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Avoiding CRM's
Common Pitfalls - Part 2
(part 1 of this
series can be found in Issue #6 linked below)
In the
previous edition of our newsletter we introduced the series on
"Avoiding CRM's Common Pitfalls", and we explored the first
pitfall which is that of CRM being "Viewed as a technical, not a
business problem". In this edition we will review the next 2
pitfalls, and strategies that you can use to ensure the success of
your CRM initiative.
Driven from the top down:
Often CRM programs are driven from the top down. Senior management
wants reporting on sales, the pipeline, forecast, etc. And, CRM is
“sold as” the answer. CRM “can be” the answer provided other
things are in place first. For example, in order to generate the
information desired by senior management, your sales team needs to
input quality information into the system. Typically, when users
are asked to put more into a system than the benefits they receive
results in a low adoption rate. Sure, you will get data entered
into the system. However, over time you will discover that the
integrity isn’t there as your sales team continues to follow their
“tried and true” ways of developing and closing business. Human
nature will prevail, and you will find your users doing the
minimal required to show their “attempts at using a less than
adequate system”.
STRATEGY: During the initial phases of
your CRM initiative ensure that you “consider” the requirements
of senior management, and meet the requirements of your
front-line personnel. Management reporting will come, but ONLY
after your customer-facing personnel are receiving value from
the system. It has been said that users need to obtain 3 units
of benefit from a system, for 1 unit of work that they put in to
a system. If you don’t acknowledge this, your CRM initiative
will struggle getting off the ground.
Lack
of senior management involvement:
While CRM initiatives shouldn’t be driven “just” from the top
down, as discussed above, senior management involvement is
absolutely critical. Without senior management involvement,
accountability for ROI (return on investment) will be non-existent
and the program will experience scope creep as “everyone” tries to
get their requirements in. With scope creep comes cost overruns
and implementation delays. Both of these can be avoided.
STRATEGY: Ensure senior management
involvement in your CRM program, to include:
-
Prioritizing high-level requirements.
Your senior managers need to make the “tough” decisions about
what will “go”, what will wait until a subsequent phase and
what will not occur at all.
-
Placing accountability for the program's success on the
shoulders of the senior manager(s) that are “signing up” to
meet the numbers (increased revenue, operational efficiencies,
customer satisfaction, etc.) that make up the ROI of your CRM
initiative. At the end of the day, these senior managers are
accountable for the success of your company's CRM initiative:
no-one else! In our next edition we will discuss additional
strategies for senior managers to remain involved for CRM
success.
In summary, there are 6 common pitfalls of CRM that we are
covering in this series:
-
Viewed as a technical, not a business,
problem
-
Driven from the top down
-
Lack of senior management involvement
-
Not targeting the areas of highest
adoption
-
Driven by the IT organization vs. business
leaders accountable for the numbers
-
Trying to do too much at once
The next edition will cover items 4 & 5 in our list (above).
Previous Issues
in this series:
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Bill Tobin’s Top
10 List For Help Desk Managers During This Holiday Season
As the holiday
season is upon us, contact centers supporting the retail industry
lead the way in watching their incoming call volumes skyrocket. At
the same time, the incoming requests and problems reported to
contact centers in other industries may tend to slide downward. In
the case of an IT Help Desk, their corporate customers/fellow
employees (Human Resources, Finance, Marketing, etc.) have begun
to utilize accumulated vacation time in order to complete gift
shopping, attend holiday functions and spend some much-anticipated
time with family and friends. One of the most difficult tasks for
a Help Desk Manager is staffing during these potentially quiet
times. The key word here is potential, as a Help Desk Manager must
always staff for the unexpected. If you have a salesperson
delivering a proposal to a key prospect and she cannot access her
PowerPoint Presentation on the corporate network, you'd better
have someone available to assist her, 24x7x365 days, if that is
your service availability.
If you’re one of
those Help Desk Managers that has a chance to step back and take a
breath during the period between Thanksgiving and New Years, what
do you have your analysts do when the incoming calls decline? How
do you make sure your people don't become bored and watch the
clock tick?
Bingo! This is
the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the reduced call
volumes by assigning, or better still asking for volunteers, for
some value-added tasks. The tasks you choose must be challenging
and their value easily recognizable, not the mundane, time-fillers
that the analysts may have witnessed in their past. This is a
great opportunity to have your analysts pair off in teams and
commit to a common deliverable. The ultimate benefit is that the
chosen deliverables will keep their minds focused and their
self-esteem high during slow times. The one gotcha you must look
out for is not to try to change the world in six weeks. The goal
is to enhance your help desk’s people, process and technology
through a handful of short-term improvements, not to assign so
many deliverables that your people/teams don’t succeed.
Here are my Top
Ten suggestions to assist you in the coming weeks:
- Assess the
quality of your job descriptions and make appropriate edits
based on the past year’s responsibilities.
- Create a
new-hire boot camp agenda, defining the daily technical and soft
skill training requirements for new frontline employees, prior
to promoting them to taking live calls.
- Create analyst
incentive programs for 2003. It doesn’t have to be costly, but
it does have to be effective, and fun!
- If you do not
yet have an Operational Guide documenting your workflow
processes, service level agreements and troubleshooting
techniques, why not get the ball rolling. If you have one
already that is a little outdated, what better time to bring
your documents up-to-date.
- Create an
operational escalation matrix, containing tier 1 and tier 2
contacts for each specific functional area supporting the help
desk. Include a column for managerial responsibilities for each
of those functional areas.
- Create or
update your help desk marketing card, an important vehicle for
informing your customers who you are, how to contact you, when
you’re available and what services you provide. Distribute it on
a glossy card, which can be posted in their personal work area.
- Perform
workspace housecleaning; not just in your cubicles, but also in
the overall help desk area. Pick up clutter around the fax and
printer, rearrange clogged aisles, play musical cubes and let
your analysts get a new physical view and perspective for 2003.
- Evaluate your
call management system’s categories and sub-categories, by
running a six-month query, sorted by those two fields. Eliminate
those categories seldom or never used and add new ones that will
help with your trend analysis.
- Are you using
standard solutions or closure codes in your call management
system? If so, run a “Closed Incident Summary Report” for the
past six months sorted by closure code. Make adjustments
eliminating those not used and adding new codes where
appropriate.
- Give the
support area on your corporate web-site a facelift. Start by
taking thirty minutes at your next staff meeting and bring it up
for all to see. Brainstorm improvements for twenty minutes and
then look for a couple of volunteers to take the suggestions and
run with them.
In summary:
- As a team,
identify the areas you want to improve
- Ask for
volunteers, or assign to teams of 2-3 people
- Have each team
report on their progress at each week’s staff meeting
- Provide
feedback and guidance
- Have the
entire team approve the enhancements
- Document the
changes and implement
- Have a super
holiday season and be thankful for the wonderful people you work
with!!
If you have any
questions or would like a sounding board with feedback for an
idea, don’t hesitate to contact Bill Tobin at (617) 909-6682 or
via email at the following address:
billtobin@comcast.net
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