The most significant challenge for an SME in introducing processes and systems in the organization is to not have those tools seem like process overheads to their people, who will use the system. The simplicity of the usage model is paramount. A so called “comprehensive” tool, which requires the users to put in more work than they anyway perform on a daily basis, is doomed to fail. The success of the tool lies in user adoption and the users will embrace a tool that does all the regular work they anyway perform daily and does not need duplication of efforts in terms of logging interactions, actions and tasks. For sales and marketing folks, the most critical tasks they perform are: It is clear to us that, a CRM system should be a tool to get the above activities done rather than be something which in parallel, logs the activities above, performed using other tools/ systems.
What an SME needs from a CRM System?February 12th, 2010Lead generation is too important …February 8th, 2010…. to be left to the marketing department. (with apologies to Drucker – was it?- who famously said, ‘marketing was too important to be left to the marketing department!’) And, one could add – sales is too important to trust only salesmen to deliver alone! Clear demarcation of territories is unhelpful, even dangerous. Sales is responsible for immediate, this week/ this month and marketing looks at next month, next year and next life! Funny, but this is the kind of thinking that has ruined customer relationships, reduced sales role to deal management and restricted marketing to a role akin to Chetan Bhagat’s in the making and showing of 3 Idiots. It is time we recognized sales persons’ contribution to creating sales leads and nurturing them prior to closing. The added benefit is that when the sales person knows that the sales lead in his intray is one that he has helped create, his sense of ownership for the lead is heightened. And, that can only help the cause of sales-marketing partnership. Salesgenie CRM++ automatically calculates values from the activities logged to identify sales leads and shows you leads along with their “scores”. The range of activities that Salesgenie logs in order to calculate the “lead-score” include activities initiated by sales, marketing and importantly the customer himself. The table of leads, with their scores can help your team focus their energies on the most probable ones, the ones with the high scores. |
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