What do you need to know
Unlike what software vendors claim, the key to the effectiveness of Customer Relationship Management is not to buy software. Enterprises that can succeed in CRM project implementation are those that have good CRM policies, can follow reasonable principles in the implementation process, and have chosen good CRM software suites. If software vendors stop rhetoric such as "Magic software" and set their foundations on strategy and execution, they can provide more help to their customers.
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Analysis
The key to claiming the success of customer relationship management lies in the software practice, which is very dangerous for users and suppliers because it ignores policies and executions that can actually lead to success. When analyzing the cause of CRM failure, the software is usually not among the suspected factors. However, in the CRM magazine, a senior executive of a CRM software company said: "I don't think most of the CRM projects are failed. In fact, all (the vendor's name is omitted here) CRM execution is successful, and it helps me to some extent at work. " This means that the CRM software purchased from any other vendor will fail. The fact is that the failure of software and projects is not necessarily related. The reason may be that the software vendor is not able to intervene in the Development of Enterprise CRM policies, or the software supplier only has 25% of the time to implement the project. No matter who manages policies and executions, careful and thoughtful consideration is necessary. In the investigation, we attributed the failure of the CRM project to seven reasons. Surprisingly, none of these seven reasons are related to the software itself. On the contrary, they are related to execution or strategy. These seven reasons are summarized in the following table. Seven major causes of CRM Project Failure
| Cause of failure |
Failed |
Problems that cannot be solved by software |
Countermeasure |
| 1. Ignoring data quality |
Run:If the data is suspicious, call center users and sales users will leave the application. |
The data cleanup software can solve some problems, but cannot solve the process of data loss, error data, or compensating for defective data capture. |
The project plan should be "data cleansing" and tested prior to project implementation. |
| 2. Policies in the organization lead to sectoral behavior, or no communication between them. |
Policy:When users see this solution, the CRM system may crash.If it can be supported in the implementation phase, the policy will prevent the project from focusing on the customer, and the sales and customer service personnel will discard the system. |
No software can save bad policies. |
CRM policies must be centered around customer touchpoints within the entire enterprise. |
| 3. IT and business departments cannot work together. |
Policy, execute |
Software can promote collaboration, workflows, and virtual teams, but this is only effective within organizations that are willing to work collaboratively. |
The two departments should be jointly responsible for policies and for the project initiator in each step of execution. |
| 4. Lack of plans |
Policy, execute |
The project management software can help capture a plan and play a role in management. But it cannot create a plan. Human intervention is required. |
Do not start a project before there is a project plan and related conditions. |
| 5. CRM is designed to meet the needs of enterprises rather than customers. 6. the problematic process is automated. |
Policy:If the sales and customer service users cannot feel the benefits, they will resume manual operations or return to the original system.
Run:The essence of CRM is to improve the process facing customers. Like service personnel, sales personnel are reluctant to learn new solutions for the same bad process. |
The software cannot fix a defective process. It may be an automated choice, but it still needs to be optimized. |
Share Holders from all parts of the company are involved and asked to evaluate which processes must be improved to eliminate problems between the company and customers. |
| 7. do not pay enough attention to skills. |
Run:If sales and service personnel refuse to use the CRM system only because they do not have the corresponding skills to operate and understand the CRM system, then their rejection is not intentional. |
Software can promote distance learning and some interactive training, but cannot change management or internal enterprise processes. |
Ensure that employees understand why CRM is used and CRM is combined with their skills, and ensure that appropriate training is provided (last but most importantly, many enterprises want to cut the cost ). |
Source: Gartner Research
The software itself is not one of the main causes of failure based on the analysis of why these projects fail. If there is a problem with the policy or execution of the project, and you do not notice the details, such as data integration, IT and business organization's target consent, or user use, the project may fail. It is ironic that, before the software can be properly tested and proven to be valid, it is considered a failure and abandoned. (Responsible editor: Zhang Lan) |
