Make CRM easy again

A survey done by Really Simple Systems showed that 83 percent of Executives responded that employee resistance to using their CRM was the number one problem when trying to implement the technology.  Of those 83 percent making this comment, 72 percent said they would be prepared to trade functionality in their CRM systems for ease of use. 

At Voice2insight, we understand this frustration, as we see people struggle with this every day.  That is why our product focuses on the ease of use of the sales rep, the user - Voice2insight is extremely easy to use, thereby eliminating the “CRM useability constraint.”

John Paterson, CEO of Really Simple Systems, says, “Too often companies make purchasing decisions for applications based on features, not ease of use, and then they find that those extra features get in the way of usability”.  The point of a CRM is to make reporting easier and databases more useful.  Regardless of the CRM system you are using or planning, Voice2insight will make routine sales call reporting from the field easier.  Sales reps just call in to the Voice2insight system, speak their report, and then get on with generating revenue and satisfying customer needs.

If so many employees are showing strong resistance and executives are finding it harder to use CRM due to the many features, those seeking solutions should consider implementing a third party app.  Voice2insight is one servie dedicated to making CRM easier and more user friendly.

Voice2insight’s goal is to save you as much time as we can.  Instead of forcing your sales team to be expensive data entry clerks, we allow sales reps to be sales reps – to SELL!. 

We are able to integrate with Salesforce, using Remote Access, a safe way to add in company’s information without needing username and passwords.  We invite you to sign up TODAY for our 15 day FREE trial to try Voice2insight for yourself.

The Ultimate CRM Mobility App: VOICE + PHONE

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!

Report Immediately/Respond immediately: Value of Current, Accurate, and Complete CRM Information

The only value of a CRM system is the quality of information in its databases.  What good is information from the field that is a month old before it is reported?  Of what help is information to a manager or to the organization when the manager doesn’t read reports regularly?

Here is a note sent from a manager to a sales rep:

“Shawn,

Why are all these reports so old. There are no new reports that have been filed in this last batch.  Not really any point filing reports this old; as Jim and I read them, we can’t really do anything with reports a month old.   Are you this far behind on your call reports?  Have you filed your more recent reports?”

Two things we might surmise from this statement: (1) the sales rep is not reporting his sales meeting information immediately or regularly, and (2) the sales manager isn’t reading reports anyway, as he doesn’t seem to notice the missing information until a month has gone by.

1.  Sales reps who do not report immediately and regularly

Again, the problem is the quality of the CRM database.  Sales reps who do not report immediately following a sales event are limiting severely the capability of the database to aggregate or accumulate information sufficient for a reader to see and understand patterns.  The only information of any worth in a CRM database is that sufficiently accumulated to reveal patterns and trends.  We have to have bulk, mass, accumulation from all sources of good information if we are to “see” (discern or detect) patterns.  Therefore, it is imperative with a CRM system that the sales team understands its responsibility to create a continuous flow of good information into the CRM system databases.  Regular reporting isn’t a merely trivial administrative activity that is forced onto the sales team.  It is not something of choice.  We need the sales reps to report because the entire CRM database depends on mass and accumulation for meaningful understanding, analysis, decision making, and action.  A sales rep who withholds information for a month before reporting it doesn’t understand what is going on with a CRM system implementation.  Once they understand, they contribute willingly and meaningfully.

2.  Sales managers who do not read sales reports immediately and regularly

This is the most interesting issue with CRM sales team reporting – a manager who doesn’t read the reports coming in.  Sales reps are quick to pick-up on this lack of attention by the manager, and they delay, procrastinate, and often fail to report at all, knowing there are no consequences for not reporting and no purpose for reporting at all.  In many companies, because sales managers do not read the reports, the reporting function languishes and disappears.  What is the consequence of this?  What the sales manager doesn’t realize is that the quality of the CRM function for the entire organization depends heavily on the continuous inflow of accurate, current, and complete information from the field, from those closest to the customer relationship experience.  By failing to pay attention to the reporting function, the sales manager – not the sales reps – is seriously compromising the value of the investment the company has made into its CRM program.

We encountered a sales rep who was writing this statement at the bottom of each of his daily sales reports:  “If there is anybody out there reading this, please give me a call at (phone number).”  For over a month, no one responded and he kept adding this statement to his reports.  When we flagged this to senior management and they went checking with the sales manager, they found that the sales manager was so busy doing his own paperwork and tasks that he didn’t have time to read the sales reports and respond to them.  He was fired on the spot because of his failure to understand organizational priorities.

