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Strategic Solutions - Crucial Issues

 

This detailed review process has evolved steadily since I performed my first software review in 1984. It is designed to provide readers a comprehensive view of your program so they can make an informed judgment on the suitability of your CRM solution to their own unique requirements.

Special Reminder: This Crucial Issue questionnaire is my guideline to assure consistent coverage of important issues and to assure the highest possible quality In-Depth Reviews for my readers. If you have other topics you want to discuss, that you feel are important to your product, let’s do it! Some of you forget that no single product is best for every CRM situation. I believe each of you has an important story to tell that will help people decide if your program is best for them. Part of my job is to help you discover and tell your unique story!

Wherever you feel appropriate, please provide your best, detailed replies to these questions - it will help your prospective customers better understand the strengths of your product! The feature lists in some of the sections serve as a reminder of some of the important features you may wish to discuss. Feel free to add any topics you like.

 

Some products may not require replies to certain questions. For example, if you market a contact manager to individual users, database synchronization is not required. However, to assure consistent coverage, I use this same questionnaire as a starting point for all In-Depth Reviews. Please, use your own judgment and respond where appropriate.

 

Also, please remember, this review process is intended to be an iterative and interactive process. I will provide you with a copy of my final review document prior to publication.  This way we can resolve any misunderstandings of capabilities or any other issues that might come up. I welcome your comments and suggestions for improving this process. You should also realize that I update these reviews continuously. Whenever you make new version releases or important announcements, I will make appropriate changes to this review document! So, please keep me posted of new developments and I will make the appropriate changes at once.

If you have already been through my review process, you don’t need to duplicate your earlier work. (I archive everything you ever send me!) However, there are several new sections, please respond to these new items. Of course, I welcome your latest views on any previously submitted topics.

 

I know this looks like a lot of work!

 

It’s really not as bad as it looks though, especially if you distribute the work among several members of your team. I am sure that you will find this a valuable exercise that could positively influence your future product development!. As always, I promise to offer you my most candid feedback.

 

Let’s work together to make this happen!

                                                                    Rich Bohn

 

Important Notice: Many of you get confused at this point in my review process! Everything that follows is an optional exercise on your part! You don't have to answer a single one of these questions for me to write a review of your product. However, this is the process I will go through as I try to create a proper In-Depth Review of your CRM solution. Remember, this is a lot of work on my end too! The focus of my review efforts is driven by questions from our readers and the larger CRM community. Of course, your cooperation and inputs will lead to a more accurate and more meaningful review of your product! So, I will always invite, and welcome, your inputs on any of the points that follow. As is my custom, I will also give you an opportunity to challenge or clarify all issues raised in my reviews before I formally publish my findings.

 

PRICING

This is where I try to explore some additional pricing issues.

PURCHASE CONTRACT TERMS & CONDITIONS

Please comment, as you see fit, on the following Purchase Contract Terms & Conditions issues:

Also, please be sure to include a copy of this contract.

  1. Definition of Terms
  2. Indemnification
  3. Cap on Liability
  4. Payment Terms
  5. Warranty
  6. Assignment of contract

TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP

Please comment, as you see fit, on the following TCO issues:

  1. Software License
  2. Database & Server components
  3. Annual Maintenance
  4. Hardware
  5. Network
  6. Training (Initial and Ongoing)
  7. Implementation Services
  8. Staffing Requirements
  9. Upgrade Costs

SALES & MARKETING STRATEGY

Please comment, as you see fit, on your Sales & Marketing Strategy.

IMPLEMENTATION PARTNERS

Who are your implementation partners?

CREDIBILITY

Too many CRM software developers quote the highly publicized statistics on failed CRM projects and glibly accept it at the status quo. Our readers expect more from their solution provider! In this section I explore two important issues that demonstrate a software developer’s credibility.

