Category Archives: Qualitative information to capture context and background

We agree with the researches who state that over 90% of the most important information in an organization is qualitative, implicit, explanatory, contextual (rather than merely numerical or statistical, quantitative or explicit). This is a critical tenet of our work with voice-based reporting because through voice and phone a person can “work out” the details of an event, work them out in his/her mind while speaking them, and can present a meaningful background and context for the information for maximum understanding and proper action. Feelings, perceptions, insights, impressions, ‘gut’ feelings, emotional reactions – these are the stuff of qualitative knowledge.

Why did he laugh when he saw the product?” CRM Numbers versus Words

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So, what does a number 4 on a customer survey tell us?  It depends on what we want to know.  What does a number 4 punched into an iPad or Tablet on a sales report form tell us?  It depends on what we want to know. 

The entire IT digital platform of CRM solutions today are numbers based, digital, and they are able to process a very limited and narrow part of the data available – some researches place the amount processed by digital solutions today at about 10% or less.  Is less than 10% of the available customer relationship information sufficient?  Is that enough?  Is that all we want to know?

Over 90% of the available information out there in the customer relationship world is explanatory, requiring words, sentences, paragraphs, and explanation.  The reality is that most of the most well-known CRM systems can’t handle “messy” human explanatory information – the 90%.  What if this is exactly the human information that we want to know?  What happens if this information is not available to management in today’s CRM systems?

IN RESPONSE TO THIS VOID, THE VOICE-BASED CRM DATA ENTRY INDUSTRY HAS COME INTO EXISTENCE!  VOICE-BASED CRM HANDLES THE ‘MESSY’ 90%!

Voice-based CRM systems can accept voice-based explanatory information and can prepare it and convert it to digital and enter it into existing IT-based CRM databases for management use.

Now, back to the title of this article: “Why did he laugh when he saw the product?”

The manufacturer sales rep posed this question after a sales meeting with a top customer.  This is the situation, the background, the context, the explanatory information, the words, sentences, and paragraphs of the 90% that CRM digital systems cannot process and give to management:

“I showed Ron the 75th anniversary shovel, at which he kind of smiled kindly and shrugged his shoulder.”

What’s going on here?  Why did the customer react this way?

What rating, in a numbers world, from what you know so far, would Ron (the customer) give the product (on a 1-10 scale with 10 high) – a 10?  No clearly not.  A 6?  Perhaps.  A 4?  Probably.

What does a number tell us, after all?  Okay, let’s say he gave it a 4, which might be defined on the computer scoring screen as “marginally satisfied.”

Now, what do we know?  Ron is “marginally satisfied” with our shovel – I wonder what that means.  What was he thinking when he “smiled and shrugged his shoulder” upon seeing the shovel?  Why did he smile at all?  What kind of a smile was it?  Why did he shrug his shoulder at all?  What kind of shrug was it?  What do these things mean?

Are the smile and shrug positive communications of body language or are they negative?  Are they “fatherly” and “kindly” or “sarcastic” and “condemning”?

“… he kind of smiled kindly.”  What does “kind of” mean?  How does that help management understand anything about the product, price, competition, selling situation – anything?

We could go on and on with this guessing as to what Ron was thinking, feeling, and wanting to communicate with his smile and shrug.

MAYBE WE COULD ASK HIM TO EXPLAIN HIS REACTION TO US!  NOW THERE’S SOMETHING ORIGINAL.  ASK HIM TO TALK TO US.  TO EXPLAIN HIMSELF.

Only the sales rep out in the field, sitting in front of Ron, can hear and learn and understand Ron’s response.  Only if the sales reps is able to report what he learns in an open cRM voice-based dictation system is management in anyway to learn about it through their CRM system.

CRM data systems based on numbers, that leave little or no place for sales reps to enter voice-based information at length, leave out much of the most important and valuable information available in the customer relationship.

