Deciding on the Best CRM Software For Your Business
February 26, 2008
After you’ve had a couple presentations from CRM software vendors, it’s time for your selection team to convene and compare notes. Save discussions on individual software choices until this meeting; this prevents premature decisions being made without the benefit of full discussion with all view points represented.
Evaluate the CRM Software technology, not the Partner
Remember: this meeting is to evaluate the technology, not the Partner. Yes, it’s human nature to role the two together and to some extent it’s unavoidable. However, do admonish your Selection Team to focus on the technology.
On your quest to find the best balance of features and budget, there are a few critical questions to answer at this meeting:
- Is there a clear technology winner?
- Is the project still feasible? It might be that the proposals all came in way over what you had in mind for a budget.
- If there’s not a clear winner, do we feel at least one or two of the CRM software choices may be sufficient? (watch out for inadequate presentations done by Partners).
The Structured Proposal
It can be very tricky to get a proposal that reveals the true costs of a solution. To help you get a reasonable apple-to-apples comparison, I’ve developed a very simple technique I call “The Structured Proposal”.
(check out the CRM Survival Guide if you are interested in the Structured Proposal)
Problems With Just Getting a Quote
You’d think that a sales quote is a sales quote. But with CRM it can be anything but. If you let each presenting Partner give you a quote as they see fit instead of in the Structured Proposal format, you’ll get a wide range of quotes and have no valid basis for comparison.
If you were to take the typical quote from a Partner and then have them re-do it using the Structured Proposal format, the new quote would likely be significantly higher. This is because it is designed to force the Partner to put a fair bit of thought and specificity into it, digging up costs that usually are glossed over.
The Structured Proposal is designed to make it easy for you to reasonably compare the costs associated with each technology. (while you won’t get to a true “apples to apples” comparison, you may get to an “Ida Red apple to Empire apple” comparison.) The format of the Structured Proposal is simple and
yet designed to make it difficult for Partners to “play games” with their quotes.
The 4 Elements Of The Structured Proposal
1. Software Costs
This is really the key to what makes the Structured Proposal work. Usually, Partners will bury any custom development work into services and often just quote the programming costs, leaving out such things as rework (and you can bank on there being rework on any custom development). With the Structured Proposal, you’re instructing them to be much more precise:
- Create a detail line for each custom development piece.
- For each piece of custom development, they’ll have to sign-off that they’ve considered: Functional
Spec, Detailed Design, Programming, Unit Testing, at least 2 rounds of revisions and delivery.
2. Service Costs
Each category of service should be clearly delineated. You want this to be broken down into enough detail that you get the sense that they have thought through all the various areas that will be needed.
3. Disclaimers.
This is a very effective device. By explicitly asking the Partner (in writing) if there are any areas of concern, the likelihood of you getting an accurate picture goes way up. Often, there will be areas mentioned in here that will warrant more discussion and perhaps more investigation on the Partner’s part. This can lead to some very useful and effective communications with your potential Partner. Partner’s that use this area well are taking a big step towards earning your trust and confidence.
4. Sign-off declaration:
There’s nothing like putting a corporate officer’s signature to a declaration to make sure that what they’re signing-off on is accurate! “I have read and understand the Business Requirements document and the attached quote represents within +/- 20%”
Summary
You need to look at the cost for the whole solution to account for differences in each software’s native strengths and weaknesses.
Welcome To The Grand (Re)Opening!
February 11, 2008
We’re starting 2008 off with a brand new site–one that’s been optimized to make a better browsing experience for you. A major focus of this new design has been to move the the information you’re looking for “closer to the top”.
In addition to a cleaner, more modern look, we’ve added several usability features to the site, including:
- Search. At the top of every page is a search box; just type in what you’re looking for and you’ll see a list of every page of content that talks about it.
- Ask The CRM Coach. Don’t see an answer to your question? Let me know…I make every effort to make my blogs relevant to what business needs and there’s a very good chance I’ll answer your question. You may even get a personal response via Email.
- More Intuitive. We’ve made it easier than ever to find informormation related to what you’re looking for. You can view all articles by category (e.g. “project management”) and see related articles.
Special Promotions…This Week Only!
- Grand Opening Sale: For this week only, knock $50 off the sticker price of the CRM Survival Guide. When you check out, use coupon code “grandreopening“.
- Win a $50 Gift Certificate from Amazon.com. Everyone who submits a CRM relevant question to “Ask The CRM Coach” by end of day Feb. 15 will be automatically entered to win! You’ll have to figure out how to get to the “Ask The CRM Coach” page yourself…but HINT: it’s on the main menu!
We’re in the process of moving our articles and blog postings from the old site to the new site as well as working on new information.
If you like the design, I encourage you to check out our other company, Piggybank Technology. I encourage you to take a look around at the new place and please leave me your feedback in the comment section below:
Key CRM Concepts You Need To Understand
February 7, 2008
I want to get you up to speed not so much on features, but on broader concepts that you need to keep in mind when selecting CRM technology.
Fit With IT
It’s a good idea to pick a CRM system that your IT staff are capable of supporting. That said, be careful not to dismiss very good choices because your IT staff may not be familiar with current, main stream technologies. Being that you’re a small business, your IT staff should be reasonably
up to speed on main stream small business technologies.
You need to look at how well the CRM technology fits in with the skills and competencies of your IT staff. For example, if your IT staff is familiar with MS SQL Server (common for small businesses) as a database back-end and the CRM solution is Oracle based (usually used in larger
Enterprises), this could cause some problems. Certainly, your IT staff will not have a comfort level (at first) of working in that new environment for back-ups and database maintenance issues.
Contact vs. Account Centric
There are two basic paradigms for CRM systems:
- Contact Centric: In Contact Centric systems, the primary organization is around independent contacts.
- Account Centric: In Account Centric systems, there are two levels to the basic organization: a company or account layer to which multiple contacts can be related.
Reasons for Compromising on Technology
Contact Centric
In a contact centric system, the database is organized around individual contacts. So, if you have dealings with 3 different people all from the same company, you would have 3 different contact records and in each record would be the company name.
There may be ways to relate different contacts together, but these will be in the “workaround” class. A Contact centric organization makes sense if you are dealing with individuals and you do not need to do such things as look at an organization’s combined history. It is very difficult/clumsy to track company related information separately from contact information.
For example, if you want to track information about a company (e.g. sic code, # employees, annual budget, etc.) separately from contact related information (e.g. favourite hobby, home phone number, spouse’s name, etc.). there isn’t an easy way to do that:
- Under which contact do you store the company information,
- Which contact becomes the primary record,
- Do you store the information under both contacts…which makes updating difficult.
- Do you create a “contact” record to serve as the company record and somehow relate the contacts to it?
Account Centric
Account centric CRM systems have a layer above contact, the organization or account, that can tie multiple contacts together. This has the advantage of being able to track company-related information entirely separately from contact-related information. This approach is usually easier to:
- See all opportunities for an account/company.
- See combined history.
- Do address updates.
- See the organization and all its contacts in one view.
- Report on company vs. individuals easier.
Unless you are working in an industry where you only need one contact record per account, choose an Account centric CRM system.
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