really important features and nice to have’s, as well as to decide, in which order should be these features implemented.

According to our experience, the best approach is at first to divide CRM analysis into several parts (e.g. contacts, calendar and tasks, document management,..), then assign a percentage weight to each part and begin to ask specific questions. Answers can be then rated on scale from one to ten and the system with the highest weighted total sum is then the best CRM for your company.

Before signing the contract, put together an implementation plan that includes both features specification (from analysis) and their deployment date. If it is possible, attach this document to the official contract, because such step can help you to avoid potential unpleasant discussions about implementation scope and time.

Licences or hosting?

There doesn’t exist any universal answer for the question if it is better to purchase licenses, or rather decide for a hosted SaaS solution. This decision always depends on company size, its attitude to IT, trained staff availability and other internal and external factors. The hosted solution with fixed monthly price has an advantage that your company doesn’t need any initial bigger investment to purchase licenses or hardware and this fact has a positive impact on your cashflow.

Tailor made industry solutions

We also recommend to make a brief survey among your competitors and business partners to find out which systems do they use and how are they satisfied with their performance. Performing such survey helps you to quickly eliminate inadequate solutions and focus only on those CRMs that can bring your company real benefits.

Before choosing CRM system and its supplier also try to find out if some vendor doesn’t already have experiences in your industry and if there isn’t any tailor made industry solution. The main advantage of these preset systems is not only faster deployment and configuration, but also better IT support for your processes.

Dynamics CRM 2011 - The Agile Approach

Dynamics CRM 2011 - The Agile Approach by Jaime Smith at Magnestism (10/06/12)

There is plenty of information all over the net about AGILE, its origins, methodology, tool etc, so as I have said previously I am looking at it from within CRM and SureStep practice. Within SureStep it is somewhat of a hybrid and definitely veers away from a strict Agile approach.

What it maintains from Agile

1. Solution Backlog

A list of the requirements that have been defined during the analysis phase. The compilation of this backlog signifies the end of the Agile Preparation Phase.

2. Sprint formation

Within the Agile Execution Phase, sprints will be defined with durations of between 5 days and 30 days. A sprint cycle should never longer than a month.

3. Sprint Backlog

This defines the development activities for each sprint cycle (pulled from the Solution Backlog) – these are reviewed on a daily basis (We hold SCRUM every morning) and tasks are shared out amongst the project team.

It is essential to note that included within each sprint and on the sprint backlog are all project tasks/phases including, analysis, planning, design, development and testing. This differs from the waterfall approaches where each phase is completed before the commencement of the next one.

After the sprint is finished there is collaboration between the customer and the supplier – the development is reviewed and anything that is rejected or requires additional work is added to the Solution Backlog to be scheduled as part of a later sprint.

Where it deviates from Agile

Agile SureStep approach adopts the two final phases from its waterfall siblings – Deployment and Operation. It is here that User Acceptance testing occurs.

Best fit for this project type

- Anyone who wants to use CRM as a platform and requires integration to other third party solutions

- If you are not entirely sure of your needs this provides greater flexibility throughout the project lifecycle. Warning: This approach can be more costly as it is hard to define at the outset what the project costs are going to be, however it can result in much greater accuracy within your end product.

- Requires relative fit to the OOTB CRM (50 %– 75%)

- Those who have data to migrate from existing systems

- Single site implementation

- Can incorporate organisation change management activities if required

This approach can be highly disciplined and assist in keeping your project within scope and creates a great sense of manageability but it does come with the recommendation that those in significant project roles have significant experience with IT implementations (both the customer and the supplier) and that super users form part of the project team.

Why it’s important to define the scope of your CRM project

Why it’s important to define the scope of your CRM project - right at the start by Daniel Langton

(29/09/11)

CRM project scoping is where your business requirements, processes, timescales, costs, and what you’re looking to achieve from your CRM software project are agreed upon and clearly set out. It is vital to the success of any CRM project.