We often ask, “If your most productive sales rep, the one bringing in the most revenue, won’t report his/her sales activity, would you fire him/her?”  If the answer is yes, then the priorities of the organization towards its commitment to a quality CRM database are clear.  If the answer is no, then the “tail is wagging the dog,” and revenue production ONLY is the activity of greatest interest in the organization and they should not have invested in CRM in the first place.   Any simple activity tracking software would have worked better.  Companies often have Lone Ranger hero sales people who “do their own thing” and seem to be successful in producing.  If revenue only is the goal of management, then this is tolerated and even applauded.  However, if long-term customer relationship and care management (CRM) is the goal of management, then this person needs to change or be let go.  The CRM databases need this person’s sales meeting information, without exception, and the person should consider it his/her sales responsibility to report immediately and regularly.

The purpose of buying and implementing a CRM system is the quality of the databases that will result and the power that gives to everyone in the organization to see patterns in the data, to understanding more clearly what is going on, to apply meaningful analytics for clearer sense of pattern, to engage in fruitful decision making, and then to take proper action.  With that goal in mind, it is easy to see why a sales rep who does not report any of his/her customer interactions for months on end, why a sales manager who doesn’t read the reports and only talks about the issue after months of non-reporting have gone by are serious constraints to a powerful and successful CRM system.

Using Spies”: CRM Systems Success Depends on Sales Reporting

“In Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’, competitive success comes from competitive intelligence.  You can only understand your competitive situation if you know how to gather the right intelligence….The title of Sun Tzu’s original chapter on competitive intelligence was ‘Using Spies’…. Sun Tzu wants you to remember that the ultimate source of all information is people.  The closer you are to them and the better your contacts, the better your information” (Gagliardo. The Amazing Secrets of Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’).

Sales reps, out on the road, visiting customers, watching the competition, observing the marketplace and the industry – these are the eyes and ears of the organization, the “spies” who are in a position to see and hear what is going on “out there” and then reporting it back to the leaders.  Enabling the sales team to perform at its peak capability should be one of the highest priorities senior management. 

The only value of the CRM database comes from a continuous flow of current, accurate, and complete information into the databases from the sales team.  Missing, bad, incomplete, or biased information, strictly numerical information with no sense of context or background filling CRM databases is a tremendous threat to management effectiveness.

One marker of a dysfunctional CRM implementation in an organization is given the name “User Adoption Problems.” This is the CRM industry terminology for “sales reps who won’t use the system for reporting their sales meeting information.  They won’t use it!”  Many leaders seem to assume that just because “they build it, the sales reps will come.”  Just because they pay out all of the money and disrupt and stress the organization to implement a CRM system they assume the sales team will jump on board happily and willingly and keyboard in their sales information.

Interestingly enough, attention to how the sales reps enter their information can bring tremendous benefits to leaders trying to improve or to implement a CRM system.  They need to realize or remember two truths concerning sales – (1) sales reps hate to type or write because it is administrative work that takes away from selling and they don’t like keyboarding and (2) sales reps like to talk, to explain, and CRM user interfaces are too complex, too hard, too much, and take too long. 

Thus, by its very nature, the CRM system repels those it should most attract.  Rather than the sales reps willingly and happily entering their sales information into the CRM system, they are being frustrated because the system is forcing them to keyboard and is restricting their ability to explain, to discourse.  All the CRM systems want is a box checked or a number or a word or two.  For a sales rep, what the system is saying is “We really don’t care about what you want to say, what you think is going on.  Just give us the numbers and facts as fast and as simply as possible.”

So, unfortunately, the result of this failure of CRM to consider its primary source of information, is “user adoption problems.”  Procrastinating, delay, short cutting, simplifying and understating, ignoring – we begin to get the behaviors associated with distrust, alienation, cynicism, and chronic negativism regarding the sales system.

BUT THIS DOES NOT HAVE TO BE SO!

