As organizations start to really use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to manage their customer data, the one commodity that we all seem to have far more of than yesterday is data. We have more data residing in our customer databases than ever before and the quantity of that data is rapidly expanding on a daily basis.

And worse yet, that data tends to get stale very quickly. The information that was very important last Friday is now replaced by a new combination of factors that is much more important and relevant today.

All of this makes it difficult to manage our business. We really don’t have time to plow through reports and compare this weeks report with the one that was printed last week.

Enter Dashboards and Exception Reporting

1- Management by Exception
Frequently there is no good way to manually search for errors that may have occurred during the course of daily business. A good solution however is to some way to notify you that some data is missing or may be incorrect.

A good exception management system should be looking at your database and locating those situations that that will cause you problems sometime in the future. Depending on what process you use, you could be sent an e-mail or text message letting you know that something needs your attention. An alternative would to create a way to quickly collect and review those database records in error. For example, in ACT! you could use Groups to sweep up contact records needing attention.

2- Business Alerting
Normal business alerts are similar to exception reporting but in this case we want to make sure nothing “drops between the cracks”. A missed appointment because we forgot to look at the calendar this morning. Forgetting to follow-up with a customer whose contract is about expire because we were out of town or on vacation. Or perhaps finding out that your leads have dropped off drastically this month and your sales reps have little in their pipeline.

Building an ‘alerting’ process into your CRM system will help keep you on top of the important things happening in your customer database. Reading what happened last month is not nearly as good as finding out early about problems that could have been addressed at the time. Using a product like KnowledgeSync from Vineyardsoft will deliver close to real-time business activity alerting. KnowledgeSync works with most all CRM software systems.

3- Dashboards
Compressing a great deal of data into manageable, actionable information is the goal of using dashboards. Being able to view comparative data in a graphical format makes it easy to spot trends, measure performance and stay on top of your business.

A typical ACT! sales dashboard will show:

Activity Levels by Rep
Pipeline by Sales Stage
Closed (Won/Lost) Deals
Top Sales Opportunities.

Other dashboards can be created to look at 30-60-90 day comparisons of potential sales, activity history and call-backs.

Dashboards are one of the vastly underused tools in our business planning and management. Once you start using them to monitor the health of your business you will never go back to printed reports.

The items above are not anything new. They are things that we should be doing to help manage our business world. Used properly, they will save you time and prevent those “why did this happen?” moments.

There are many ways to move into a new home. You can purchase a brand new home that has just been built or you could opt for buying an existing home. Either way, you may find that you want to add-on to your new home – adding a new garage or patio. Maybe some landscaping so your new home has that great look as you pull in the driveway.

Or you could build your own home from scratch. Not for the faint of heart or those with little spare time but you will end up with the home you want. Along the way you will meet your architect, contractors, various engineers and assorted inspectors.

And that is not so much different from acquiring Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software for your business. And just like you need to work closely with your spouse in selecting just the right home, you will need to bring in the key people in your organization on your CRM project.

We have all heard that real estate is all about “location, location, location’. When selecting CRM software it’s all about “objectives, objectives, objectives”. You and your team will have need to have written goals and guidelines on what you plan to achieve and how you will measure the success of your CRM deployment.

After all the time and effort you and your family have put into finding, financing and finally moving into your new home you probably expect to be there for quite some time. At least until something happens like a relocation, children leave home or your financial situation changes.

Again, it’s very similar with your CRM system — new offices are opened overseas, reduction-in-force occurs or winning that dream contract that will quadruple the size of your company overnight. You can’t predict the future but you can plan for it by choosing a CRM system that can grow with your company and choosing one that has the flexibility to change with your business. Remember, CRM is a journey, not a destination.

Well, suppose I just want to rent for awhile to see if I like the neighborhood? You can do the same thing with CRM software. It’s called SaaS – Software as a Service. Make sure to get all the costs and small print covered up front. Calculate the true cost of ownership before you make a final decision. And don’t forget to ask about getting access to your data should you choose to stop renting and move to a new system.

I could go on much longer about the similarities of home ownership and selecting a CRM system but I’m pretty sure you get the basic idea by now. Both are major decisions that can a definite impact on your future. Do your homework and don’t hesitate to bring in experts when needed

There are many ways to move into a new home.  You can purchase a brand new home that has just been built or you could opt for buying an existing home.  Either way, you may find that you want to add-on to your new home – adding a new garage or patio.  Maybe some landscaping so your new home has that great look as you pull in the driveway.

Or you could build your own home from scratch.  Not for the faint of heart or those with little spare time but you will end up with the home you want.  Along the way you will meet your architect, contractors, various engineers and assorted inspectors.

And that is not so much different from acquiring Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software for your business.  And just like you need to work closely with your spouse in selecting just the right home, you will need to bring in the key people in your organization on your CRM project.

We have all heard that real estate is all about “location, location, location’.  When selecting CRM software it’s all about “objectives, objectives, objectives”.  You and your team will have need to have written goals and guidelines on what you plan to achieve and how you will measure the success of your CRM deployment.  

After all the time and effort you and your family have put into finding, financing and finally moving into your new home you probably expect to be there for quite some time.  At least until something happens like a  relocation, children leave home or your financial situation changes. 