Why? Because it sets expectations for you, the client, and the business partner you’re working with. It defines what’s going to happen, what’s not going to happen, and helps avoid project drift (project drift or creep will cause problems in most projects, and CRM is no different). It also defines the measurements of success.

Focus on business processes

Failing to understand, articulate, and include all relevant business processes within a new CRM project can result in a system that doesn’t meet the full needs of its users. This can result in lack of user buy-in and even project failure.

Scoping is the first main stage of the CRM implementation process. It’s important because it focuses the attention of staff within a business on their current business processes. It helps them fully understand the breadth of each process, how it interrelates with other departments within a business, and why something is done the way it is.

Defining your CRM project

There is of course more than one way to define a CRM project. Usually a CRM project team, consisting of key project staff from you and your business partner, will work together to define the purpose and scope of your project. From this, your business partner will produce a business requirements specification and a system design document. As well as showing how the CRM system will achieve the requirements and objectives, it may also include project plans, detailed costs and risk analysis.

So, scoping gives organisations a way of fully understanding, and articulating, their existing processes. When this is done, they can look at improving them, and implement a CRM system that will achieve this.

Understanding CRM software

As well as understanding your businesses processes, it’s also important to understand CRM software. When you’re starting out on a CRM project with a product such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, it can take a while to comprehend the depth of the product and what you can achieve with it.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a highly flexible product. As well as being able to get up and running with it ‘out of the box’, it’s also possible, for a qualified business partner, to configure or customise the product almost beyond recognition. Although you don’t need to understand the technicalities of the software, you need to understand how it will best meet the requirements of your organisation. The project scoping exercise will identify and explain this.

Solid foundation to take your project forward

Another benefit of project scoping is that it is non-committal. Scoping can be carried out by your CRM business partner, a CRM consultancy, or for larger projects you may even employ the expertise as an in-house resource. Once completed, it will provide you with some extremely useful information and a solid foundation on which to take your CRM project forward. But this doesn’t mean you have to commit to anything. You can use the information and documentation to discuss your requirements with other CRM business partners, or use it as the basis of an RFI or tender.

Benefits business partners as well as clients

Clearly defining the CRM project is not only beneficial to the client business; it’s also good practice for business partners. From a business partner’s point of view, if we have a good grasp of your business requirements, we’re in a strong position to deliver a solution fit for purpose, that meets the business objectives of our customers, and ideally exceeds their expectations. From a client’s point of view, it helps you keep control of your costs, ensures you get what you pay for, and know precisely what you’re getting.

For all parties, it enables development of KPI’s and measurement of success. So, for everyone involved, it’s important to define the scope of your CRM project – right at the start.

Resisting the Urge to Automate Everything

The 80/20 Rule of Software Implementation - Resisting the Urge to Automate Everything by 

Andrew Schultz (15/10/11)

The rule: customize for the most common 80% of scenarios, leave flexibility for users to manually address the other 20%.

I’m certainly not claiming to be the origin of this little piece of wisdom, but I haven’t seen it written or documented anywhere. Maybe I just haven’t looked hard enough, as I learned it myself through experience rather than research. The rule’s validity has been demonstrated again and again for me, both as I’ve worked with customers to clean up implementations that were over-customized, or seen implementations I’ve been involved with getting too customization-heavy.

This rule often goes against the grain of a customer’s expectations. Customer implementation teams with inexperienced members often erroneously expect that a CRM system should and/or must account for every process and every scenario that occurs in their front office.

The most difficult part of following this rule is trying to communicate to such an internal implementation team the negative results that come from over-customization. This conversation inevitably comes at the point when you wisely push back on a request for custom functionality. When they don’t understand, they may think your implementation team is lazy or (worse) chicken, lacking confidence or unable to deliver on a particular request. It’s hard to effectively communicate that by simply giving them everything they ask for, you’d probably be doing them a disservice.

Why Not? You Write Code, Don’t You?

First of all, I’ve worked with customer implementation teams (those made up of the customer’s employees, just to be clear) with varying levels of technical experience. It’s not uncommon to have people on these teams that think the capability to write code means that anything and everything is possible. These people may be the business leaders who are accountable for the project, or they may be end-users who, from your consultative perspective, have no place being in these meetings, and who are going to fight tooth and nail for a feature that doesn’t make sense but would address a personal pet peeve of their own.

