My grand daughter was over for the July 4th holiday and she wanted to build a tent. This is where you gather up some chairs, blankets, pillows and some of your favorite things to create you own little world. I suspect some of you have had a similar experience yourselves or with your children. While watching here I thought of a few relationships between the couch tent building process and our business CRM design professional services. Similarities observed were:
Step 1: Create a foundation that will support your desired outcome
This is where planning for the desired outcome and scope is important. If you are building a couch tent you probably need some larger chairs as pillars. The process of arranging the chairs and there blankets create the outline for your enjoyment. Similarly, if you are building a CRM system for long term business success there are core pillars of business philosophy that must be in place and supported throughout the organization. While the scope of a coach tent is only for immediate comfort for a few hours, a CRM system designed for your business will have components that will be put in place over time – a phased approach works best. CRM foundation design starts here.
With the tent design you can easily move things around to get the desired effect. This is similar to working with your CRM business partner and laying out the business processes, the data input forms and working with the pilot team to work out the best solutions.
Step 2: Consider a comfortable environment that is productive
Designing your ideal working environment needs to consider comfort so those involved feel productive. In the coach tent design, a pillow and friendly associates are to be considered. If you can also see outside and watch TV, even better. Hiding from your brother and mom may be important. In the business world for CRM design the various stakeholders, those involved in using and making decisions with CRM, need to be involved throughout the design. If executive management likes the management reporting but the sales people hate the time and effort for data entry then business success with CRM will not be possible. Seriously consider how the sales team can become more sales enabled with CRM and not burdened. Review the user adoptions, here. Obtain feedback from the CRM pilot team as they work through operational issues so engagement and productivity will be possible.
Step 3: Consider the ultimate customers. What is the welcome experience.
The purpose of business is to create customers. Retaining and developing stronger customer relationships is also part of CRM design. Does your CRM design consider your customers perspective. What will the customers initial and final experience be when they contact your business. Are they welcomed by your sales team and feel like they are valued? Can your sales support team and customer service reps quickly view the caller’s past conversations with people in your company? Can they connect with the caller quickly simply by reading a few summary notes? When an issue is reported does the customer feel like they were understood and thus emailed summary notes of the support conversation and the status of next steps? Make sure you consider the customer’s experience in your CRM system design.
Smart and effective CRM design supports and enables your strategic business development to be achieved more completely.
Our tailor-made solutions and About Us can help you determine if our Sage ACT or Sage SalesLogix CRM solutions can be of help. Feel free to give Dick or Julie a call: 269-445-3001.
P.S. The little girl and couch tent builder is Julie’s daughter.