Ron might say, “Well, a new shovel, an ‘anniversary’ shovel at that.  That’s an interesting thing for your company to do right now.  I’m surprised and mildly impressed but concerned.  That is because around here, just recently, we’ve had two equipment manufacturers close their doors [CUT!  that's 250 characters, the limit of most CRM systems for words].  They were shovel makers, among other things, and their leaving has really hurt our local economy.  I think if you play this right, your new shovel might find an accepting audience just to spite the two that went out of business.  People are really quite upset.  So, I’m smiling because of the irony of the situation, of your bringing it out now and calling it an ‘anniversary’ product; and I’m shrugging because, in my experience living here now for over 40 years, I am afraid that your new shovel isn’t going to be very well accepted here at first.  Maybe if you are patient, you can eventually have the entire market here.  I really like you.  You are young and eager and remind me of many of the young people who used to work around here.  I think you are going to have to slow down, be more patient, wait for the people here to think about your shovel and come to terms with it.  If you play this right, perhaps you can have good business here.  Let me tell you how I think you should play this out….” 

“Number 4 marginally satisfied” – numbers are okay, 250 characters and words are okay, a lot of words are okay – it just depends on what you want to know.  A voice-based CRM data entry system enables the processing of ALL of the words into the CRM system.  If management wants background, context, and explanation, only a Voice-Based CRM Data Entry system can deliver it to them!

Put ‘VOICE-BASED CRM” into your browser and check it out.

Three Essential CRM Knowledge Categories

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“In chess, as in everything else, we tend to give the most attention to whatever is in the middle of our line of sight.  But the chess grandmaster understands very well that the crucial piece might not be in the center of his line of sight.  He considers every piece on every square of the chess board, to make sure that not a single one escapes his notice”  (Slywotzsky, 1999).

So, of all of the information presented to us in a customer relationship environment (CRM), what does the seasoned (grandmaster) organization look for – in all directions?

After we consider all of the knowledge, the facts, details, observations, names, and everything else, that is flooding into CRM databases and demanding attention, we argue that there are only three basic categories of information essential to “customer relationship management.”  All of the rest of it is interesting for enterprise management, but only three knowledge categories are important enough for senior management to track strategically and carefully.

The three knowledge categories are Product, Pricing, and Competition. 

All other knowledge categories related to customer relationship management can be subsumed into one of these three categories of knowledge.  Let’s consider:

Product

Anything to do with planning, design, testing, fabrication, production, packaging, distribution, shipping, performance onsite, evaluation, repair/parts, customer reaction, or anything else connected with the lifecycle of the product are the subjects that all subsume under this Product heading.  Thus, the CRM system should be set-up to flag or channel or direct any of these Product categories into one database section.  Management should consider this category of knowledge as one focus area, with all of the pieces interacting, to understand the momentum and opportunity of the products in the marketplace.

Of most importance is that the sales reps out on the road look specifically, but everywhere, for product-oriented issues with the customer, in the customer environment.  What do they buy, why are they buying it, for how long, how it is working, what about service, who are our champions?  These sorts of information should be watched for with a keen eye, articulated quickly and completely back into the CRM database system, and analyzed carefully by senior management.

The strategic intelligence embedded in this knowledge base is invaluable for correct understanding, proper analysis and decision making, and forceful confident action.

Pricing

Interesting how much of the information flowing into the CRM system has to do with pricing and how many senior managers are connected to pricing knowledge.  Why do we price the products as we do?  What are all of the discounting and promotional pricing principles and objectives?  How is the customer reacting to price?  How are price increases tolerated?  What can we do internally or externally to affect price up or down?  Why are our selling/revenue goals set as they are?  What return on investment do we expect from our decisions/implementations?  Why do we maintain cost levels as we do?

Many of the most important decisions in an organization have to do with the monetary value of the work of the company.  So much of what is important to the success of the company has to do with pricing issues.

Again, repeating a paragraph from above, the strategic intelligence embedded in this Pricing knowledge base is invaluable for correct understanding, proper analysis and decision making, and forceful confident action.