Sales reps love to talk on the phone.  It is natural, intuitive, and necessary for them.  Voice-based CRM data entry tools, therefore, come naturally to them, easily, with no learning curve or difficult adjustments or hurdles.  The organization identifies the kinds of information it desires reported, the sales rep takes good notes in the meetings, and then when the meeting is over, he/she finds a quiet place with a good cell, dials into the Voice-based CRM data entry system, enters a PIN or security ID number, and then, in an open dictation system, speaks in all of the information from the meeting.  All of the facts, observations, decisions, commitments, insights, problems, competitor discoveries – everything.  This talk might take three to four minutes (the equivalent of 60 minutes keyboarding under stress), and the communication is complete with context, background, and all of the associated information of the interaction with the customer.  When finished, the sales rep just hangs up and gets on with working with customers, selling, and making money.  The voice-based CRM data entry system, based on a human transcriptionist model, processes the information into the desired CRM database fields and syncs it automatically into those fields.

Thus, all the sales rep experiences is a phone call.  Nothing hard, no difficulty, no keyboarding, no hassle.  Just a phone call and hangs up.  All of the complexity happens through the voice-based, human transcription system.  Because such systems use native English language human transcriptionists, the transcription is highly accurate (near 100% accurate), meaning the sales rep does not spend any time editing the document and it is appearing in the database as a professional communication.  This accuracy and professionalism are what discriminates a voice-based, human transcriptionist model from speech recognition or voice-to-text software options.

Leaders trying to avoid “USER ADOPTION PROBLEMS” either in an existing CRM application or with a new implementation, should put “VOICE-BASED CRM” into their web browser and read about the benefits of a voice-based CRM data entry system based on a human transcription model.  Based on the cost of CRM failure, the cost of CRM User Adoption problems, the cost of a voice-based CRM data entry tool – specifically to help the sales team participate happily and willingness and fully – has astounding ROI calculation results.

The Big Three CRM Issues: Simplifying CRM Systems

“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

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.          Human transcriptionist create an almost perfect 100% accuracy when dictating.

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?

“Voice 2 CRM”: Why CRM is going RETRO!

“Apple Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Siri.  New York City iPhone 4S customer sues Apple, claiming Siri advertisements are misleading and that the service doesn’t work as depicted in commercials. [Writer says,] From my perspective, it’s hard not to disagree with Fazio [man suing Apple]. I have an iPhone 4S, and I find that Siri works less than 50% of the time. I’ll ask Siri a question or issue a command, and more often than not Siri tells me that she didn’t understand what I was asking her to do or simply fails to do it correctly. I’ve had Siri dial the wrong phone number, inaccurately transcribe dictated messages (despite my perfect diction), as well as completely time out or crash.” (InformationWeek Mobility, Eric Zeman, March 13, 2012)

Oh, well.  That’s just a ‘beta’ version of Siri.  Right?  So, after a while Apple will get it right, and Siri will do the amazing things it is advertised to do.  Right?  Apple Siri is the ‘Holy Grail’ for sales reps.  Right? 

NOT!

For twits and tweets and notes and jots and thumbs in closed environments, Siri will develop over time into a very useful and practical tool.  However, for longer text-based and more complicated open environment reporting, Siri or any other speech recognition, voice-to-text application might never be a useful tool and these efforts are heading in the wrong direction.

Think about it (as in the movie ‘Back to the Future’) – maybe going FORWARD into glamorous and expensive technology is not the path to a solution for simple and fast sales reporting.  Maybe going BACKWARDs in time is where we will find a critical ingredient for a great CRM application for the FUTURE.

Consider this – a sales rep out on the road after a customer meeting sits on a bench or in his car, with a good phone cell connection, and speaks his long and complex sales report into his cell phone (4-5 minutes and several paragraphs) and hangs up.  Within hours, the voice-based system processes and syncs the report automatically into the correct fields of the CRM database, with 98% accuracy and with professional formatting and appearance.  Sweet!

THAT’S THE HOLY GRAIL!  VOICE 2 CRM! 

Millions of dollars are being spent to find a practical solution that is already operating effectively among us and has been for years.  Voice and phone, the ultimate mobility and efficiency tool!  RETRO!  Who would have thought!  As much as we try to develop “modern” improvements, sometimes something from the past is brought forward, added to the brilliance of the new computer tools, forming a new blended tool that is far more powerful than anything the new tools can create by themselves.  The older RETRO capability of simple voice is given new vitality and viability in business work.

Put the words “VOICE-BASED CRM” into your browser and be surprised – a vibrant new industry is developing to provide an effective sales reporting tool that is simple, fast, and intuitive.  Your CRM system or implementation will gain significantly if you add a voice-based CRM data entry capability.

CHECK IT OUT!

 

 

Testimonial for Voice-based CRM Data Entry System

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!