The first step in these scenarios is to explain that there are indeed limitations to what we can do with CRM, and that those limitations exist with any software product, not just the one you purchased for this project. These limitations aren’t simply technical; they’re operational and strategic as well, meaning that even without a software application supporting this process, there are certain uncommon scenarios in a business that just shouldn’t be locked into a standardized process, because they are so many and so various that the process would have to expand to an unsopportable size and complexity to incorporate each of them.

Paul Greenberg, a recognized authority in CRM strategy, wrote about staying flexible here. He notes that “Companies that have the flexibility to ‘break’ the process when they need to and the empowered employees to do the breaking will be more successful than those that rigidly adhere to the processes despite the problems it causes their own customers.” I believe this is true. That means that the job of the implementation team (consultants and internal employees) is to define the procedures that are both :

- simple enough to be understood, followed, and supported by the CRM application, and

- robust enough to address 80% of the scenarios that occur in the business

Some partners don’t do that well - or perhaps they don’t try at all. (Well, actually, I believe that many partners don’t try at all, because they don’t understand this principle, and then some of them are unwise enough to take the opposite course, actively pushing projects for more and more customization, probably to drive the project revenue up). I can name at least two Microsoft partners in my city that seem to never say no to customization requests. I’ve been involved in re-implementation or remediation projects for former customers of these partners, and I’ve been horrified at the mess of customizations that were implemented without, it would seem, any central, guiding intelligence – a massive volume of utterly a-la-carte customizations, some of them very complex and expensive, but implemented seemingly without any effort to make them a cognizant, integral piece of the solution comprised of the other customizations in the system, which were probably implemented at different times.

Why This Happens?

There are, presumably, a multitude of causes of this unfortunate result. I’ll point out two here from my experience. I’m going to use the headings ”The Company is Too Big” and “The Company is Too Small” because they effectively summarize the factors I’ll discuss in each section,but these headings would be far too simplistic on their own. These headings are not meant to imply that large or small companies are doomed to make the same mistakes, either; in each case, I’ll describe decisions which led to the result of over-customization, and which were typical of a small or a large company, but which could easily have been made differently to better effect. My purpose here is to use these situations for educational purposes; I understand and sympathize with each company’s situation and don’t mean to set them up as scarecrows for stone-throwing here.

The company is too big

During a project for a large, global company’s CRM implementation, I saw the requirements list grow and grow. The time allotted for requirements definition in the project plan was at least doubled in reality. Each time a certain piece of functionality was discussed, it would become more and more complex, often for the purpose of accomplishing objectives which were questionable in my mind, because they were very minor considerations. But this was also true of major objectives – out-of-the-box functionality that would have accomplished the purpose alone or with minor customization was passed over for complex, code-intensive options that expanded the complexity of the final solution and, therefore, the complexity of its administration and of future customization projects.

In this case, a major influence in driving this complexity was a certain part of the company that operated in a different country. This part of the business had been acquired, and was used to operating in a certain way. Their influence in the decisions made by the implementation team was almost always to add complexity. Due to situations like this one, this company’s internal systems were already very complex as a rule. This CRM project was not big enough or important enough to be a rallying point for greater simplicity, especially since the CRM system was to integrate with these very complex pre-existing business systems.

The company is too small

Another experience involved a smaller company with a need for a very robust CRM system. My involvement with this company was during a re-implementation project. My first task was to review the existing customizations in place. I couldn’t even do it in the time allotted, because of the volume and complexity of those existing customizations. Integration software, CRM plugins, workflows, scripts, and custom web pages were implemented indescriminately - and without clear documentation. For no apparent reason, functions very similar to each other were sometimes housed in different types of customizations, rather than keeping like functionality grouped together. There was even an integration running that took data out of CRM and put it back into CRM without touching any other system—not to stage and transform data, but simply to check a value and update another value.

