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How to Destroy a Good CRM Implementation
Watch out who gets their hands on your CRM system
Ok, so you’ve heard me talk about some of my
clients and read stories about a few of their
successes and failures. You know by now that,
among other sales-related services, I sell,
install, customize and train on GoldMine as a CRM
solution for many of my clients. When I am
finished with these implementations, I usually
hate walking away from them because I worry that
someone is going to “fiddle around” with it and
screw something up. That’s why I also offer, and
many clients invest in, an on-going support
agreement where I continue training, customizing,
enhancing, fixing, etc, their CRM implementation.
This also includes designing sales and business
processes to help streamline their sales cycle and
improve their customer acquisition and retention
strategies.
Well, here’s an interesting story about someone
who stopped using me because they hired an
in-house “IT Guy.” I was never their “IT Guy.” I
was their GoldMine expert who also helped with
their business strategies and processes.
Additionally, they used another outside consultant
to do their IT work. Now they have their own
in-house person and no outside consultants to work
on GoldMine, business practices, or their IT
stuff. The first problem with this scenario is
that this new “IT Guy” does not know GoldMine, nor
is it in his charter, interest, or schedule to
learn it. He made that abundantly clear to me on
our first encounter.
One day he called me to introduce himself and to
say that he is now in charge of their CRM
implementation (which he knew nothing about) and
had a question about a new user they added to the
system who wasn’t seeing the same options as the
other users. Hmmm??!! Mind you that I am no longer
under contract with them, but being the nice guy
that I am I frequently will help with the quick
and easy ones. I coached him through a quick and
dirty, but totally viable, solution and reminded
(no, strongly encouraged) him to be very careful
about “playing around” with the CRM system since
he has no idea which settings and configurations
do what. I figured the best free advice I could
give him was how not to destroy what took his
bosses (and me) a long time and a lot of work and
investment to create and set up, and which now
successfully runs their business and improves
their customer relations. He said he will try out
my suggestion and call me back to let me know how
it worked.
Naturally, he never called me back, except 2 weeks
later with a new problem. The first thing I said
was, “Say, how did that other problem I helped you
with work out?” in which he replied, “Oh, fine.
That solved the problem. Thanks.” None of this has
much to do with this story, except to set the
stage. (Yes, I’m setting you up again.)
The purpose of his second call was to explain a
long-standing problem with launching Word from
GoldMine. Like most good CRM systems, GoldMine
allows you to create Word templates that embed
fields from the contact’s record to personalize
the document. This lingering problem consisted of
a totally unacceptable delay in Word once all the
fields were embedded. In other words, when they
launch a Word template from GoldMine, it loads
Word and embeds the appropriate fields very
quickly, but then hangs for about two to three
minutes seemingly doing nothing before allowing
the user to do anything. All research to date
pointed to this being a Word problem, but neither
I, the GoldMine vendor, nor the previous IT
consultant had success tracking this down.
When this new “IT Guy” called me, he said it got
to the point where everyone was completely annoyed
with this delay and something needed to be done.
After going through several obvious but failed
solutions (turn off their virus scanner, turn off
their spyware/adware utilities, etc.), he
immediately said he wanted to replace this flawed
CRM system with an Access application he would
write himself and wanted to know how to export out
all the GoldMine data so he can start developing a
replacement system.
Wow! Talk about jumping the gun. I agree that this
can be frustrating for the users, and even though
the problem seemed to be with Word, users are
prone to blame the application they are using,
GoldMine, and not the actual culprit, Word. But to
replace an entire CRM system that is otherwise
working so flawlessly and comprehensively because
of one problem, and with Access, is incredulous.
Since he was a new employee and may not be aware
of the commitment they had with this system we
designed and implemented, I reminded him that his
bosses might not take a liking to the idea of
replacing their worthwhile investment with a
home-grown solution (or nightmare, in this case).
He gave me a lukewarm yet somewhat agreeable
response, but I knew that this system may some day
be destined to his egocentric desire to “put his
own stink on things.” It’s just a matter of time
I’m afraid.
I’m not being negative or skeptical. I just have
seem this happen before. You take a good system
and add a bad manager, executive, “IT Guy”, or
otherwise clueless employee, and poof, it’s gone
in no time. They start fiddling around with things
and since they don’t understand what they have
inherited, they decide to replace it with
something they are familiar with (like an Access
application). Then they leave (or get fired) and
the poor client is left with some spaghetti coded
piece of garbage that no one knows how to support.
Not to mention, their original investment is lost
when this “expert” threw it out like yesterday’s
news.
This client may have hope though. I finally asked
their IT guy to check and see if Word had all the
spell check options turned on. It did, so he
turned most of them off and the whole process ran
immediately and perfectly. Bingo! Problem solved.
I’m glad I wasn’t the “IT Guy.”
The moral of the story is that CRM is a business
solution. First and foremost, it is a business
culture that addresses what is best for your
customer. CRM technology deploys that culture by
allowing users to enter, manipulate and use
information about the clients in order to best
satisfy the clients’ needs. CRM, the culture or
the technology, is not a toy for someone to play
around with and make unilateral decisions about
it’s use, or future. It seems I need to spend a
little quality time with this client’s senior
management to delicately explain, once again, that
if fallen into the wrong hands with no management
supervision, their CRM strategy will be at
jeopardy, which will affect their customer
acquisition and retention plans. This alone has a
bigger affect on their long-term revenue and
success than the lost investment of implementing
their CRM system to begin with.
This scenario of the “IT Guy” trying to make
decisions that affect the company’s customer
relationship plans is also common with companies
who are planning their initial CRM strategy. If IT
is in charge of the CRM implementation and
strategy, then I can almost guarantee that, in
many cases, it will not address the needs of the
customer, the Sales department, Marketing, and
many other stakeholders that should otherwise be
part of the solution. I’m not down on IT. I just
know that CRM strategies need to be a team effort
(see my book “CRM For The Common Man”) and should
not be done by one person or group, in a closet.
Many companies unfortunately put this
responsibility in the hands of the IT department
because they think CRM is just about the
technology and neglect the business strategies
that need to be developed first in order to build
the proper foundation for the technology.
So be careful who you let get their hands on your
CRM system. They may only have their own personal
agenda in mind instead of your entire corporate
strategy.
Good
luck and good selling!
Russ
Lombardo
PEAK
Sales Consulting
russ@peaksalesconsulting.com
(702)
655-5652
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