Debra Kurtz, President of Kurtz Consulting Inc., recently shared her thoughts on CRM, a subject we’ve discussed a good bit. Debra works with companies of all sizes to develop growth strategies, and quite often CRM comes into play.

What are the most important ways CRM help a small/midsize business?

Contact management - keeping info on customers and prospects is the first
step. I’ve seen firms improve their sales pipeline with prospects and with
existing customers by developing a plan for how frequently they will initiate
contact. A CRM system is a great tool for segmenting customers/prospects
into groups and deciding how and how often each group will be contacted.
Then the CRM system tracks the interactions and keeps everyone in the firm
on the same page in terms of what’s going on with the customers.

Where is the pain on a CRM installation and how can an SMB prevent it?

There has been much written on the subject of CRM installation pain. For
small businesses, I see two key elements towards ensuring a smooth
installation. The first is to make an installation plan where the CRM
functionality is implemented in bits, as opposed to large chunks. By
planning for frequent, but small CRM installments, the small business can
best swallow the project. The employees can learn the new system in baby
steps as opposed to a big bang. This keeps the project from becoming
overwhelming and increases the chances that employees will actually use the
system as planned.

The second best practice for installing CRM in my opinion is the need to
involve the various stakeholders throughout the small business. The CRM
initiative cannot just be the pet project of senior management or sales
management (or worse yet, the pet project of the IT manager). The CRM
project needs to reflect the collective input of all the key users. A small
business would be wise to get engagement from sales personnel, the sales
manager, marketing, customer service, accounting, IT and senior management
before designing or implementing the system. As the system is implemented,
it’s a good idea to have a project team comprised of employees representing
these various functions. By taking into consideration all the users of a
CRM system, an organization is more likely to build a system which
accommodates these diverse needs. Additionally, engaging employees in the
CRM system design will help them to support use of the subsequent system,
since people are more likely to take ownership of projects they helped to
create.

What do you see ahead for CRM technology over the next couple years?

Wireless CRM applications have been the talk of CRM for years, but I know of
few companies where it truly works well. I think we can all agree that
wireless could be great for field sales reps and service reps where they can
log into the home office from their cars between sales calls or directly in
front of the customer. But now, reps who use wireless CRM handhelds report
problems in synchronization and limited access to data. I think
synchronization and easier data access will be greatly improved in the
future and will lead to handheld CRM applications that truly work out in the
field.

Another area of growth for CRM is beyond the transactional to true
optimization. Today CRM helps companies to automate and track the sales
process, but this is largely a transactional report of what already
occurred. I think future CRM systems will have a larger component of
knowledge management and analytics to help companies determine what their
optimal customer segments are and what types of activities generate the
optimal customer response. So in the future, I expect CRM to be more
proactive and predictive for companies.

(Emphasis added)

Thank you, Debra.

Check Debra’s recent article on CRM for more information!