There are various reasons that this occurred at this particular company. While not every company with fewer than 500 employees would necessarily have the same problems, smaller companies are less likely to have IT staff that have been involved in multiple, serious software implementations where proper project management guidelines were followed. They often have a hard time differentiating between ”must haves” and ”nice to haves.” The mentality is sometimes one of moving out of the basement into a world where everything is automated. With this mentality, it’s difficult for them to understand the need to pick and choose the customizations are most relevant to the core businesses.

9 Tips for Small Businesses Implementing CRM

9 Tips for Small Businesses Implementing CRM by Paul Pitman at Collier Pickard (17/08/11)

If you're planning to implement a CRM system for your small business then the following “gotcha’s” could just save your bacon. Certainly no one plans to fail, but failing to plan is common mistake in CRM implementation projects, as is failing to create the right plan. 

1. It's a Small Business – we only need a small plan

Well not unless your ambitions are small. If you want to grow your business then your CRM implementation plan needs to include a lot of big company “stuff”. Sometime this is the first time you have had to decide who does what, so take a moment and think about roles.

2. It's a small business – but we've got big plans...

For many small businesses with big plans it can be all too easy to slip into a supersized CRM implementation. Sure modern CRM software is good – but it can't do everything! Focus on building a plan that addresses your current needs , but considers your future direction.

3. Plan for the future – Encourage user buy-in

Once you have a clear plan and framework for implementing a CRM system, make sure you let everyone else know what’s in the plan! All too often we see CRM implementation and operating plans from a project manager - before the users and stakeholders do. If no one knows about your plan – then they can’t get behind it and help you to succeed.

4. Assess scope and involvement

Set the scope for the project – so everyone can see why you are doing it. Don’t just list the areas and functions that the project will directly affect – be sure to detail the improvements you expect to deliver. If these improvements can demonstrate a return on investment then all the better.

Who will be involved in the project – if not just sales and marketing, who else? Make sure you think about other people in your business that should be interacting with customers and get them involved. You probably don’t want a CRM system wholely designed by the accountant – but you do want them to support your plan.

5. Check your available resources

Once you know where the CRM project is going, and have the buy in from the team, what could go wrong? Unfortunately, a lot of those resources have day jobs, and your CRM project is not at the top of their “to do list”. So plan the resources – and make sure your team have time to complete their part of the plan. Never underestimate the time it takes to clean and prepare data, ready for import into a new CRM system.

If you are working with a third party, make sure that they understand your plan. A good CRM consultancy will have handled many crm implementation projects in their time and will be able to offer advice on realistic timescales. 

6. Assess the initial data load

Decide what you are bringing over / into the CRM system. Not too much, not too little? Work out the average cost per data item that you are going to clean and migrate to the new system, and then work out the return on investment for each item. Is the sales figures by product from 1989 really worth bringing in? How will you use the data, and what benefit will it deliver?

7. What happens if it works?

If all your planning works and you have a successful CRM implementation for your small business will you be able to cope? If you realise the 10% increase in sales that the reports estimate could be attributed to successful CRM implementation, can manufacturing and support tool up in time? The problem with a successful plan for CRM is that you have to be prepared for changes throughout your business. Change can be challenging for your staff, so plan how you will help them to adapt.

8. Measure to manage

For every step on your plan have a measurement point. This way you can tell instantly if the plan is not accurate or if you need to change it. If timescales are slipping – it’s better to know early, rather than at the last minute.

9. Write a plan not a novel.

Try to keep your plan brief and concise – people don’t have time to read 5000 task project plans, or epic novels that describe how you are going to implement CRM.

Collier Pickard have developed a CRM Project Update document with less than 25 key master tasks and areas to consider. We use it for all of our implementations, with great success time after time. The points above are just some of the considerations for a small business planning to implement CRM. For more in-depth advice, take us up on our offer for a free consultancy session.