Competition

An incredible array of organizational issues can be subsumed under this knowledge category.  The action in the marketplace, the industry space, the actions of competitors and of partners, the decisions of customers, the specifications and competitive purchasing/buying rules and regulations, the competitor products and their features and benefits.

Who is beating us?  Why/How?  In what markets, with what customers?  What are the competitive differentiators of their products or services?  What are our customers saying about the competitive situation?  What obstacles are we having to overcome to sell against our best competitors?  How big is the market and what share do we own?

Surrounding this knowledge category are many subcategories of pertinent information concerning competition that is critical for management understanding, decision making, and action.

So, what does a wise and experienced senior management staff look for with their CRM system?  The entire field of strategic intelligence (looking at the entire chess board), with specific patterning of that information into three decisive and penetrating focus areas:  Product, Pricing, and Competition.

A CRM sales force reporting system that could bring all information on these three knowledge categories together into analytics that make general sense of the information and present that sense to management on a simple and quick to read dashboard, minute-by-minute up to date with current, accurate, and complete knowledge is of incalculable value. 

CRM and the ‘Cost of Not Knowing’ (“CONK”)

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The promise of CRM is knowing what is going on with the customer, competition, and industry marketplace for proper understanding, decision making, and action.

We buy CRM software and pay the heavy expense of implementing it because we believe that the management of knowledge is critical to organization success.  We believe that the organization is more capable of competing when our decisions and actions are based on good knowledge from the customer environment.

Because the knowledge we seek with CRM is that most directly related with customer needs and satisfaction, the group of people of most importance is the one most directly connected to this knowledge, and that is the sale team.  The sales reps are the point of contact with customer decision makers, and, if the CRM system is to work, the information related to those contacts must be fed into the CRM system continuously for management understanding, decision making, and proper action.

We buy CRM because we need to know what is going on out there!  We spend the money to train and equip the ‘point of contact’ sales team to find and deliver that knowledge back into the organization.  Thus, that knowledge is expensive to gather and make available, certainly, with the cost of the CRM software, the training, the organizational changes, the monitoring, and the motivation.  Certainly, proper CRM implementation is a significant cost in the treasure of the organization.

However, what is the ‘CONK’ or the cost of not knowing?  What if we are NOT getting the information we planned and worked for?  What if the sales reps won’t use it or won’t use it to deliver explanatory information?

What is the cost of not knowing that your competitor reps are into your major account and doing audits and offering information for their products or services as opposed to yours?  How long will that ignorance go on before you find yourself shown to the door?

What is the cost of not knowing that your pricing is too high in the competitive marketplace, and that it is causing your customers to “shop around” for alternative sources?  How long before your ignorance allows a significant loss?

What is the cost of not knowing that your product has features that the customers find limiting or constraining, such that bad feelings are developing towards your company that are going to be easy for the competition to capitalize on and move you out of the business?  How long before you are way behind the curve and cannot catch up?

What is the cost of not knowing that there is a pattern of activity developing in your industry that changes the way businesses manage their projects, such that the bidding and contracting processes are changing to privilege or benefit competitor companies? How long before your company finds itself “outside” of the flow of the competitive market?

What is the cost of not knowing that one of the senior people in your major customer organization finds your product or service defective and poorly designed and is angrily going about in the company and among his golfing and tennis associates bad mouthing your company and your products?  How long can you survive this going on?

What is the cost of not knowing….?  What is the cost when the expensive CRM system isn’t producing the critical information from the field that you need?

Interestingly enough, CRM with voice-based data entry, that makes it easy and intuitive for sales reps to report their sales meeting information quickly and easily, is the least expensive element in the CRM cost.   This is because it involves only the mouth and the phone.  CRM based on voice-based data entry has the potential to gather ALL of the critical explanatory information from the customer environment and feed it immediately into the CRM databases.  What is the cost of current, complete, and accurate information flowing into the CRM system from the customer environment?  What are you already paying for your sales team?  They already know how to make your CRM investment pay off with the information you need.  They speak on the phone constantly. 

