The Ultimate CRM Mobility App: VOICE + PHONE

Posted on April 25, 2012 by admin

Just talk on your phone! The ultimate CRM date entry solution.

Speak in your sales meeting information wherever you are, whatever you are doing. Take a few minutes to talk in your information, hang up your phone, and get back to selling.

WHY DOES CRM NEED TO BE ANY HARDER THAN THIS?

At the airport lounge/boarding area.
Pulled off for a moment by the side of the road.
In a quiet café having a cup of coffee.
In a quiet park near the customer offices.
While walking down the sidewalk while going to the rental car.
In the truck just before leaving the customer yard.

THE ULTIMATE MOBILITY APP – Anywhere, anytime.

Just dial the number, speak in the information, hang up, and get on with selling and making money..

SIMPLE! FAST! CONVENIENT! EFFECTIVE! MORE THAN SUFFICIENT!

From the point of view of the sales rep, nothing could be easier. They love to talk, they are on the phone continuously throughout the day, and getting the reporting done while moving between sales appointments is a dream come true.

MANAGERS –

Forget user CRM adoption problems!

Forget compromised CRM databases, with missing or bad information

Forget time and expense (steep learning curve) required to teach CRM keyboarding requirements

Forget management frustration from being left out or blindsided by missing information

Forget upset customers because commitments and promises made by sales reps are forgotten and not followed through on.

Forget significant loss and return on investment on the expensive CRM system.

VOICE + PHONE – WHY DOES CRM NEED TO BE ANY HARDER THAN THIS!

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

Posted on April 4, 2012 by admin

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.

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?

Testimonial for Voice-based CRM Data Entry System

Posted on March 13, 2012 by admin

3/12/2012

Perhaps a recent testimonial will help you see the value in a voice-based CRM data entry tool.

If you are looking to adopt a CRM solution or if you are looking for ways to improve the productivity of your existing CRM application, take a few minutes to go looking for information on a voice-based CRM data entry tool.

Put “VOICE-BASED CRM” into your browser and enjoy a few minutes of some informative reading.

Here is the text of an email to the vendor from a Senior Vice President in a large healthcare organization, giving his observations after implementing a voice-based CRM data entry system. It is broken down according to his thoughts:

1. “My thought is that – finally, a service is available that can enter information into SFDC for an entire organization based on a phone call!

2. This is an easy to use, cost effective, well supported service that eliminates manual record entry into Salesforce.

3. It drives adoption through the roof!

4. According to our Sales Manager, this service allowed the reps to enter more than 2,000 Account, Contact, Activity, and Patient Referral records with associated comments into their new SFDC in 5 days! Manually, that would have taken a month or more.

5. When a rep leaves an appointment, the call they make to V2I allows fresh information to be entered immediately.

6. Our Sales Manager estimates that this service is saving the reps 3-6 hours a week in manual record keeping and activity reporting and assures our company that appointment information is timely and current.

7. No longer do our sales reps have to wait until the end of the day (or worse, the end of the week or never) to enter results into Salesforce.

8. They calculated that each rep pays for the cost of this service in about 3-4 hours a month of saved data entry time.”

Now, that’s interesting!

Perhaps a voice-based CRM data entry tool that really works is an interesting idea for you. Put “VOICE-BASED CRM” in your browser. Check it out!

TALK CRM! 10 Easy Steps to Voice-Based CRM Data Entry

Posted on March 12, 2012 by admin

“What I want is to be able to just speak into my phone and have my information go directly into my CRM. I’ve tried speech recognition, and it doesn’t handle longer and complex messages and the error rate is just too high and requiring too much revision. I just want to talk my CRM?”

Voice-based CRM data entry services are available to you. You can just speak into your phone, hang up, and have your information processed and synced automatically into your CRM.

These services are available to you now.

Voice-based CRM is an alternative to keyboarding/writing and speech recognition. It is for longer, open text dictation of sentences and paragraphs (as opposed to speech recognition that works on shorter, more controlled jots, tweet, twits, and thumbs).

To show you how a Voice-Based CRM data entry tool might work, here are the 10 simple steps required of a sales rep to use voice and phone to send information directly into CRM. Notice how intuitive this is, how simple and straightforward, how immediate is competent performance.

Here is how voice-based CRM data entry works:

1. Attend the sales meeting at your customer location.

2. Take good notes.

3. Leave the meeting, find a safe place (not driving), and take out your cell phone.

4. Speed dial the Voice-Based CRM date entry service.

5. Enter your security ID number.

6. Referring to your notes and to your company’s key category prompt card, speak into the open dictation system your sales meeting information, including all explanatory information related to background and context. Speak in sentences and paragraphs, just as you would speak in regular voice mail dictation. Explain it all. Get everything in your notes dictated into the system.

7. When you are finished, hang up.

8. Get on with serving customers, moving products and services, and generating revenue – all of the fun stuff in sales!

9. [The system produces and syncs automatically a CRM report that is 98% ACCURATE at high PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS, prepared by a seasoned human transcriptionist (native English language speaker, U.S. Citizen) using proprietary CRM integration software.]

