The Big Three CRM Issues: Simplifying CRM Systems

Posted on March 28, 2012 by admin

“I found three Big Problems for CRM: … (1) DATA: Effectively managing the data we collect has now become a Big Problem…. (2) KNOWLEDGE: Knowledge cannot support CRM automation…. (3) PURPOSE: We don’t know what CRM is doing” (Esteban Kolsky, “Connect,” Customer Relationship Management, April 2012, 39-39).

From the perspective of the Voice-based CRM data entry industry, these three BIG PROBLEMS FOR CRM all stem from the same two causes: (1) ignoring 90% of the qualitative customer relationship management information available, and (2) overbuilding the 10% of the quantitative or numerical information.

Let’s see how this assertion explains the Three Big Problems and suggests a direction for a solution to those seeking to improve their CRM implementation or are thinking of implementing a CRM solution..

1. DATA: “Data is the reason we implemented CRM in the first place. Whether transactional, operational, demographic, attitudinal, behavioral, and now sentimental, the core of what CRM does is collect and store data from all interactions…. Effectively managing the data we collect has now become a Big Problem.”

CRM today collects too much information of the wrong kind. The key point to remember is that the service is named “CRM” and at the beginning that stood for “Customer Relationship Management.” ONLY CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT! In the beginning of the CRM movement 20 years ago, the concern was human and dealt with the needs and concerns, the background and context of customer values and desires. The need was for ways to handle the qualitative knowledge regarding the insights, feelings, aspirations, perceptions, and interests of the customer. This information was expressed through words and sentences, through conversations, discussions, shared collaborations – highly qualitative inter-human and interactive expressions. These expressions were at the heart of ‘customer-concentric or ‘customer-centered’ selling approaches and systems.

The primary source of data, information, or knowledge about the customer relationship was the sales rep and others at the front end or cutting edge of the contact with customers and the marketplace. Tom Siebel (who pioneered Siebel Systems and the early CRM industry) worried two decades ago about the possibility of CRM failure if the sales team did not participate fully in entering current, accurate, and complete knowledge of the customer interaction. The sales team’s qualitative knowledge from the field was the key to CRM success.

Today with CRM, the focus is on IT quantitative (numerical) solutions, and EVERYTHING IN THE ENTERPRISE has become content for CRM systems. The original intent of CRM, qualitative customer relationship information, has been lost and all of the information now being included in CRM systems has overwhelmed the service. However, if we choose it to be so, CRM can return to simplify and be about this limited set of qualitative knowledge again, focus again on the sales team, and be a very powerful service in successful organizations.

2. KNOWLEDGE: “All of the details you need to know are what constitute knowledge, which should be readily available and constantly updated for automation to happen effectively. As you can imagine, not all these elements are always easily available nor are they always updated. Knowledge cannot support CRM automation.”

CRM today does too much, includes too much, is far too complex! What is it, after all, that we “need to know” for CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT? Just that simple qualitative knowledge that reveals the human essentials of the customer relationship right now – knowledge from the sales reps that is current, accurate, and complete. A very limited set of fields in the database. And where does that information come from? From the sales team speaking or reporting religiously and fully into their simple database system. THAT IS THE ONLY “KNOWLEDGE” THE ORIGINAL CRM SYSTEM WAS INTENDED TO PROVIDE AND IT WAS AND IS SUFFICIENT! When we focus exactly on the CUSP of the organization/customer relationship, at the moments where our people meet their people in business transactions that affect the relationship, then we begin to get the qualitative knowledge “we need to know.” If we define knowledge only as that related directly to simple customer relationship management, how much do we really need to know to manage it well?

When CRM became everything for everyone, all things IT and digital, it grew out of simplicity and into complexity, expanding far beyond the capability of simple CRM to handle. For many years now we have all of the systems capability needed to handle true, simple CRM qualitative knowledge very well. How can we handle something that includes EVERYTHING?

3. PURPOSE: “What job (or jobs) did you hire your CRM solution to do for you?… Most organizations I have worked with have almost never been able to answer this question before implementing CRM….Whether you are spending time, money, and resources on a system that does not allow you to have full control of your data, that does not support the automation of simple tasks, and that you, well, don’t know why you have it. Could this be true?”