Again, it’s very similar with your CRM system — new offices are opened overseas, reduction-in-force occurs or winning that dream contract that will quadruple the size of your company overnight.  You can’t predict the future but you can plan for it by choosing a CRM system that can grow with your company and choosing one that has the flexibility to change with your business.  Remember, CRM is a journey, not a destination.

Well, suppose I just want to rent for awhile to see if I like the neighborhood?  You can do the same thing with CRM software.  It’s called SaaS – Software as a Service.   Make sure to get all the costs and small print covered up front.   Calculate the true cost of ownership before you make a final decision.  And don’t forget to ask about getting access to your data should you choose to stop renting and move to a new system.

I could go on much longer about the similarities of home ownership and selecting a CRM system but I’m pretty sure you get the basic idea by now.   Both are major decisions that can a definite impact on your future.   Do your homework and don’t hesitate to bring in experts when needed.

As organizations start to really use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to manage their customer data, the one commodity that we all seem to have far more of than yesterday is data.  We have more data residing in our customer databases than ever before and the quantity of that data is rapidly expanding on a daily basis.

And worse yet, that data tends to get stale very quickly.  The information that was very important last Friday is now replaced by a new combination of factors that is much more important and relevant today.

All of this makes it difficult to manage our business.  We really don’t have time to plow through reports and compare this weeks report with the one that was printed last week.
 
Enter Dashboards and Exception Reporting.

1- Management by Exception

Frequently there is no good way to manually search for errors that may have occurred during the course of daily business.  A good solution however is to some way to notify you that some data is missing or may be incorrect. 

A good exception management system should be looking at your database and locating those situations that that will cause you problems sometime in the future.  Depending on what process you use, you could be sent an e-mail or text message letting you know that something needs your attention.  An alternative would to create a way to quickly collect and review those database records in error.  For example, in ACT! you could use Groups to sweep up contact records needing attention.

2-  Business Alerting

Normal business alerts are similar to exception reporting but in this case we want to make sure nothing “drops between the cracks”.  A missed appointment because we forgot to look at the calendar this morning.  Forgetting to follow-up with a customer whose contract is about expire because we were out of town or on vacation.   Or perhaps finding out that your leads have dropped off drastically this month and your sales reps have little in their pipeline.

Building an ‘alerting’ process into your CRM system will help keep you on top of the important things happening in your customer database.  Reading what happened last month is not nearly as good as finding out early about problems that could have been addressed at the time.  Using a product like KnowledgeSync from Vineyardsoft will deliver close to real-time business activity alerting.  KnowledgeSync works with most all CRM software systems.

3-  Dashboards

Compressing a great deal of data into manageable, actionable information is the goal of using dashboards.  Being able to view comparative data in a graphical format makes it easy to spot trends, measure performance and stay on top of your business.

A typical ACT! sales dashboard will show:

Activity Levels by Rep
Pipeline by Sales Stage
Closed (Won/Lost) Deals
Top Sales Opportunities. 
 
Other dashboards can be created to look at 30-60-90 day comparisons of potential sales, activity history and call-backs.

Dashboards are one of the vastly underused tools in our business planning and management.  Once you start using them to monitor the health of your business you will never go back to printed reports.

The items above are not anything new.  They are things that we should be doing to help manage our business world.   Used properly, they will save you time and prevent those “why did this happen?” moments

There are four basic steps to implementing pretty much any software project, particularly CRM. This is really a 30,000 foot view of a CRM implementation but if you make sure you cover these few steps you will have a much, much better chance at success. Whenever you see a software project starting to go pear-shaped you can bet that one or more the the steps below were not completed.

Planning – make sure what you want to accomplish before you even start to look at software. Why do you want to deploy a CRM software system? Would you be better off investing in some other project? And be sure that you have a measurable, attainable goal. If there is no stated goal, there is no project.

Implementation – What do you have to change in the new software to make it fit your organization? How much customization, how many software vendors will be needed and will they be in business three years from now? Or maybe you should just mold your sales processes and customer service around the new software and how it was designed.

Are you planning on deploying your new software on the web? If so, where will your backups be stored and will you have a local backup of your data? A distributed system with multiple remote databases on multiple computers is a common approach and provides multiple, redundant copies of your customer data. Are there there are smart phones and hand-held devices that need to be connected. Oh, did I mention data security?

Training – Why is it that some companies spend tons of money on hardware, software, re-engineer their internal processes and then bail on the training piece of the project?

It seems all too common for a company to expect the end-users of the software to handle training on their own time. And after a full day of work not many people want to spend their own quality time sitting in front of their computer at home going through self-paced on-line training. Training is too important to not be a core part of your project.

Training should give each user of the software the ability to excel at their particular job. Not all sales reps need to do e-mail marketing and not all service techs need to manage a sales pipeline. Train to functional objectives and forget the 75% of the system the user won’t use on a daily basis. Then use the on-line or tutorial material to fill that gap as needed – but do it on company time, not after business hours.

Support – CRM is a journey, not a destination. Be sure that you have the skill set in-house or a trusted partner as you move through your first steps with a new software system. Everything in business is now a moving target and being able to react quickly and have your CRM software adapt to new markets, new locations and new ways of doing business will be instrumental in your success.

Enjoy your CRM journey!