ACCOUNTABILITY

  1. What promises, if any, of increased productivity do you make for your product?

  2. What measures do you provide in your product to prove that these commitments are made?

  3. What independent verification can you provide to support these claims?

  4. Do you provide real customer references (including voice and email) to support these claims?

  5. If so, may I have a sample to contact for my own research?

RETURN-ON-INVESTMENT

  1. What detailed information do you provide that will allow customers to demonstrate the ROI for your CRM solution?

  2. What facts, reports or user case studies can you provide to support this ROI analysis?

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

Please comment, as you see fit, on your Research & Development Strategy. Please share a little insights into the makeup and strengths of your development team.

 

SOFTWARE QUALITY & SECURITY

Software quality and security are too often overlooked in CRM evaluations. Let's correct this now!

SOFTWARE QUALITY STANDARDS

Software quality is an issue of growing importance. In this section, I try to assess the quality standards you use. Please detail your support of quality software engineering standards addressing the following points:  

  1. What % of bugs were found in beta test?

  2. Do you use the Fagan inspection method?

  3. Are you pursuing ISO 9000 certification?

  4. Do you have a system for tracking “Lessons learned”?

  5. What systems do you use for tracking Metrics?

  6. What SEI maturity level do you conform to?

If you are still developing your quality effort, you might find the following web sites useful:

SOFTWARE SECURITY STANDARDS

Please detail the processes you follow to assure the security of your CRM solution.

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

We may not be there yet, but the trend today is clearly for multi-component, asynchronous n-tier applications that take full advantage of the internet.  A key component of this strategy is absolute support for internationally recognized open standards such as, XML, UDDI and SOAP. 

  1. Please provide a detailed definition of your system architecture, highlighting your unique strengths

  2. Please provide a detailed definition of database structure.

  3. Please state your support of open standards such as XML, etc.

  4. Please state your position on your support for the emerging web services standards: .Net, J2EE and WebSphere

  5. What database engine do you use?
  6. What programming language do you use?
  7. Is the source code available?
  8. What customization or programming tools do you support?
  9. What additional software, if any, is required to customize your program?
  10. Do you support VBA or some other scripting language?

CUSTOMIZATION & ADAPTABILITY

No two companies sell the same products to the same companies in the same way!  Every company is different.   Every sales process follows its own path.  Every sales person, often pig-headedly, wants to do things their own way.  Too many CRM developers fail to grasp this fundamental point and force you to conform to their view of the world.

USER DEFINED FIELDS

  1. How many user-defined fields do you provide?

  2. What information can be stored in these fields?

  3. How are new fields added to your system?

  4. How do you deal with customer-added fields when you make new version releases?

USER DEFINED TABLES

  1. How are new tables added to your system?

  2. How do you deal with customer-added fields and tables when you make new version releases?

CUSTOM SCREENS

  1. What screen design options do you provide?

  2. What screen design tools do you provide?

  3. Custom screens by log-in ID?

APPLICATION INTEGRATION CAPABILITIES

One of the most important aspects of a line-of-business application is the ability to exchange data with other applications - to ensure consistency of data, streamline processes, and give employees an accurate, updated view of information across the business.

 

So, please explicitly detail your application integration capabilities.

 

BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES

Each organization has a set of business processes that are unique to that organization. To run smoothly, organizations should standardize processes across the organization, and encourage all users to adopt these standards.

 

So, please explicitly detail your application's BPM capabilities.

 

INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT

Most businesses now operate in a global market. So, strong international support is important. Please explicitly detail your support for international users:

  1. In what countries is your program sold and supported?

  2. In what languages is your program available?

  3. Please provide approximate number of users in each language.

  4. Please confirm for which languages the “Help” files are available.

  5. Please confirm for which languages the documentation is available.

  6. Who performed the localization of your program?

  7. Please provide any other comments you can on your ability to support international users.

International Data Support

  1. Do you handle international phone numbers ?

  2. Do you handle international postal codes?

  3. How do you deal with multiple currencies in your forecasting component?

EASE OF USE

If sales people are to use a program and let it become a major factor in their success, it must be easy to use! In this section, I describe the ease of use for your product. Please tell me what you think of your user interface, ease of use, and conformance to standards here by addressing the following points. What sets your program apart from the rest on ease of use?