CRM has lost its focus and purpose. Over the years CRM has left its roots, has been taken over by IT and numbers, computers, money, talent, complexity, and high tech imperatives and demands and has focused entirely on processing the 10% of the information easily digitized and handled by computers. Most companies today are admitting that they don’t know why they have a CRM implementation when they are still struggling to stay abreast of simple, human, qualitative interaction and information.

If you want a simple Customer Relationship Management system that handles qualitative knowledge and helps your sales team capture and enter into the system the information they are generating out in their meetings with customers, then go back 20 years to the beginning of CRM and look at those early solutions – a little, sufficient digital, a lot of talk and text and explanatory information (qualitative knowledge). Sadly, high tech has drawn all of the talent and money away from the development of “human” or qualitative solutions. A little creative and innovative improvement over time would have made CRM systems today simple, clear, and powerful in providing the organization leaders with usable customer relationship management knowledge.

They were sufficient and can be again!

If you want to improve your CRM implementation or if you are looking to implement a CRM solution, stop for a moment and think about it. Turn your back on complexity and over-built IT solutions. Go looking for RETRO solutions, like VOICE-BASED CRM DATA ENTRY and databases that can handle qualitative information. Look for the generic and effective solutions to a very straightforward and simple HUMAN need to know what is going on in the customer relationship – ‘out there on the ground’!

One humble spy with critical observed information from the battlefield is more important to the success of the General and the battle operation than the trillions of computer bytes flying back and forth among the technologies in the battlespace. One humble spy who saw something ‘out there’ and has important things to say.

The Two-Part Human Dictation/Transcription Solution: Voice-Based CRM Data Entry System

Posted on March 21, 2012 by admin

Only a voice-based dictation system can capture longer, more complex explanatory information simply and quickly and sync or push it directly into the CRM databases.

Capturing explanatory knowledge requires processing capability far beyond that of speech recognition or speech-to-text applications today. As interesting as these technologies are to our technological brains and imaginations, they are not facile or agile and not accurate enough to handle the rugged and open environment of the sales reps on the go with noise in the background, the wind blowing, and the cold in the nose of real work on the road. Speech recognition works in a closed dictation environment where the system has been trained on the person’s voice, where the vocabulary is very narrow and well prescribed, and where there are no ambient noises or distractions that overwhelm the clarity of the audio quality.

A two-part voice-based CRM data entry system starts with (1) human dictation and human transcription and finishes with (2) sophisticated technology that syncs the information automatically into the CRM system database. First we have to capture and process the explanatory information; second, we have to move it automatically into the databases.

PART 1 HUMAN DICTATION AND HUMAN TRANSCRIPTION. Let’s talk about the first requirement, the human dictation and human transcriptionist, for a moment. Many is the man or women a little older who enjoyed the environment where a manager was supported by a human administrative assistant. Let’s call the person ‘Sam’ (male or female). Sam has been with the “boss” (man or woman) now for many years, knows exactly what is going on with the business, runs the major office systems, processes the dictated information, and otherwise is, in most cases, the most important person in the office. Sam takes dictation using shorthand, types it, and prints it out for signature. It is near (if not completely) perfect. He/she knows what the boss is talking about, listens with a perceptive human mind to make adjustments even when the wrong things are spoken, and otherwise “manages” the dictation/processing system to make sure the end result is as perfect as possible. One person is speaking or dictating; the other is listening and processing. The dictation/transcription channel is clear, so the information transfer is accurate.

That kind of applied intelligence is what the voice-based CRM data entry system provides to the sales team. The sales people are the speakers, and their clear dictation is the start of the process towards the database. The transcriptionists are native-English language speakers, experienced business environment adults, and U.S. Citizens living in the United States. They are using company-specific glossaries of names and terms, so they can produce a transcript that is near 100% correct in all aspects. It is these essential human characteristics that the voice-based CRM data entry system brings to ensure a clear channel of communication for accuracy. This means the sales reps speak in the information once and is done with it – no lengthy and time-consuming editing of documents machine processed poorly, with the revision of complex explanatory information often taking longer than the dictation, thus doubling the demand on the sales rep.