The cost of the most important piece of your CRM investment, sales rep usage through a voice-based data entry tool, surprisingly, is the lowest of all, yet it provides the most valuable ingredient for CRM success for the organization.

(CEM) Customer Experience Management: Use Voice for ‘CEM Conversations’

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“2011 was a big year for customer experience management (CEM)….  CEM incorporates many channels, for example social CRM, which offers the means to understand where, what and which conversations are happening, and how to engage in conversation. Social CRM can be used for engaging internally within a sales team, as well as externally with the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment.” (Steve Fearon, Oracle: “The evolution of CRM to customer experience management is happening, January 26, 2012″)

“ENGAGING IN CONVERSATIONS” is the key to social CRM and the new Customer Experience Management approaches to “providing mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment.

CONVERSATIONS! 

Conversations are people talking to each other, communicating, explaining, sharing, and collaborating.  All human exchanges require the use of “voice,” which is word and sentence and paragraph based, whether that voice is spoken or texted.  And the easiest and most satisfying conversations, especially of any length, are communication by voice – people talking to each other.

Voice-based CRM data entry using human transcription, rather than speech-to-text software, opens the space for speakers to explain the background and context of the information, to phrase and rephrase the explanations to get them right, and to relate the information personally to the listener/receiver.  Speaking is natural, intuitive, and powerful, and a phone-device makes speaking fast and effective.

Voice is the most effective communication vehicle between and among sales team members, sales reps and their customers, among customers, and among management groups in the various organizations.  Conversations, talking, explaining, asking and answering questions, clarifying positions, expressing thanks or concerns, etc.  People explaining, sharing, responding.  CONVERSATIONS!

The best voice-based CRM data entry systems are simple and very effective.  Just dial a number, enter a secure ID or PIN number, enter an open dictation environment, and speak in the information.  The voice-based CRM systems that promise accuracy and freedom from extended editing then use human transcriptionists (native English language speakers and U.S. citizens) to transcribe the audio message, and sync it automatically into the CRM fields and onto executive dashboards.

Social interaction, as CONVERESATION, is not about numbers, statistics, or jots or tweets or notes.  Social interaction is about CONVERSATIONS that involve exchanges of explanatory information through sentences and paragragphs among the parties, with explanations, examples, stories, questions, answers, and all other kinds of social interactions.

Steve Fearson with Oracle continues, “A successful social CRM strategy for sales requires much more than access to social information about prospects. It requires a fundamentally different selling process. B2B companies need to leverage the vast volume of customer data and insights, but how the data is aggregated, transformed into intelligence and integrated into the sales process are the primary factors in determining the success of a sales organization ‘going social’.”

We need more than just information (the typical CRM system that monitors activity with numbers and statistics); we need “insights (CONVERSATIONS)…  aggregated, transformed into intelligence and integrated into the sales process….”

Voice has to be captured in its full expression and explanation and then converted into digital form and entered into the CRM system in such a way that it can be “displayed” for all to see and available for drill down for use in the new SOCIAL CRM system.

MOBILE CRM SOLUTIONS: So Simple That Sales Reps Love Using It!

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When I am traveling and for CRM reporting, I take my brain, my mouth, and my cell phone – that’s it! (well, maybe a logbook to take notes in). Nothing more complex or sophisticated.

NATURAL, INTUITIVE!  NO ‘IT’ STUFF, NO SOFTWARE, NO GADGETS, NO COMPLEXITY!  – NO HASSLE!

After the customer sales meeting, I dial the number of my voice-based CRM data entry provider, enter a secure PIN/ID number, and speak my information into an open dictation system (totally secure). When I finish, doing it my own way, I hang up. My audio information is converted to digital by a native English language speaking/U.S. based human transcriptionist for 98% accuracy (making me look like a professional and requiring no further time on my part for editing), and sync’d automatically into my CRM (no cutting or pasting).

