May 22, 2009
Client Engagement: CRM for the Rest of Us By TMCnet Special Guest Customer Relationship Management grew up through the 90’s aiming to automate the seemingly last of the business challenges: sales and marketing. The holy grail of high tech was to computerize and measure what are significantly human interactive functions. As such, we saw many companies rise and fall trying to find the right parts to tackle such as prospecting, sales engagement, contracting, order processing and delivery. Depending on the software vendor’s positioning, the vendor either focused on backend integration with ERP and SCM systems, or it focused on the front end user needs for mobility and desktop application integration. Few vendors could cover all areas well and eventually most failed when the SaaS (News - Alert) model lured so many to the ease and affordability of web-based applications.
Looking at CRM applications today, few are functionality different than the original ones providing contact management, calendaring, the ability to store documents and trigger workflows defined by the user’s sales process. CRM systems can report and track the sales process and ensure that associated information is stored and shared effectively within a company and its authorized partners. Most CRM systems also allow integration with marketing to coordinate lists, note customer/prospect touches and ultimately measure campaign results and ROI. This is all very helpful in the pre-sales stage, particularly with product companies.
However, in a service-driven organization, the products are the people and the projects that they deliver. Managing time and productivity are what determines profit and customer satisfaction. Managing a customer relationship goes well past a specific sales opportunity.
Client Engagement Systems (CES (News - Alert)) are unique from CRM in that they integrate the sales functions such as contact management and lead tracking together with project management, document management and collaboration across multiple companies – including the client – that are critical to a successful project delivery. Taking advantage of the cost advantages of the web and the advancement of online collaboration technologies, CES is finally a way to deliver practical CRM-like functionality for smaller, services businesses and others that want to have the control of their client interactions before, during and after the sales process. Therefore, CES requires:
The CRM system user interface and functionality are designed for sales people. Thus, they are optimized for quick input and access to customer-specific sales and marketing information. CES, however, are designed for everyone that influences the customer at any time, especially in a services organization. Therefore, they have numerous application interfaces depending on the person, role and need. CES doesn’t assume other systems will feed into and out of it but rather that the system is the sole place for client information relative to the relationship and engagement overall.
Finally, a CES can take on a more vertical flavor to reflect the functional differences among services organizations. For example, a software development company may need tools for integrating bug tracking information and support knowledge. A marketing consulting company may need document versioning and image libraries to help them effectively collaborate on projects. Time tracking may be utterly critical to a software business. Personal time management may be more useful to marketers. Thus, the ability to provide vertical benefits are more likely to be seen in s CES environment since it encapsulates the entire life cycle interaction of the company’s and individual’s roles beyond a single client, project or timeframe.
In a tough economy where process optimization and customer retention are key success factors, services companies, in particular, can truly benefit from CES as a better way to obtain and retain profitable clients. Ms. Dver is chief marketing officer for Actionize (News - Alert).com, a client engagement system for marketing consultants. She is the author of the book, “No Time Marketing” and she has been published in Forbes, BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur, Promo Magazine, Chief Marketer, and dozens of other marketing and CRM focused media.
TMCnet publishes expert commentary on various telecommunications, IT, call center, CRM and other technology-related topics. Are you an expert in one of these fields, and interested in having your perspective published on a site that gets several million unique visitors each month? Get in touch. Edited by Stefania Viscusi (source: http://callcenterinfo.tmcnet.com/analysis/articles/56652-client-engagement-crm-the-rest-us.htm) |