PART 2 SOPHISTICATED TECHNOLOGIES. Now, let’s talk about the second requirement, the sophisticated software and hardware of today that syncs or pushes the information automatically into the CRM database fields. As a company sets-up a voice-based CRM data entry system, the leaders determine the fields of information they are most interested in gathering from the customer relationship meetings. These fields are then listed on a prompt card given to the sales reps to assist them in directing the focus of their sales meetings, taking good notes, and then reporting. The sales rep then speaks into the phone in his/her information and hangs up. The human transcriptionist converts the information from audio to digital and enters the various information threads into technologies that prepare it to push into their proper CRM database fields. All it takes then is a “Submit,” and the information is now synced or pushed into the CRM databases.

GoToMeeting demonstrations and discussions are an excellent way to see voice-based CRM data entry tools in action. Put “Voice-Based CRM” or “Voice 2 CRM” into your browser and look around at the solution offered there. Perhaps you will see there a tool that you can add to your existing or being implemented CRM system to ensure (1) user adoption and (2) the most fertile and rich CRM databases possible for understanding, decision making, and action.

After all, isn’t that why you bought CRM in the first place?

CRM Meets Its Worst Enemy: “I don’t want to”

Posted on February 28, 2012 by admin

Henry Thoreau in Walden talks about a gnat’s wing on the rail of a railroad track that derails a train. He felt that sometimes nature, despite how fragile it seems, has power to thwart our most sophisticated technologies. Remember the story of David and Goliath – a little guy with a single stone brings down the heavily armed techno-giant. Remember the “Butterfly Effect” in chaos science, where butterfly wings moving in Asia mean terrible storms soon in New England. Little things and the individual person sometimes can have a powerful impact on much larger things.

Despite all of our CRM sophistication and computer/web complexity, all it takes to derail the CRM purpose and investment is one, little, individual human to exercise his/her free will and say, “I’m not going to tell you. I don’t want to. I’m not going to do it.”

Spoken or just felt, the powerful decision to not participate – “I’m not going to do it” – stops the most powerful information gathering software. “I don’t have time.” “What’s it to me if management knows or doesn’t know?” “Who cares anyway?” “CRM is just another ‘fad’ that will pass just like all of the other fads management has foisted off on us.”

In an organization, the positive benefits of a vigorous, continuous flow of accurate, complete, and timely information from the field into the CRM databases are realized when analysis of those data by managers reveals patterns that lead to clearer understanding, mature decision making, and proper action. That is why we buy and implement CRM systems; the purpose is good and positive and worthy of support by all sales reps.

Why is it that, somewhere along the CRM implementation timeline, individuals “opt out”?

TWO KEYS TO SUCCESS. As far as the sales reps “opting in” to participation in the CRM system, we have found two keys to making a CRM system run smoothly for those who will use the information from the CRM databases and those who will enter information into the system:

1. PARTNERSHIP. Upper management and the sales team need to partner in the work of gathering and using intelligence from the field – tie the upper management information needs to the sales reps information gathering capability.

For example, the relationship between a military General in a battlespace and his spies (intelligence gathering specialists) is critical for winning the battle. The General has to know what information he would like to obtain, and he has to communicate that need to the spies, so they can look for that intelligence and bring it back. It is the PARTNERSHIP between the General and the spies that wins the battle. Both sides know they are important and that what they are doing is valued and essential to the other and to the overall mission

In far too many business organizations, the sales people have no idea what management wants to know in the customer, competition, and industry marketplace, and the top managers give no instructions, no feedback, no collaboration to let the sales reps know that what they are doing is essential. A total disconnect exists between the two, a gap that separates whatever is going on at the top floors from whatever is going on with the reps or “scouts” on the street. Forming a strong, vigorous partnership between management and the sales team, so the information gathering function is respected, has dignity, and stature for all partners, eliminates the “I don’t want to” attitude quickly and decisively. TOGETHER they are working to develop business intelligence and insight to guide their striving together towards mutually-beneficial success.

2. SIMPLE. INTUITIVE VOICE-BASED DATA ENTRY TOOLS. The reporting function must be simple and intuitive – mouth and phone. Management must focus on tools that make the sales reporting function easy, fast, and natural. Ironically, the attempts to use IT (high tech) solutions thwart the partnership goal because they trivialize sales rep intelligence and motivation. They are a very quick “turn off” and “opt out.”