How to Avoid Paying Too Much for CRM

How to Avoid Paying Too Much for CRM by BizCloud (30/11/11)

Customer relationship management (CRM) software has become increasingly important in today’s hyper networked age. According to Destination CRM, the CRM market grew at a 6.2 percent rate in 2010 (to hit a total of $16.5 billion) and expects a 7.6 percent rise through 2011. While much of that growth has been in the Software as a Service (SaaS) sector, companies also continue to invest in on-premises CRM solutions. Most SaaS CRM solutions are fairly inexpensive, at least for the base software, but add-on features, deployment, training, and support costs can quietly increase the total cost of a CRM solution. Of course, on-premises solutions aren’t without their own significant costs.

Companies looking to reduce their CRM costs -- or considering the purchase and deployment of a new CRM solution – can start by asking themselves these five questions:

1. Is an on-premises solution necessary? Even though an on-premises CRM software package may have a cheaper sticker price, it’s likely more expensive in the short run... as well as in the intermediate and long run. On-premises CRM software typically does not incur any sort of monthly fee like SaaS products do, but it does incur significant infrastructure and operating costs. The server and network equipment, power, and maintenance costs will usually exceed the subscription and support costs of most SaaS packages. There are certainly reasons why a company may choose an on-premises solution -- for example, specific security concerns, networking issues, or integration with an existing IT framework – but companies should not automatically assume one is better than the other.

2. Are all those add-ons and features necessary? SaaS sales representatives often try to wow customers with marketing presentations on all the bells and whistles available for their software. Some of these are integrated with the core package, but others cost extra. Sometimes these features have a direct cost; sometimes they’re limited to more expensive professional or enterprise editions.

3. Will expanding upon and developing the CRM solution be necessary? Many SMBs could likely use major CRM vendors’ products out of the box with minimal configuration or add-ons. On the other hand, enterprise-level corporations may find themselves sinking huge amounts of money into development to create custom solutions that work with a given CRM product’s API. If an SMB overreaches and purchases a complex solution, that can obviously result in significant overspending. On the other hand, larger businesses may find themselves spending more on trying to customize a particular product to fit their needs than if they had started with a simpler platform based on a more developer-friendly platform.

4. Does the business already function in a particular vendor’s ecosystem? This question is straightforward. A Microsoft business should probably give Dynamics a hard look. An Oracle one should consider Oracle CRM On Demand. If a business is built on Linux and has no shortage of developers, then the open source Sugar CRM may be a good fit. Having all of a business’s major software solutions operating within the same ecosystem can significantly reduce support, training, maintenance, and integration costs.

5. Has the company shopped around? CRM shoppers may wrongly assume that enterprise-ready CRM solutions developed by established companies all cost around the same amount for any given feature set. In reality, that couldn’t be further from the truth. As an example, the top versions of Salesforce and Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM offer a similar feature set at a substantially different base price: $195/month for Salesforce versus $59/month for Dynamics CRM.

Once a company has settled on its CRM solution, its IT department can take a number of steps to reduce its long-term CRM-related costs.

1. Excellent training from the start is non-negitable. Training takes time and money, but it almost always pays for itself again and again. There’s little worse than investing thousands of dollars on a CRM solution only to watch it sit unused by employees unfamiliar with it -- or even worse, used improperly by untrained employees such that it actually decrease business process efficiency.

2. CRM solutions should integrate with back office systems. Many CRM products offer little in the way of functionality once a sale is made. But CRM can be much more than this, especially with the advent of social CRM features that assist with continued contact and social networking between businesses and customers.

3. CRM solutions must be administered. While the maintenance and support costs of an SaaS CRM product are dramatically less than those of an on-premises solution, companies should still assign someone (or even a small team, depending on the size of the company) to administer its CRM system. This may not be a full-time job, but it’s still an important one, and will result in overall cost savings in the long run.

CRM Selection and Implementation Best Practices

CRM Selection and Implementation Best Practices by John Kolakowski at Green Beacon Solutions (29/09/11)

Below we’ve highlighted key strategies when considering a new CRM implementation or system enhancement:

Upper Management Sponsorship - If management doesn’t believe in the project, why should the employees? You can’t do that by yourself! Many times the difference between a successful CRM strategy and a huge waste of money is backing from the executive suite.