USER INTERFACE

Please tell me the strengths of the look-and-feel and menu system of your user interface.

COMMAND STRUCTURE

  1. Command Shortcuts

  2. On-line prompts

  3. Balloon Help

  4. Drag & Drop Support

  5. Function Keys

WIZARDS

  1. What wizards do you provide?

  2. What do they do?

ERROR HANDLING

  1. Error Messages

  2. Forced Data Save

HELP FILES

  1. Context Sensitive?

  2. Thorough?

  3. User Defined?

DOCUMENTATION

In this section, I tell readers about your documentation. Please tell me about your documentation here, paying special attention to the following points. Useful details, please.

 

Please provide the title and page count for each manual you offer

  • Table of Contents

  • Organization

  • Writing

  • Graphics

  • Index

  • Glossary

  • Travel Guide

Do you provide Adobe Acrobat version of your manuals for use by the mobile sales person?

Please be sure that I have representative examples of your documentation.

 

TRAINING SUPPORT

The training materials that come with a CRM solution can make a big difference in how quickly people put the system to work. In this section, I describe the training options available from you. Please tell me about your training materials here, paying special attention to the following points:

  • Tutorial

  • On-line

  • Written

  • Sample Data

  • Training

  • Web Based Training

  • Video

  • CD-ROM

  • Class Room

    • Standard Courses available (please detail descriptions, prices, availability)

    • Custom Courses available (please detail descriptions, prices, availability)

    • Third-Party Courses available (please detail descriptions, prices, availability)

  1. Do you hold an annual user conference? If so, please provide further details.

  2. Do you have any active User Groups? If so, please provide further details.

  3. Do you publish any kind of newsletter for your users?  If so, how often and may I see a cop

IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES

Please tell me whatever you think is important about your implementation process, paying special attention to the following points:

IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS

  1. If installation is normally included in the sale of your system, please detail the typical initial installation process normally performed by you or your resellers. Please clarify unique components of your implementation process that help assure the success of your installations.
  2. What is your average time from purchase order to complete implementation?

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Please review your Professional Service offerings

SOFTWARE UPDATE PROCESS

Please tell me how your new releases are managed and distributed.

USER MANAGEMENT

  1. Please detail you capabilities for adding and managing users of your system.

  2. Please detail you capabilities for adjusting individual user preferences. 

USER AND GROUP SECURITY

Please review the levels and options for managing security within your program.

DATA IMPORTING/EXPORTING CAPABILITIES

Please tell me whatever you think is important or unique about the import/export capabilities of your program

  1. Can you import data from ACT!? Outlook? Any other programs?

  2. Do you check for duplicates during import?

  3. Can you assign the contact to an action plan during import?

DATA QUALITY CAPABILITIES

Please clarify all tools and capabilities you provide to assure maximum data quality including: duplicate detection, duplicate management (for example, how do you merge duplicate files?), address standardization and verification, telephone area code updates, etc.

DATABASE UTILITIES

Please discuss the tools you provide to manage the following:

  1. Data Base Maintenance

  2. Data Corruption

  3. Data Back-up/Recovery

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Please detail which technical support capabilities you provide:

 

 

As part of Standard agreement

As part of Premium agreement

Available as “ala carte” option

Plan to offer in the future

Telephone help-line, limited hours

 

 

 

 

Telephone help-line, 24 x 7

 

 

 

Auto-attended message system

 

 

 

 

E-Mail system

 

 

 

Helpdesk database automation

 

 

 

Remote diagnostic tools

 

 

 

 

 

Please detail which technical support capabilities you provide over the Internet:

 

 

Now Offer

Plan to Offer

Documentation

 

 

Answers to common questions

 

 

Product announcements

 

 

Status of problem reports

 

 

Ability to report problems

 

 

Download of fixes

 

 

Remote diagnostics

 

 

Submit enhancement requests

 

 

Download enhancements

 

 

Interactive bulletin board

 

 

Virtual user meetings

 

 

Download/deliver upgrades

 

 

Download/deliver tools

 

 

 

Please provide any other comments you would like to make about your technical support.

