Designing, Visualizing and Executing with CRM
In the first part of this series, the focus was on People. In Part 2 of the series we shed some light on process; what those people should do and how they should do it. For those of you who know me have an inkling for what is coming next <drumroll please> technology. The guiding principle is simple, technology should always be to support people and process
Customer interaction design or is it customer management?
How can and should organizations map the buying process to the selling process in such a way that both personalizes the customer journey and allows the sales organization to scale? At one end of the spectrum, there is the selling methodology that require specific actions and statuses, and at the other end is your best sales person who want nothing to do with your new sales methodology. What is the balance? The future promises artificial intelligence, but that is going to take some time.
Neither the marketing nor sales organization should be dependent upon specific individuals who like to hoard knowledge. What is needed is for implicit knowledge to become institutional, explicit and procedural, so that everyone has the benefit of the expertise of the few.
You pay good money for the tools your organization uses, so the temptation is always there is to rely on technology, sometimes, a bit too much. Organizations often fall into the trap of trying to manage everything from journey design, marketing resources and campaign design to leads, sales tools, and revenue performance all in one tool. Yes, technology has an important role to play in each of these aspects of the lead to revenue engine, but technology cannot take the place of carefully thought, designed and execution.
It is easier said than done
As hard as we wish it to be true, customers simply do not stay inside the prescribed lines. Customers are making their own choices, designing their own journeys, following their own path. These self-designed paths are particularly complex where customers jump from digital to old school (phone or in-person interactions) channels. Sales executives need technology to support their efforts, but technology cannot do all of the work. All too often marketers underestimate the importance of cross-channel marketing content and message delivery.
During the course of this discussion, we have been staying away from pure technology solutions, but at some point, the rubber needs to hit the road. We need the right technology, people need help to get things done. Any and all modern CRM platforms should allow marketing, sales and sales operations to visualize and choreograph both interactions and touchpoints within the customer decision cycle. The benefit of putting this capability within the CRM system is that key stakeholders within your organization will be able to track an individual customer’s progress through the steps of a journey in order to:
- Understand and remove customer points of friction
- Understand and remove operational inefficiencies
- Provide visual cues to Sales team, showing the steps within the customer journey
Extending CRM with the right capabilities, that aids in design and execution, is extremely beneficial to bring people and process together with technology. Reducing friction will facilitate customer progression through the decision cycle, which in turn will increase sales velocity in a natural way. The improved satisfaction enables your employees to stay on top of their game. It’s a win-win for everyone.
Working towards continuous improvement
When the topic of tools and technology come up in the context of the lead to revenue discussion, marketing automation vendors are typically the first vendors to enter the discussion. Frankly, marketing automation vendors are working hard to claim a leadership position, but they lack the human element. Optimizing processes is NOT the same thing as automating processes. But there is still work to be done. Giving users a guided path and flexibility to adapt to the customers’ changes is paramount to a successful lead to revenue strategy, driven by CRM.
Successful CRM requires an organization to learn and accept new business processes and supporting technologies, which is never easy. Often the greatest difficulty is changing the culture of users. Use quick wins to gain support for the new CRM system and continuous improvement to keep interest high. Users will not adopt new CRM processes and technologies that do not have a clear benefit for them. Nor will they accept a new CRM that is not properly socialized. End user adoption is always difficult, without proper change management and governance practices put in place. There is nothing more beneficial to users than a visualization of the path to success.
Designing and delivering a system for sustained, systematic improvement for the lead to revenue processes requires a more comprehensive approach than simply measuring the results of marketing spend by the metric of revenue contribution. To truly optimize performance, marketing and sales executives need to optimize the drivers of performance, guide the users down that path and focus on making users and customers alike to be successful!