Stakeholder Participation - Once you’ve received executive sponsorship, and prior to developing your CRM strategy or selecting your CRM software, form a CRM team with key representatives from each department to make sure colleagues’ needs and concerns are addressed. Too often companies neglect to include the correct stakeholders, and the initiative fails to meet the needs of those tied to its results. Pick your CRM team wisely - everyone will need to own the customer experience. Remember when forming the team; consider people, process, and technology as all will be affected.

Determine Success Metrics - Define “critical success factors” (CSF) prior to the project’s kick off. Without these metrics, how will you know if your CRM program has been a success?

Define Business Objectives - Your CRM strategy must be designed with agreed-upon and prioritized business objectives and customer requirements in mind.

Customer Identification - Next, agree upon a definition of “customer” - the marketing department of an automobile company might consider a “customer” to be a dealer, but the call center might consider it to be a driver. Solicit consensus from stakeholders and confirm with upper management on this and other key definitions. Can you identify your customers across multiple touch points (retail, call center, mail, catalog, web and e-mail)

Customer Differentiation - Further identify your customers by defining segments - your high-value and high potential customers. Know who you want to serve. Understand what that customer wants? Prioritize. What is the customer worth and what is their potential worth to the company?

Customer Understanding - Now that you’ve identified and segmented your customers, understand what they want, and how they want it from you.

Customer Experience Goal Definition - Sense a theme here? You and your company are the users, but the solution is about your customer. Articulate the customer experience. How should their experience feel? Identify important business interactions e.g. high volume or high cost. Identify interactions that are important to the customer - high involvement and high perceived importance. Evaluate performance: How are these interactions currently handled by your company? Are there opportunities for improvement? Focus on hot spots: Identify the areas that require your greatest focus and will provide the greatest potential return.

Customer Strategy Integration - Today interactive marketing is a fragmented discipline in which marketers work with many different vendors to develop and execute marketing programs. Recognize that disparate databases of customer information prevent companies from gaining a holistic view of the customer throughout the organization. Break down those silos. Line-of-business (LoB) managers are often employing tactics that address products and not customers. That is because they are still looking at accounts on file, rather than at customer relationships e.g. banks that send two offers within a short time span – one that recommends consolidating their debt into a home equity loan and the other that offers a balance transfer for their credit card.

Define and Map Data Requirements and Standardize Data - You’ll need to know what customer data is necessary and from what system it will originate. See your customer through the same lens. A firm understanding of the level of customer data - account or household level - is critical. Do you plan to append external data? If so, what types: household size, income, psychographics, ZIP, real estate information etc.

Since various departments may see your customers quite differently from one another, use one integrated set of analytical data throughout the company to help make key decisions about how much to invest in a particular customer.

Create Customer Engagement Programs (i.e. by cycle: acquisition, growth, and retention) - Customer engagement is a process, not an event. Too often retention is treated as a project, rather than a guiding principle. Move your customers through the lifecycle… to maximize their value.

Collect Data - Collect and use information from each customer interaction to make your chosen customers more valuable to your enterprise. Can you identify behaviors, attitudes, needs, propensities, or intentions? Plan to clean your data regularly.

Monitor & Adjust the Customer Experience - Keep your eye on the prize. Measure the results against the metrics that you determined earlier and address the inevitable issues. Walk a mile in your customers’ shoes. Don’t rely on complaints from customers about how horrific it is to do business with you. Put yourself in their shoes by going through the typical customer experience. 

Evaluation & Purchase - Don’t buy what you don’t need in a CRM solution. The fewer bells and whistles, the less time and money you’ll need to devote to train internal and external users on the solution. People don’t like change as it is; keeping things simple only makes the switchover that much easier. And train early and train often.

Communicate - Evangelize your successes to the rest of the organization. Identify quick wins. Tackle the smallest, easiest task straight away and save the hard stuff for later. Success early on gets the ball rolling and motivates employees. Success can be contagious.