END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT (EULA)

  1. Please provide a copy your EULA.
  2. Please clarify any onerous clauses in your EULA.

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

  1. How do you track the satisfaction of your customer base?
  2. What employee incentives do you have in place to assure high customer satisfaction?
  3. What percentage of new user licenses comes from your existing customers adding new licenses?  

Please provide any other comments you would like to make about your customer satisfaction.

 

A SOLID FOUNDATION

To exceed your customer's expectations, any software solution must be built on a solid foundation. This includes basic issues, such as the hardware requirements to operate the program, as well as more fundamental software engineering issues such as software quality and the level of customization provided by the program. Since CRM relies on effective communications, the program must also provide a solid communications foundation. This is also an appropriate point to examine the services, such as documentation, training and technical support, that will also play a vital role in the success of your CRM project. These crucial solid foundation issues are examined in the next several sections of this In-Depth Review.

 

CLIENT HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

In this section, I detail your recommended hardware requirements for the client (or single user) version of your program.

 

Please detail your client hardware requirements here.

 

SERVER REQUIREMENTS

In this section, I detail your recommended hardware requirements for the server version of your program.

  1. Please detail the server platforms supported (hardware, operating system, DBMS).

  2. What are the typical server hardware requirements?

  3. What else do you want our readers to know about your client/server capabilities?

INTERACTION CAPABILITIES

Selling is about communications — with your prospects, customers, support team, or whoever else can help you take better care of your customers and close a sale.  A good customer relationship management solution should simplify all of your communications ¾ independent of interaction modality.

TELEPHONY SUPPORT

How does your program dial phone numbers?

  • TAPI support?
  • VOIP support?
  • Skype Support?
  • Caller ID?
  1. Please detail all telephone equipment supported?
  2. Please detail any pager support.

FAX SUPPORT

  1. Please detail your fax capabilities.

  2. How easy to send a simple quick fax?

  3. Do you support Broadcast Fax?

  4. Do you support internet fax?

Smartphone SUPPORT

Just about every sales person I know is packing a smartphone. Can you support them?

WIRELESS DEVICE SUPPORT

Please clarify your support for other wireless devices.

E-MAIL SUPPORT

Please detail your e-mail capabilities.  

  1. Standards supported, e.g. MAPI, VIM, SMTP/POP3 (details, please)

  2. Support for multiple e-mail accounts?

  3. Create customized folders for drag & drop e-mail management?

  4. Spell checking?

  5. Signature support?

  6. How do you store outbound e-mail messages to a contact’s “History” file (including attachments)?

  7. How do you capture inbound e-mail messages to a contact’s “History” file (including attachments)?

  8. Ability to view HTML messages?

  9. Decode attachments?

  10. Drag & Drop messages to create contact, or to-do from inbound e-mail?

  11. Broadcast mail via internet?

  12. Send contacts to other users via e-mail?

  13. Send to-do’s to other users via e-mail?

COLLABORATION SUPPORT

  1. What workgroup communications capabilities are available?

  2. What workflow capabilities do you support?

CHAT SUPPORT

  1. Please clarify your support for web chat

Anything else?

 

Please detail any additional interaction capabilities.

 

DATABASE SYNCHRONIZATION CAPABILITIES

Since sales people are often at remote locations, remote database synchronization is another essential capability of a "real" sales force automation tool. In this section, I detail your database synchronization capabilities. Important issues to discuss include:

  1. How do you create synch files - server to remote user?

  2. How do you create synch files - remote user to server?

  3. How do you transfer synch files?

  4. How do you resolve collisions?

  5. Do you synch application updates, as well as data files?

  6. Do you support internet e-mail as a transport media?

  7. Please provide details on the ease of use of the client portion.

  8. Please provide details on the server administration set-up portion.

  9. Please provide details on your largest installation using DB synch.

  10. What else do you want our readers to know about your DB synch capabilities?

ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

Please tell me whatever you think is important or unique about the account management capabilities of your program by addressing as many of the following points as you feel appropriate:

APPEARANCE AND ORGANIZATION OF ACCOUNTS SCREEN

Please discuss whatever you think is important about the appearance and organization of your account screen.

