Customer Relationship Management

This section of our technical library presents information and documentation relating to CRM Applications and Customer relationship management software and products. Providing timely customer contact information is vital to maintaining successful business environment. Accurate information provided in an organized and thoughtful manner is the key to any business success. TELEMATION, our CRM and contact center software, was built on this foundation. The ability to modify your Customer Relationship Management software is just as important in this ever changing business environment. Our customer contact management and CRM call center software was developed initially with this concept. Our Telemation Customer Relationship Management solution and contact center software is ideally suited for call centers throughout the world.

The following article relates to the CRM industry.

What Should We Have Learned?

If we are to break through to a new level of success, then the industry and end users must subscribe to the following best practices:

• 1. Technology is an Enabler
  The industry defines itself in terms of technology but user organizations must approach it as an enabler. Technology driven initiates have a high probability of failure. In the early days of SFA, the limitations of laptop technology became the focus of attention. This became so rampant that a scathing article became popularized titled “It’s not the laptop, Stupid!!” The focus must be on solving business problems and leveraging business opportunities.
• 2. CRM is a Team Sport
  CRM is an enterprise strategy. The concept and strategy commits the organization and departments to interact in new ways. It takes a team effort to succeed. Everyone needs to participate.
• 3. We still Haven’t Got SFA Right
  There are companies that have gone through 4 or 5 iterations of SFA and still not gotten right. It starts with defining the sales process and it ends with helping sales people manage their territories and deliver value to customers. Unequivocally, any other formula will provide marginal results.
• 4. Success is Spelled ROI
  Everyone wants to be successful, but how many initiatives define what success looks like and have corresponding measures to know when they have achieved it? If there is a lack of Back To The Future: A Retrospective and Forward Look at CRM GSP & Associates LLC White Paper 6 definition of success, does an organization have the right to claim that they failed? Think about it? A well articulated business case and ROI establishes a definition of success by also conveys a clear message regarding what’s at stake. How likely is it that management will abandon such a project or not give it top support?
• 5. Senior Management Must Be Engaged and Committed
  There is an old joke regarding the difference between being involved versus committed; it observes that in making a ham and egg breakfast, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. These initiatives represent major organizational change. Despite ambitious claims, there are few truly customer centric organizations. Success requires senior management leadership.