THAT’S IT!  CALL IT IN AND FORGET IT!  HOW HARD DOES THIS HAVE TO BE?

Completely mobile, simple, and fast – and I am in my car or on the plane, hurrying on to my next appointment – CRM reporting task completed and the data into the CRM database for management attention – ACCURATE, COMPLETE, AND CURRENT! GREAT!

REPORT-FREE GOLF TIME, WEEKENDS AND NIGHTS FREE, AND QUALITY FAMILY TIME!  MORE SELLING TIME!  REPORT FREE!   – DONE!

How does CRM get more mobile than that (with such efficiency, making me look so good, and with no more complexity or cost or hassle than that)?

VOICE-BASED CRM DATA ENTRY providers with human, native English language transcriptionists and automatic sync into the CRM databases, are the key if you are really interested in “Mobile CRM Solutions” for busy people on the road.

Missing Data! “What happened?” Putting Explanatory Data into CRM

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Why did that happen?  Explain that to me; I don’t understand!  What’s going on?

How do we get longer, paragraph length explanatory text into the CRM system efficiently and with the willing and positive contributions of the sales reps?

Explanatory data is sentences and paragraphs of information that tell the details and specifics of what is going on or what has happened.  Explanatory data is the kind we get when we stand at the water cooler or sit at the hotel bar in the evening talking about things, telling the stories, giving all of the details, telling what happened and why.  It is the information a sales rep speaks to his/her manager over the phone after a great sales meeting or winning event, telling all of the details of the people present, the discussions, the competition, the pricing and deal making, and, finally, the glory of the close and contract signing.

Explanatory data is talk, speech, telling, explaining – words, sentences, and paragraphs.

Some estimate that the 98% of the most valuable sales information from the field is explanatory or qualitative.  It is words, sentences, and paragraphs not numbers, statistics, or notes or jots.  These data are the background, context, and history of the situation or event.  These data are the insights, perceptions, feelings, and observations gained during a meeting that have tremendous significance in the long-term service to the customer.  These data display the intelligent imposition of meaning and purpose on the events and facts.

The big fish mounted on the wall and why it is there, what it means to the main decision maker, and what it tells you about his/her interests and passions.  The photos of the three girls in soccer uniforms on the shelf behind the key account manager, and the excited talk concerning games and teams and the success of this manager’s daughters.  The observation that the contact person’s mediocre office is in the basement of the 10-story building and the walk to meet with the decision makers takes you up the elevator to the 10th floor plush offices where the contact person is hardly even recognized by name by the secretaries.  The gut feeling, as you listen to the pre-meeting talk and priorities that there is money to send a corporate jet to Norway to pick up a needed part but, you realize, there seems to be no money for your product or service.

The onsite visit to check out a task failure on a high-cost project to determine the involvement of your company’s products, with all of the companies involved trying to avoid responsibility, with the analysis of the actual failure and the technical discussions of why it happened and the reasoning behind the decisions reached.

How does this explanatory information get into the CRM system?

Someone has to talk it, explain it, tell it.  The story has to be told, articulated, given form and structure and intelligent explanation.  You can’t thumb it or tweet it or jot it.

Only a voice-based CRM data entry system can handle explanatory data, where the person calls on the phone and dictates the long explanatory message, in all of its details, with the system open to the person doing the explanation as he/she chooses in a way that is comfortable and intuitive.  The voice-based system needs to be simple to operate, completely transparent to allow the entire story to be told, and then, when finished to allow the person to hang up and get on with the work.  The voice-based system then transcribes the information, converting it to digital, and syncs it into the CRM database fields.  Because this is a manual transcription system, with native English educated and trained persons, U.S. Citizens residing in the U.S., the transcription is 98% accurate and professionally prepared and secure, so the CRM databases are filling with clear, correct, and meaningful information for understanding, decision making, and confident action.

How Can CRM Systems Handle Paragraph-Length Explanatory Data Entry?

