Thousands of marketers registered for our live CRM webinar, sponsored by Sage.
Below are answers from the panellists to a selection of the hundreds of questions you submitted, which we did not have time to address during the live presentation.
B2C v B2B
Should CRM models differ for FMCG differ from B2B?
Mike Bird, head of marketing delivery, VocaLink
CRM vendors want to package up different CRM models to make them easy to sell and deliver. Your CRM model should be less around a label and more about your specific needs. Focus on the specific outcomes you are seeking – in particular, what kind of sales do you want your CRM system to support? Do you sell though personal customer relationships or is your engagement more transactional? What customer information do you need to increase the scale or success rate of these sales? (This is, of course, the critical information which CRM can offer marketing). How do you want to gather, clean, maintain and use this information? Begin here and you won’t go too far wrong.
Social media
How can the information gained from social media such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs be fed into CRM?
David Beard, pre-sales manager, Sage
A person’s social profile information could reveal interests such as sports or hobbies which could help to build a more “personal insight” to a contact. Assuming of course this information is held in the public domain, it could broaden the picture of a contact. Care in use of this information is advised, of course. Where people ask for information within a tweet or LinkedIn post (for example, “Can someone advise me about a good CRM system for a manufacturing company”), then this could feed a lead within a CRM system.
Mike Bird, head of marketing delivery, VocaLink
Most vendors will promise to offer social media integration with their packages. I believe, however, that the jury is still out about how organisations can best use such data. For many organisations, the most pressing social media need is for managing reputational risk, rather than creating a positive return on investment (ROI). The value of CRM per se to help with this issue is, I believe, limited at best. I would be surprised to find many current examples of bringing meaningful social media information into CRM is worth the hassle or cost.
Simon Butt, head of marketing, FC Business Intelligence
It depends on how you want to use that data. The simplest way is to build in RSS feeds direct from the social media platform so that anyone talking to the prospect can reference what they are blogging or tweeting. I’m not aware of any specific tools that allow you to incorporate this into your behaviour tracking, lead nurturing and segmentation process (surely this would be the social media ROI-calculating Holy Grail) but there are marketing packages available that might get you part of the way there.
Data management
Is there a minimum database size you’d recommend companies have before considering implementing a business-wide CRM system?
David Beard, pre-sales manager, Sage
Any business (from one person up) that has a need to retain and leverage information about customers needs a CRM system.
Mike Bird, head of marketing delivery, VocaLink
No. The value of CRM is dependent on how you want to use it to improve market presence, brand and (ultimately) sales. For example, if you only have a small roster of high-value customers, you need to record and manage deep information about each customer. Your case for CRM could therefore be as strong or stronger than that of an organisation that sells transactionally to thousands of customers.
Simon Butt, head of marketing, FC Business Intelligence
I’m not going to suggest a number, but I would ask the question, “Do my existing processes support my current business now – and will they help me grow in the future?” The answer will determine whether you’re ready to invest in a more complex system.
How should data gathered by CRM best be kept up to date and cleaned? How do you ensure that all staff input the necessary data to the system?
David Beard, pre-sales manager, Sage
On the first question, although every company’s data cleansing needs can be different, a process that ensures a regular review of the appropriate active records is recommended. If, for example, a quarterly call is deemed the appropriate contact cycle, together with questions such as, “Is Mr Jones still with you”, will ensure that the data is correct and current. For the second question, a combination of the “right” number of mandatory fields, together with an efficient process for getting all the necessary data when engaging with a customer (such as, “Yes, we can place that order for you, once I have a few more details”) will get the necessary data into the system.
Mike Bird, head of marketing delivery, VocaLink
Data gathering and management will determine your CRM implementation success. The best path to clean customer data is to have the customer manage their data themselves (one of the great benefits of having a strong online channel). As for your staff, everyone who contacts the customer needs to update the system immediately and accurately as needed. Getting this right takes as much effort and thought again as implementing the system itself – and training is only a tiny part of the answer. Some key questions to consider: What triggers exist for people to know that now is when they need to enter the data? How have you made entering the right data as easy as possible? What have you done to make it hard to make a mistake? How are you paying attention to data quality? How are you feeding this back to the people who are doing it?
Simon Butt, head of marketing, FC Business Intelligence
First you need to have a grasp of what “clean” data is. It’s more than just removing duplicate e-mail addresses. It could include data suppression, multiple prospect accounts with different e-mail addresses, bounces (hard and soft), or removal of records where a contact hasn’t interacted for a period of time. There are tools that can help with some of this, other elements are manual.
Try to automate as many processes as possible, but where staff input is required, make sure it’s simple and not onerous, and just part of their job.
Finally, make sure someone is responsible for delivering clean data as a strategy – and ensure they build in checks to measure how effective this is.
What tips do you have for measuring, understanding and addressing attrition?
Simon Butt, head of marketing, FC Business Intelligence
This is part of the “data cleanse” issue raised above. In B2B, it’s just a fact of life that people move around from job to job quite rapidly – so attrition is high. Track and measure when people interact with you, and try to re-qualify those who haven’t interacted for a while. Make sure you have an audit every six months, and don’t be afraid of removing prospects who can’t be re-qualified.
Segmentation
Once your CRM system is gathering data, which criteria should be used in segmentation – is geography important, for example, or does this vary depending on your business aims?
David Beard, pre-sales manager, Sage
This very much depends on your business’s strategy for addressing customers – should it be linked to socio-economic factors or perhaps aligned to your own internal territory management are but two examples.