10. Within 24 hours your report shows up automatically in your organization’s CRM system, sync’d precisely into your CRM database fields.

That’s it! It works! It is available to you now! Costs are far lower than you would imagine for a service with such potential to save time, increase CRM user adoption, and significantly increase the richness and, therefore, the value of the CRM databases for organizational use.

Interested? Enter “VOICE-BASED CRM” into your web browser and enjoy a few minutes of information reading and searching.

Who would have thought such services could be available now? This is the Voice-based CRM Data Entry industry – and it is growing!

Five Advantages of Voice-Based CRM Data Entry

Posted on March 5, 2012 by admin

What can you do as an organization leader to provide the Sales Team with the most effective tools for CRM data entry? Tools to make sales reporting so appealing to them that they will adopt them easily and use them willingly, so the best data available flows continually into your CRM databases?

The traditional data input choices are keyboard or voice, whether the means is a computer, smart phone, or tablet or whether it is voice mail, a voice conversation, or dictation into a machine or to a live person. That’s about all we have to accomplish the task of CRM data entry. (We don’t have technologies yet that read our minds or filter information through the skin.)

If we focus on the sales rep as the principal information entry person into the CRM system, reporting immediately after a sales experience with customers, competitors, and industry forces, then here are five reasons a voice-based CRM data entry tool is by far the best solution. Focusing attention to this tool makes CRM data entry attractive to the sales reps so that they use it easily, willingly, and with increasing competence over time.

1. They like to speak on the phone – voice is intuitive; writing is learned. From infancy we have been speaking and, almost as long, we have been speaking into the telephone. Unlike writing and keyboarding, which are learned and practiced skills that some master and many do not, speaking on the telephone is intuitive and natural. We all can do it! We do not have to be taught to speak, and we do not have to be encouraged or motivated to speak on the phone. Sales reps using their phone to report sales information can do it easily because they perform this activity over and over during any given day. They are good at it, naturals, highly competent. So, when asked to report their CRM information this way, they do it easily and with no cause for delay.

2. They like to do it immediately – Quick and easy are compelling; hard and problematic are repelling. User adoption, procrastination, avoidance behavior – these are all manifestations that the sales reps to not enjoy or look forward to their CRM data entry tools. Keyboarding/writing is too hard, takes too long, requires unnatural thinking and skills, and is not pleasant to anticipate. It is hard and unpleasant work and is, therefore, avoided and procrastinated! Speech recognition software has major editing limitations (as discussed in the next point).

3. They appreciate efficiencies – Just once is good; several times is bad. Any system that requires the speaker to return to the text to edit after putting it in will fail. Speech recognition for the kind of textual information we are talking about here leaves the speaker with text that is often 80% – 90% inaccurate (catastrophically difficult to correct when nouns become verbs, adverbs become nouns, etc.), requiring hours of editing time to make it professionally acceptable. Despite their dislike of it, when considering the alternative of speech recognition, sales reps laborously keyboard in their information to avoid speech to text inefficiencies and having to edit what comes back – it is faster and easier to just keyboard it in. Clear and accurate meaning, coupled with professional presentation, are essential in reports that are circulating throughout the organization. Sales reps want to speak it in the information and hang up, having a the system process the information and delivery a professional report into the database. That quality of work is only possible with native-English speaking, U.S. Citizen based human transcriptionists, working in partnership with the sales reps.

4. They want to tell their story – Explanation is satisfying; just numbers is frustrating. For customer-centric and needs-based selling, background and contextual information is critical for an understanding of what is going on with the customer, the competition, and the industry. Thus, explanatory information requires talk, text, sentences, and paragraphs. When management reduces CRM reporting to just numbers, jots, twits, tweets, or thumbs, just 5% or so of the pertinent information is being required or accessed. This is “activity”-based management attention, which places no value on the information of most importance to the sales reps. They see that nothing much is being asked for, so they stop giving anything beyond the number required. 98% of what they care about in their customer-centric sales work is being ignored by management. “Who cares about reporting?” is the cynical reply to such un- or mis-management of the sales reporting activity. Many, thus, choose not to participate or to participate at the bare minimum.

5. They want to know someone higher up cares – High feedback is invigorating; low feedback or none is debilitating. “Does anyone read these reports?” “I just put anything in because no one reads them anyway.” “I do them about once a quarter – if I am forced to, because everything important is being taken care of over the phone all of the time. The sales report is meaningless.” When upper management communicates to the sales team the kinds of information that are important to them, and when the sales reps see and report those kinds of information back, and then upper managers respond to those reports, then we have the kind of “virtuous cycles” of understanding that make the CRM databases rich and fertile and CRM a winner application for the organization.

When senior managers provide a voice-based CRM data entry tool for the sales team, there are at least these five reasons a voice-based CRM data entry tool will make the CRM database a winner and CRM a success.

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

Posted on January 26, 2012 by admin

“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.