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So, you are an engineering company where engineering reports or proposals are longer, several paragraphs, and even several pages in length. Or, you are a manufacturing organization where user experiences with product or service need to be documented at length. Or, you are a construction company or you serve construction companies where project reports need to be in sufficient detail for others to engage in planning and troubleshooting various situations, laying down a solid paper trail. Perhaps you are a lighting company with reps conducting site audits or lamp/fixture testing and reporting findings. Or you are a financial planner or advisor needing to document the details of meetings with clients. Perhaps you are a pharmaceutical company and need to document drug research or clinical work.

Perhaps you are… -  many organizational situations require explanatory detail, specifics, and paragraphs of complex text.

In this blog I make a distinction that senior organization leaders should consider who are using or considering using CRM software systems. Understanding this distinction can make all of the difference between a successful CRM user adoption experience and an unhappy one.

That issue is the difference between “data” (short notes) and “information” (longer paragraphs) and appropriate CRM system entry tools. “Data” and “information” are very different, as they are of two completely different forms and sizes and purposes, each of which is best facilitated by a different kind of entry tool.

1. Data (quantitative, explicit, numerical, statistical, and one-word or short phrase text)

These data are reported as entries into forms and templates or are simply informational. They are easily recorded by digital tools such as smart phones, tablets, computers. Entry of dates, amounts, numbers, occurrences, additions or subtractions from inventory, and many other such numerical or statistical data is simple with the amazing technologies of today. The application of speech recognition software is especially valuable for CRM data entry of these kinds. These applications are called “closed” speech recognition environments because the software is trained to the user, the vocabulary is finite and defined, and the systems are often IVR prompted. Appropriately, the advances in these supporting technologies to enter data into CRM systems are astounding and becoming very functional and practical. Apple’s Siri is an example of a successful speech recognition; “closed” CRM data capture application.

2. Information (qualitative, implicit, sentences, paragraphs, longer explanatory text)

These dictation events are longer, more comprehensive, more complex, and must be handled for CRM information entry very differently than the data entry described above. The amazing technologies that facilitate data entry do not lend themselves to information entry. These messages are paragraph(s) length, with descriptions and explanations of background, context, perceptions, insights, prototype plans and strategies. They are often complex descriptions of events and sequences, reasonings and histories. These entries are what we call “open” dictation environments not amenable to speech recognition software because there is little to no opportunity for system training, no controlled environment, no definitive vocabularies, and many distractions and noisy interruptions.

Entry of information requires a voice-based CRM entry system that allows the users to speak openly, without constraint, in any ambient environment (wind blowing, people talking, airport announcements being broadcast, cold in speaker’s nose), the essential information from their work, have it transcribed manually for accuracy, and then have it sync automatically into the fields in the CRM database.

Over 95% of Knowledge is Qualitative – IT Fails to Process it!

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Fortunately, we are learning today that IT-oriented solutions – that ignore the humans involved – are often failures. CRM is an example. CRM was hailed as the great and wonderful solution to organization- and customer-based communication. IT-oriented companies developed all kinds of complex and expensive software, and the investments in CRM solutions have been astronomical in cost (money, loss of time, disruption to organizations, confusion over systems, incredibly poor decision making, etc.).

What we are learning is that over 95% of the significant information for understanding of the customer situation is qualitative – insights, feelings, perceptions, observations, intuitions, gut instincts, etc. This is the “messy” information that gives us context, background, and purpose rather than just numbers and statistics. It is the 95% of critical knowledge that IT cannot handle. Qualitative knowledge is often unspoken and unstructured, requiring a person to speak it out, talking about it and talking it through. It takes a little time to work implicit feeling or intuition into explicit text and formal knowledge. Organizations must find ways to let people “tell about it” without the constraints of IT fields and character-limited boxes.

We need ways to capture voice data, convert it to digital for processing, and then privilege it in management discussions, decision making, and proper action. Voice-based communication systems give organization leaders the 95% of the qualitative knowledge that is such a valuable and defining “competitive and intellectual asset” to the organization.