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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 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 a
s 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?
“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!
TALK CRM! 10 Easy Steps to Voice-Based CRM Data Entry
“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
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.
10 Reasons Sales Reps Won’t Use the CRM System
In the spirit of Dave Letterman’s “Top 10″ lists, here are the Top 10 reasons sales reps do not use the CRM system or why CRM systems have such poor user adoption statistics (*for a possible remedy to these 10 reasons, see note at bottom):
10 They just don’t like administrative sorts of work, which takes them away from selling and making money. They consider reporting administrative work, so they don’t do it.
09 They just get busy doing their selling, making money, and caring for customers, so they forget to report; it isn’t part of their important work, not ‘top of mind’. “I just can’t get around to it.”
08 They report by talking about their meetings around the water cooler or in the break room or at the bar in the evening or in the car with a passenger when traveling, or anywhere they can talk about it (and not have to write it).
07 They just call the boss and tell him/her about it all (or, hopefully, get the boss’ email and leave the report as a message), so there is perceived to be no need to do a formal report.
06 They have learned and practiced procrastination from the time of early high school and are very good at it (especially at procrastinating reports), so they can delay reporting for days, weeks, and even months. “Oh, I’ll get to it next month when I have some time.”
05 They think that nobody in management reads their reports, so they think the reporting is a meaningless waste of time. “Hello, anybody out there reading this report? Hello? Respond to me, so I know someone is reading this.”
04 What they do and how they go about it is their personal “competitive edge,” their own “special style,” and they are highly competitive and not about to reveal it, share it, or comment on it through reports to management. “If I don’t sell, I don’t eat!”
03 They hate to write, they hated English classes, and they hate “writing” reports. “Give me enough alcohol and tobacco,” said one sales rep, “and I can write anything. Dope me up!”
02 They know that by not reporting they can “own” the information and by hoarding it ensure their long-time employment. “No one is going to be happy to see me “walk out the door knowing what I (and only I) know!”
01 They perceive that the only thing management cares about is making money, so if they are meeting their goals or exceeding them, they think reporting will never be enforced. “They will never fire me for not entering my sales information into the CRM system!”
*Note: Here is a possible remedy to these reasons sales reps won’t report into their CRM system. Attention Management literature suggests that sales reps pay attention to the things their managers pay attention to. The sales team must know that managers up and down the organization are (1) committed as a team to the value of the knowledge in the CRM system for analysis, decision making, and proper action, and (2) insistent on the fundamental requirement that aggregating in the CRM databases is a continuous flow of accurate, current, and complete explanatory knowledge from the field. This continuous flow of information is easiest attained with a voice-based CRM data entry system that is easy and quick for reporting and one that sales reps will use naturally.
Maybe sales reps – when shown a better way – can set aside these 10 reasons for not reporting and follow the example and attention of their managers in building CRM databases of good information that make a practical difference in the success of their organization and themselves.
(CEM) Customer Experience Management: Use Voice for ‘CEM Conversations’
“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
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.
MOBILE CRM SOLUTIONS: So Simple That Sales Reps Love Using It!
When I am traveling and for CRM reporting, I take my brain, my mouth, and my cell phone – that’s it! (well, maybe a logbook to take notes in). Nothing more complex or sophisticated.
NATURAL, INTUITIVE! NO ‘IT’ STUFF, NO SOFTWARE, NO GADGETS, NO COMPLEXITY! – NO HASSLE!
After the customer sales meeting, I dial the number of my voice-based CRM data entry provider, enter a secure PIN/ID number, and speak my information into an open dictation system (totally secure). When I finish, doing it my own way, I hang up. My audio information is converted to digital by a native English language speaking/U.S. based human transcriptionist for 98% accuracy (making me look like a professional and requiring no further time on my part for editing), and sync’d automatically into my CRM (no cutting or pasting).
THAT’S IT! CALL IT IN AND FORGET IT! HOW HARD DOES THIS HAVE TO BE?
Completely mobile, simple, and fast – and I am in my car or on the plane, hurrying on to my next appointment – CRM reporting task completed and the data into the CRM database for management attention – ACCURATE, COMPLETE, AND CURRENT! GREAT!
REPORT-FREE GOLF TIME, WEEKENDS AND NIGHTS FREE, AND QUALITY FAMILY TIME! MORE SELLING TIME! REPORT FREE! – DONE!
How does CRM get more mobile than that (with such efficiency, making me look so good, and with no more complexity or cost or hassle than that)?
VOICE-BASED CRM DATA ENTRY providers with human, native English language transcriptionists and automatic sync into the CRM databases, are the key if you are really interested in “Mobile CRM Solutions” for busy people on the road.