A Critical CRM Choice: Voice-Based CRM Data Entry or Speech Recognition or Speech-to-Text

Posted on January 18, 2012 by admin

When buying or implementing a CRM system, you have an all-important choice to make as far as your data entry system.

The ‘Holy Grail’ for CRM data entry is the ability to just talk to the computer, have it convert the audio into digital automatically, and then have it enter the data into the CRM program. No sweat! Just talk and the computer does the rest. Speech-to-text and speech recognition technologies have improved significantly in the past few years, with many services providing workable results. These advances seem to say that the software people have “figured it out” now and that speech recognition and speech-to-text have solved the CRM data entry issue. Issue resolved! The Holy Grail located!

BUT STOP! That is only partially true. Before going in that direction, CRM buyers need to think about a critical choice between two very different CRM data entry possibilities.

On the one hand,

FOR”CLOSED” DICTATION ENVIRONMENTS, where (1) the ambient environment is controlled so there are no distractions or interruptions, (2) where the vocabulary is limited and controlled so the speakers only use the service for well-defined tasks, (3) where the information dictated is very short (a number or two or a word or two), and (4) where the system is “trained” to the speaker’s voice – these ‘closed dictation’ environments are providing tremendous success for speech recognition and speech-to-text software solutions. To say “Radio” while driving and have the computer/radio turn on is wonderful. To say “Hotel” and have the computer system ask, “What hotel are you looking for?”, again, is a useful service. To say “Send email” and then be promoted through the tasks to send a brief email of a few words has significant value to a busy person.

For words, numbers, and short notes or jots or tweets, the closed dictation environment is blossoming and growing, and, certainly, everyone applauds these developments. The possibilities seem endless.

On the other hand,

FOR “OPEN” DICTATION ENVIRONMENTS, however, we find a different world entirely. PROBABLY THIS IS YOUR WORLD! This is a dictation environment (1) where there is no control over the ambient environment (with many disruptions and distractions), (2) where the vocabulary is open to anything the speaker wants to say and with the speaker changing or editing the dictation as he/she goes along, (3) where the information is paragraphs in length and often technical and complex, and (4) where there is no training of the system to the speaker’s voice. No IVR, no imposed discipline or control, just an open dictation system where the speaker dictates exactly what he/she wants to say, how he/she wants to say it, for as long as it takes to work out the ideas and get them into the system.

Think about it! The OPEN CRM DATA ENTRY ENVIRONMENT is an entirely different environment for longer, paragraph(s) length dictation that requires an entirely different tool for data entry.

So, you might ask, “How does a Voice-based CRM data entry system work in an “OPEN” environment?”

1. A voice-based CRM data entry system is one where the caller dials a phone number, enters a secure PIN or ID number, is greeted by name by a pleasant recorded human voice, and then enters the open dictation space. Because the dictation will be transcribed by a human transcriptionist, the caller knows a human intelligence is working with him/her, listening, adjusting, helping, and fulfilling at a high quality and professional level of 98% accuracy. There may be some general categories the company has given where the person speaks “about” certain topics, but how the person goes about the dictation, the logic and the flow of the information, is entirely unique to the speaker. The speaker can edit things, rearrange things, struggle to make something make sense, give instructions regarding formatting, and otherwise work out what it is that needs to be said. He/she has an intelligent partner who is as interested as he/she is in getting things accurate and making things look professional.

2. For a voice-based CRM data entry system to provide satisfying service, the human transcriptionist must be a native English language speaker, a U.S. citizen living in the United States with broad general experience in the speaking patterns of the culture, with extensive documentation experience and capable of assisting the speaker in constructing a clear and concise document. Once transcribed, the document syncs automatically into the CRM system, such as Microsoft Dynamics or Salesforce or other. The caller receives an email immediately with a copy of the document for his/her reference, and simultaneously the data go into the CRM databases into the specified fields as determined by management.

AND THE ADVANTAGES VOICE-BASED CRM SYSTEM IN AN OPEN ENVIRONMENT?

Voice-based CRM data entry is simple and quick – a person walks out of the meeting, finds a quiet place with a good cell connection, dials the number, speaks in the data, hangs up, and gets on with customer service, selling, and making good money. Simple and fast. The reporting requirement is satisfied with excellence, the reporting job is off his/her back and out of mind, and management now has accurate, complete, and timely information flowing into the CRM databases or management understanding, decision making, and proper action.. A 5-minute phone call report is the equivalent of a 60 minute keyboarding exercise of trying to type it up on a computer (with all of the Internet and other distractions), which usually requires significant procrastination and setting aside time at night or on the weekends (or just not doing it). With voice-based CRM data entry, we never hear a sales rep say, “I hate to write!” when the subject of sales reporting is mentioned. “It just takes a moment and I’m done.” User adoption is a non-issue, bad and missing information in the CRM system are non-issues. Management and sales rep frustration at poor communication among their functions are a non-issues.

In an OPEN ENVIRONMENT, where paragraph-length information is sought, voice-based CRM data entry is an essential companion to any serious CRM implementation in any organization.