How to approach a CRM

By definition, CRM is customer relationship management but, depending on the context, it could also mean:

- Management of my customers and prospects.

- Relational marketing management.

- Direct marketing management.

One definition I like is: CRM is any way of interaction that a company has with the customers/prospects and it might provoke an active response and create a direct channel of communication.

We are now very used to knowing many new CRM concepts like, Cloud Computing, SaaS, prospecting with CRM etc. But from the experiences I am having with my customers (sales managers/directors), I am getting very aware that what they are mostly asking for is: “How could I know who what my salesforce is doing”. This is: SFA ( Sales Force Automation) which , from my point of view, it is still the most fashionable CRM concept by far for so many people.

Do you still remember that very often, the sales managers have been managing their staff with the “oldschool” meetings, that normally happen recurrently in Mondays or Fridays?. This is still good and necessary, but for a manager whrn it comes to know what their sales force are doing ( how much pipe are they generating, how many business opportunities they are working on, how much ROI the manager gets for each representative, how much ROI per product/rep. , what are they closing?) It is still pure magic for them to know at real time without using e-mails, or Excel files or calls etc. It is less time consuming for any manager, and also, the control is more accurate. This may still occur en medium size companies.

My intention hereby, is to give the message that SFA is a still a key message for General Business. I know this might be a bit far from normal definitions of CRM, but this is the way I see it is in SMB. (Small Medium Business). My piece of advice here is that, when targeting sales directors of SMB companies, your scoping is going to be right.

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