What is needed from the sales rep is his/her best insight and observation – very human capabilities. What is needed is explanatory, voice-based information going into the CRM databases, not merely activity numbers, jots, tweets, twits, and thumbs. Smart phones, tablets, speech recognition, and other “technological” solutions make the sales reps into “dummies.” They “dumb down” or seek to eliminate the complex (some would argue “messy”) human thinking, intelligence, and insight gathering capability of the sales reps, which causes them to lose interest quickly in the CRM system.

These “high tech” solutions trivialize the data gathering activity and, thereby, demean the sales rep function. “All they want is a number. They don’t care what is really going on out here. They wouldn’t understand what is going on with the competitors and the failure of our latest products if I explained it to them. They don’t care. It is too hard. Marketing just takes everything so personally; they don’t want to hear about it. Stay down under the radar!”

It is the obliteration of responsibility for insight and explanatory information that is so dispiriting and disheartening to a customer-centric, needs-based selling person. They want to talk. They have a story to tell. They see things and want to explain them and get management’s attention. They want to tell management the decisions the customer is making, but the tools they are being given to do so are either keyboarding based or gadget based, such that they are difficult, time-consuming, trivial, or dysfunctional. They need straightforward, intuitive, and respected voice-based CRM data entry tools.

So — (1) PARTNER UP top management and the sales team so they are working closely together to employ CRM to achieve shared and worthy objectives, and (2) GIVE VOICE-BASED TOOLS to the sales team to make reporting simple and intuitive.

Give the sales team a reporting tool like voice-based CRM data entry that uses the telephone for data entry, human transcriptionists for intelligent and accurate processing, and powerful software to sync the data automatically into the CRM system. All the sales rep has to do is dial the number, put in the ID number, speak in the words of the sales meeting, hang up, and then go on about the customer care and selling activity – 2-5 minutes rather than hours, 98% accuracy rather than 20% with speech recognition (requiring serious and time-consuming editing). The supporting voice-based system, then, processes the words into digital and enters them into the CRM databases.

Now, the PARTNERSHIP is working – Management is getting “good” data; Sales reps are HAPPY AND WILLING.

WIN-WIN!

Speech Analytics and CRM Data Entry: Two Critical Technologies

Posted on December 29, 2011 by admin

“SPEECH ANALYTICS – current best practice is to analyze recordings overnight to identify trends. Once issues surface, they are shared via dashboards and heat maps and passed on to the owner of the speech analytics solution” (Donna Fluss, “Speech Analytics in the Voice of the Customer Era,” Customer Relationship Management, January 2012).

Speech analytics are critical in a time when hearing the exact voice of the customer or the sales rep is so important to having CRM databases filling with accurate, complete, and timely information. For too long now, we have used one word or one number digital designations to represent chunks of information, and we have ignored the background and context of that information. Speech analytics is changing the entire landscape of information coming in from “out there,” either with customers or from sales reps.

Donna Fluss (quoted above) with DMG Consulting speaks of the increasing importance of speech analytics: “The number of speech analytics implementations increased by 22 percent between 2009 and 2010, following growth rates in 2006, 2007, and 2008 of 39 percent, 50 percent, and 108 percent, respectively…, all of which is to be expected of a vibrant technology segment….. Quality assurance will continue to evolve and improve over the next few years as speech analytics becomes a standard component of this essential business function.”

We are talking about two critical technologies involved in Speech Analytics:

1. Voice-based CRM data entry is critical for Speech Analytics. When it comes to CRM data entry, the “Unstructured Conversations” component of the DMG Consulting model (see diagram in Fluss article), we need an open voice-based CRM data entry tool (dictation and recording system) that gives sales reps considerable “talking space” to EXPLAIN what is going on, which means they will be giving paragraphs of information. We need the background, context, and explanation that give an accurate, complete, and current picture of “what is going on out there.” Thus, for CRM data entry, the “unstructured conversations” will be as complete as possible, which makes them longer and more involved than just short note or jot or tweet data.

So, the first requirement for speech analytics is to gather, via voice, the most current, accurate, and timely information possible and as soon after the sales meeting as is practical and enter it as efficiently as possible into the CRM database. We agree with Fluss 100%, when she begins the DMG Consulting model with the gathering of “Unstructured Conversations, Recorded & Real-Time.” That is the value of a voice-based CRM data entry system.

