Focus on the Relationship with a CRM Application.

I recently read an article aimed at sales professionals that listed a number of Customer Dos and Don’ts.  The point of this article was to help you do the things that keep your customers coming back and avoid the things that drive your existing customers away. In short, it is all about the customer relationship. The Customer Relationship is also the focus of your CRM application – or so it should be. As I read this article and others on the same subject, I began thinking about how often the implementation of a CRM application becomes a task of the IT department. The IT department typically does not interact with your customers and really has no direct role in defining and maintaining a relationship with your customers.

The involvement of the Sales and Service teams is critical to a successful CRM application implementation. These are the individuals in the company that own the relationships with the customers, and if a software application is going to help manage these relationships, it makes sense that these folks are involved. It is too easy to get caught up in the technical nature of a software implementation and bogged down in discussions about which system is the customer master and how will users access the data and which integrations are required. These are certainly necessary conversations and critical to the success of the implementation, but they have little to do with the success of the customer relationship. You can, after all, successfully implement software with many integrations and complexities without positively affecting business results.

Of course, most of the sales articles and books I read do not discuss the role of software in the sales process. There are tons of writers out there who are quick with advice on how to be a great sales person, what to say, how to negotiate, and how to overcome objections.  The purpose of a CRM application is to help you organize data and implement these best practices into your sales methodologies. Using some of the key Dos and Don’ts from that article, we can identify a number of relationship tips that should be considered when designing the CRM solution.

• Put the connection before the content.  Your customers don’t want you to sell to them; they want you to genuinely care about them. Business today requires you to take the time to build a personal connection before you start talking business. Your CRM application is the perfect spot to store and organize information about your customers to help you build this relationship. Use data that you collect on your customer to connect with them on a personal level. Don’t think that is important? Just have a look at how many companies are tied into social networks today.
• Know your competition, but don’t badmouth them. To have a competitive advantage is to know your competitor’s weaknesses and strengths, but keep them to yourself in front of your customer. Use your CRM application to collect competitive data, but keep in mind that building yourself up at the expense of others is disrespectful and shows insecurity. You would want your competitor to show you the same respect.
• Focus on individuals rather than companies. You are selling to the company through individuals, and those individuals are making the decision to buy or not. Collect contact information and understand their roles in the company. Use your CRM application to keep as much information about your customer contacts as possible.
• Beware of the sales pitch. You want to avoid a sales pitch that sounds scripted and makes you sound like a hustler. Use the data at your disposal in your CRM application to have conversations with your customer rather than reciting your well-practiced elevator pitch. Take care to not let the CRM application control your exchanges with customers. The Sales Coach feature of your CRM should be used to guide, not script, conversations and next steps.
• Engage with customers as equals. Listen and much as you talk and have a conversation that feels mutual rather than talking down to or being subservient to your customer. It is important to know who you are talking to, and what their role is, with which the CRM application can help. Use this information to frame your conversation as an equal.
• Don’t avoid problem contacts. Your CRM application, if used effectively, can help you identify which of your contacts are ambivalent or even hostile. Be careful not to avoid these contacts, however, and attempt to go around them or over their heads. Use your data to prepare yourself to engage. Working around someone is more likely to create an enemy who will work against you from the inside. This being said, consider the next tip carefully.
• Don’t mistake apathy for loyalty. Customers who are about to switch to another vendor will exhibit a lack of enthusiasm for you and your products. Don’t wait for quiet customers to call you. Routinely check your CRM application for a list of customers who have not been contacted or had any activity in a while and send them a note or drop in for a visit – not to sell anything necessarily, but because you have a relationship and want to see how they are.
• Don’t ignore the little opportunities. Even if you know there is a bigger opportunity out there, put your own agenda for that big sales bonus aside and give the little deals as much attention as the big ones. You are reaping from your relationships, after all, and while that big deal looks more appealing to you, the little opportunity may be the most important thing to your customer at that moment. Ignore them when they have a small need, and you probably will not be asked to help with their big needs in the future. Your CRM application will help you track and manage all of your opportunities, but don’t let it talk you out of pursuing the small ones.

So, on a CRM Implementation, there are clearly two focus areas. The Implementation team should include a Technical Architect and a Solution Architect. The Technical Architect will focus on all the technical issues around hosting, integration, user access, and so forth. The Solution Architect should focus on the way the software will be used to positively affect your business, and should understand your customer relationships in order to best support those relationships in the design of the CRM application. In this way, a CRM application can certainly help you become a more effective sales person.