Is CRM a Culture or a Software?

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I’m frequently asked for my opinion on the best CRM tool for small business owners. My answer, while perhaps not the one you want to hear, is the same I give for many resources. The best CRM tool is the one you and your staff will actually adopt and adapt to achieve better sales results and automation. (Properly applied, 3 x 5 notecards may make the most sense for some firms.)

Here’s a list of some of the better known CRM options:
Salesforce.com
SageCRM.com
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
NetSuite
SugarCRM
Zoho
ACT – really more of contact manager but the right answer for some

Now the question is, which one is right for you. The answer may be held somewhere in first taking a good hard look at how systematically you approach sales training, lead generation, lead conversion, marketing automation, customer follow-up and intentional customer service. If none of these are part of your company’s culture today don’t expect a piece of out of the box/web software to magically bring them to you. Each CRM solution has little quirks and features that may make it the right one for you depending upon your industry or business structure, but that’s just the details.

CRM starts with a strategic approach to marketing, a strategic approach to selling and a strategic approach to maximizing customer relationships. Nail those things and pretty much any of the major CRM tools can be customized to make it happen. Too many people waste lots of time and money trying to apply technology to fix a problem caused by a lack of business strategy.

One final point on this one. Get help from the vendor you choose to make sure that you get proper training, integration and customization of the CRM tool you choose. CRM software/service takes work to fuse with your sales culture.

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Posted by: John Jantsch on Sep 25, 06 | 4:04 pm
Category: CRM | Tags:

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Dharmesh Shah

Part of the challenge of most existing CRM systems (particularly from a small business perspective) is that they are really designed to count/track customers.

In today's world, customers want to manage their relationship with the small business (and not be managed).

Most of the CRM tools today (including the ones you've listed) are based on the same old concepts (keeping a database of customers and interactions with them). None of them really help foster the customer relationship and let the customer dictate how they want to do business with you.

John Jantsch

Dharmesh,

I agree - so, tell us more - how does one foster customer relationships and let the customer dictate (not sure about that word) how they want to do business with you.

Jon Speer

I helped implement SugarCRM in a previous job. It's a free, open source tool that is pretty easy to modify. I liked it so much that I'm using SugarCRM for my personal entrepreneurial adventures. The manual is pretty good too.

Dharmesh Shah

John:

There was some talk about creating "CMR" systems (Customer Managed Relationships) vs. CRM.

Some quick thoughts on this:

1. Customers should more easily have access to the information they need about your offering. This includes being able to talk to other customers. This can be done via blogs (written by more than the CEO or marketing person), forums, etc. Customers shouldn't have to talk to sales people as their primary vehicle for learning about the offering.

2. Most CRM systems today are designed for salespeople (not the customer). In fact, it is still unclear to me how a CRM system (like Salesforce.com) actually helps manage the relationship. The way I have seen it used is a database to track customers and generate reports for the VP of sales.

So, as a customer, here is what I would want want from a CMR system:

1. The ability to learn what I need to about the company and offering at my own pace.

2. The ability to ask questions and "engage" various types of people (not just the sales people). This would include employees, customers, etc. One simple way to do this is via blog comments.

3. I want the ability to "stay connected" with the company in ways that are convenient for me. This could be a newsletter, blog, etc.

John Jantsch

Dharmesh,

Great comments - I guess that goes a little back to my original thought. Only a very customer focused organization and culture could pull of the CMR you talk about. Although I bet there are examples of companies doing it now, even if they don't call it such.

Tony Valle

John,

Great post. I think it's all too common for business owners to throw software (and money) at a problem without getting at the real root cause. I've learned this lesson the hard way several times.

Step one in any software manual should read:

"Look yourself in the mirror and figure out why you purchased this software in the first place. Fix that problem first. Then come back and learn how to use our system."

Incidentally, I use Zoho CRM and am quite happy with it. But as you've stated so well, that's really not the main point.

Tony

Architected Information

<trackback>Architecture is Culture
Duct Tape Marketing has an article with an incredibly insightful title, “Is CRM a Culture or a Software?”. In his posting, John opines that:
CRM starts with a strategic approach to marketing, a strategic approach to selling and a strategic...</trackback>

Rob Levin

To try to answer the question, I have had 2 CRM experiences that I can refer to. 1) Running a company with 40 tele-salespeople. We purchased ACT and PCs for everyone (this was 5 years ago) and had my IT person implement and "train" the sales staff. We wrote off the $30K investment in 1 week.

2) My existing company... I purchased a CRM system when it was just me selling (we now have 4 users on the system). I bought the system from a reseller because I knew the reseller could help me create a sales system around the CRM program. In other words, we took our "loose" culture and system and modified/improved it around the CRM system.

So I think the bottom line is, if implemented properly, CRM can help you develop a system (and culture) and stick with it.

Philippe Mesritz

I'd like to suggest TMS as a CRM as well, although this is a bit more tailored to those companies that do telemarketing and mid-level sales efforts. The system is a lot more powerful in terms of process management and tracking than most of the other CRMs out there.

Marketing and Sales

<trackback>CRM Tools
John Jantsch, from the well known “Duct Tape Marketing Blog“, writes about a list of CRMs that are well known including Sugar, Sage, Salesforce and others. The product that we use in house is TMS — a CRM that’s more targetted t...</trackback>

R.Sriram

Zoho has announced the integration of WebEx with its ZohoCrm service. Have a look at the blogpost at http://blogs.zoho.com/crm/zoho-partners-with-we...

» CRM is more than a Sof

<pingback>...customization work done? Ask Your Web AddiCT(s); Read more about CRM Culture/Software ...</pingback>

Your Group of Web AddiCT(s);

<trackback>CRM is more than a Software, it is a Culture.
Miguel & I built a basic CRM from the ground up last year, I initially though that it was great AJAX/Web 2.0 experience as we were just getting our feet wet but something else we learnt during the development process was much more important, we le...</trackback>

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