2. Accurate transcription and effective analytics processes then complete Speech Analytics. In the DMG Consulting diagram in the Fluss article we see the “Unstructured Conversations: Recorded & Real-time” going into a “Speech Analytics Process,” where the raw data is subjected to various analysis metrics and converted into “Top Uses” for organization leaders and “shared via dashboards and heat maps and passed on” to organization leaders.

We need intelligent data display, especially on mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets. We need dashboards with software that can pull from the CRM databases to display graphically high level, highly useful information for clear, continual, and simple access, understanding, and action.

The organization managers using CRM systems might focus the analytics on three significant “center” or “core” issues – Pricing, Product, and Competition. Analytics can display on the dashboard the summary of findings related to these three subjects across all sales reps, at any given moment or across a timeline, with indicators regarding the attitude or tone of the information. Fluss in her article calls this a “closed loop process [that] ensures that speech analytics findings are used on a real-time basis. However, even when speech analytics is converted to a real-time application, there will still be value in identifying trends and regularly conducting post-mortem analyses.”

We agree that Speech Analytics is a “closed loop process” that (1) incorporates a powerful voice-based CRM data entry tool (2) that can make all of the difference in the quality of the information displayed on a mobile device dashboard. A Fluss says, this Speech Analytics system can, in turn, can make all the difference “to improve the customer experience, identify new product ideas, highlight operation/system/product/procedural issues, reduce operating costs, improve first contact resolution rates, and increase staff satisfaction, just to mention a few of the current applications.”

Never show fools unfinished work!

Posted on August 30, 2011 by admin

“Never show fools unfinished work!” Some people just can’t prototype; they can’t play with ideas.

When an organization uses rapid prototyping as a tool in its designing, creating, and innovating activities, one of the worst killers of the spirit of free and open thought is a detailer/authoritarian type person who cannot “play around with” ideas. For this person, things are either right or wrong. These anal types are bound strictly by rules and regulations, most of them held as moral imperatives. We say, “Hey, loosen up! Brainstorm and play around with us as we try to think this through.” But, the person responds, “You cannot have a 1 in an outline without a 2. Period!” We say, “Stop thinking about that right now? Come on, think with us about the whole design and concept of the new piece of equipment.” The person responds, “No. You can’t have a 1 without a 2. That’s the rule!”

For example, we were writing a proposal for a large aerospace company, and the team was prototyping what logistics must be considered. An editor from the home office had been sent to help on the team. The editor stopped the brainstorming and prototyping and demanded that everyone observe the difference in spelling between ‘principle’ and ‘principal’. We were all flabbergasted at the narrowness and the false morality of the issue. She killed the prototyping spirit, and it wasn’t until we demanded that she return to the home office and leave us alone that the fun and free and highly creative intellectual spirit returned.

If people cannot prototype, don’t ever let them be on a creative or innovative team where serious (and playful) intellectual work needs to get done.

The Power of Early Rapid Prototyping for Group Thinking

Posted on August 8, 2011 by admin

Prototypes are tools to think with. Prototyping is an activity that stimulates thought because the team or group can see and touch the product of their thinking long before the demands of schedule, quality, and price become the drivers. We all know how prototyping is essential in engineering and design because prototypes are simple, inexpensive, testable, and changeable. Prototyping cultures or organizations are ones where innovation and creativity are encouraged and expected, and where the prototyping demonstrations or prototype products of that thinking are welcomed and engaged with.

Early rapid prototyping is the use of the prototyping process as early as possible in any project or activity involving a group. It is a means for the biases, preconceived ideas, inclinations, past experience, ego trips and politics to get out in the open where they can be challenged before they become too set into the thinking regarding the work. Quickly engage everyone, as diverse a group as possible, in throwing out every idea possible regarding the project or activity. Record all ideas and form them into a product that looks as exactly like what the end result will look like as possible. Build in all specifications and expectations and limitations. Mock it up on paper as it will look when finished, mock it up with styrofoam and glue and string and sticks as it might look like when it is in production. Hold what might be the end product in your hands as you can envision it right now. Over the time or life of a project, a team will create many early rapid prototypes as tool to see and understand and pull talent from every person involved. Kind of like brainstorming, early rapid prototyping is more practical, more pragmatic, more specific, more detailed, and more end product focused.

No engineering or design project would ever begin without prototyping and prototypes; no project that involves thinking and ideas, with an end product as its purpose, should ever begin without early rapid prototyping.