Mike Bird, head of marketing delivery, VocaLink
My thoughts are that this question is putting the cart before the horse. The place to begin, I think, is with the segmentation, targeting and positioning which you need, then think about the data that you want your CRM system to record. If your thinking on these elements is vague, uncertain or incorrect, CRM will only make things worse.
Technology
What is cloud-based CRM?
David Beard, pre-sales manager, Sage
This is where the CRM solution is delivered to your business from some infrastructure other than your own, typically using the internet. This is usually purchased in a “per user, per time period” fashion.
Mike Bird, head of marketing delivery, VocaLink
Originally, CRM systems required that an organisation install, manage and maintain a substantial customer database and the software to manage it, and do so across the organisation. Often, installing such systems could be likened to a undertaking a corporate root canal. The time to implement was months or years, the cost ran to millions or tens of millions of pounds and organisations often employed teams of consultants both to customise the system and manage the “change programme”. Now a number of vendors offer to run CRM on their own hosted systems. Their clients access their customer data across the internet (in “the cloud”) through a web browser: no installation, little training and quick implementation. Provided an organisation can overcome concerns about (typically) hosting customer data offsite, security and network performance, then such cloud-based CRM can be very attractive, especially when compared with the historical alternative.
Simon Butt, head of marketing, FC Business Intelligence
A CRM system hosted in the “cloud” (internet), as opposed to an on-premises installation. There are pros and cons for both – although I’ll put my money on cloud winning in the end.
Implementation
How can you overcome psychological resistance from sales teams, who may perceive a CRM system as swallowing up an aspect of their role?
David Beard, pre-sales manager, Sage
In the same way that computers help people be more efficient for things such as writing letters, CRM systems help manage the logistics of keeping customer data organised and easy to find, managing call-backs and more. Sales teams should understand that CRM makes them more efficient, thus freeing them up to “do more of what they are good at”.
Mike Bird, head of marketing delivery, VocaLink
In my experience, the biggest sales team concern tends to be less to do with CRM swallowing up part of their role and more to do with the ways in which CRM requires them to capture customer data in standard ways straight after a contact. Some resent the discipline required, some resent the fact that CRM is different from that which they are used to – and many are put off by how CRM makes all their sales activity visible. I have seen organisations handle this in a combination of ways. First, do everything possible for sales people to make it easy to use the CRM system. Second, use CRM data as your primary tool for sales team performance management – if a sales team realises that their CRM accuracy determines their commission, then the data gets much better! Third, pay attention to data quality and accuracy. This last point, alas, is the hardest of all.
Simon Butt, head of marketing, FC Business Intelligence
Like any cultural change, it can be slow and painful. The key is to include some “sales champions” in the design and implementation process so they don’t feel it’s a system that’s forced on them. Then it’s all about “What’s in it for me?”. Focus on the positives about how the system and strategy can make their lives easier (such as by helping them spot hotter leads) and underline that it’s all about helping them make more sales and therefore more money. Finally, ensure you train the sales team so that they know how to use the system correctly.
How should you decide which staff take responsibility for different aspects of the customer journey in the CRM system?
David Beard, pre-sales manager, Sage
This very much depends on the business within you are operating and the sorts of personality types involved on the project. Where a CRM project has a focus on customer service for, say, the first phase, then engaging the help of customer focussed individuals can help scope the way the system should be implemented for best effect. Perhaps if there is focus on metrics, someone who is currently charged with producing reports should be engaged to help shape the outcome.
Simon Butt, head of marketing, FC Business Intelligence
As part of your CRM system implementation and review, look at the working processes across the company and try to get an understanding of where you’re going to create efficiencies, and where certain departments are going to interact with customer data. Then talk to the department heads accordingly. Make sure that each department has the opportunity to give their feedback on the project, even if their ideas are not implemented. On a broader scale, try to help everyone understand that there’s a joint responsibility and that good data is beneficial for the whole company.
Would you recommend using specialist consultants to help manage the implementation of CRM software on an ongoing basis after it’s been set up?
David Beard, pre-sales manager, Sage
Yes, as CRM is not just a one-off task. The role the CRM system takes on after a few years can often – and should – evolve to be very different and, like a living creature, should be looked after.
Simon Butt, head of marketing, FC Business Intelligence
There’s no single answer. It depends on whether you’ve gone down the cloud route or on-premises, the complexity of your implementation and what other systems and tools the CRM system integrates with, as well as the staff experience you have on site, and your development plans for the future. It certainly makes sense to have some back up for the first couple of months (these systems tend to become synonymous with your ability to conduct business and if they’re down then it could have serious repercussions.
Development-wise, I would certainly allow a six-month period for your system to bed in.
It’s worth performing an annual review to ask the question “Does this system support my current business now and will it help me grow in the future?” (my business mantra!).
Further resources
Here are some links to a selection of articles on CRM from The Marketer:
Advice on selecting CRM software:
http://www.themarketer.co.uk/articles/professional-development/masterclass/how-to-choose-and-use-crm-software/
Find out why CRM strategy is crucial to your marketing operation:
http://www.themarketer.co.uk/trends/customer-service-is-the-new-marketing/
Learn more about retaining high-yield customers:
http://www.themarketer.co.uk/articles/features/no-time-wasters/
TM's exclusive interview with Martha Rogers, the woman who coined the term "customer relationship management"
http://www.themarketer.co.uk/articles/interviews/qa-interviews/martharogers/
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