  1. Logically Arranged?
  2. Quick Access to Common Tasks?
  3. Display contacts in List Mode?
  4. Click Sort?
  5. Edit in list mode?

ENTERING ACCOUNTS

  1. Data Entry Screen

  2. Assisted Data Entry (auto fill from editable drop down lists)

  3. Copy an Existing Account

  4. Checks for Duplicate Accounts during data entry

  5. Automatic Account History log tracks all activities, letters, faxes & e-mails

  6. Attach any file to account record

  7. Easy printing of account info

ACCOUNT NOTES

  1. Unlimited Notes

  2. Delete Old Notes

EDITING ACCOUNTS

  1. Global Updating

  2. Delete Group of Accounts

  3. Copying account information between fields

SEARCHING FOR ACCOUNTS

  1. Look up using partial name

  2. Look up using other criteria

  3. Quickly locate groups of records?

  4. Perform lookup on any field (blank or non-blank)?

  5. Global key word search (list all incidents)?

  6. Wild card & Boolean searching?

  7. Browse

  8. Sorting

  9. Multi-level sorting

  10. Tag Accounts

MANAGING ACCOUNTS

  1. Creating Groups

  2. How are contacts added to an account?

  3. Attach arbitrary contacts to an account?

  4. Adding Accounts to a group or subgroup

  5. Adding accounts to multiple groups

  6. Adding accounts based on a rule

  7. Sorting Groups & subgroups

  8. Reorganizing Groups & subgroups

  9. Deleting Groups & subgroups

360° VIEW OF ACCOUNTS

  1. Graphic Display of Organization Chart

  2. 360° View of Accounts

CONTACT MANAGEMENT

Please tell me whatever you think is important or unique about the contact management capabilities of your program by addressing as many of the following points as you feel appropriate:

APPEARANCE AND ORGANIZATION OF CONTACT SCREEN

Please discuss whatever you think is important about the appearance and organization of your contact screen.

  1. Logically Arranged?
  2. Quick Access to Common Tasks?
  3. Display contacts in List Mode?
  4. Click Sort?
  5. Edit in list mode?

ENTERING CONTACTS

  1. Data Entry Screen

  2. Assisted Data Entry (auto fill from editable drop down lists)

  3. Copy an Existing contact

  4. Import vCard

  5. Checks for Duplicate Contacts during data entry

  6. Automatic Contact History log tracks all activities, letters, faxes & e-mails

  7. Attach any file to contact record

  8. Easy printing of contact info

CONTACT NOTES

  1. Unlimited Notes

  2. Delete Old Notes

EDITING CONTACTS

Quick and easy editing of contacts?

SEARCHING FOR CONTACTS

  1. Look up using partial name

  2. Look up using other criteria

  3. Quickly locate groups of records?

  4. Perform lookup on any field (blank or non-blank)?

  5. Global key word search (list all incidents)?

  6. Wild card & Boolean searching?

  7. Browse

  8. Sorting

  9. Multi-level sorting

  10. Tag Contacts

MANAGING GROUPS

  1. Creating Groups

  2. Adding contacts to a group or subgroup

  3. Adding contacts to multiple groups

  4. Adding contacts based on a rule

  5. Sorting Groups & subgroups

  6. Reorganizing Groups & subgroups

  7. Deleting Groups & subgroups

ACCESS CONTACT INFORMATION FROM THE WEB

  1. Can you store URL links in contact record and directly launch a browser?

  2. Look up contacts on internet name servers?

  3. Link to web maps from contact record?

  4. In what other ways do you take advantage of integration with the internet?

ACTIVITY MANAGEMENT

To develop winning relationships with your contacts, you’ll want to carry out a variety of activities with each of your contacts. A good sales automation program helps you make this happen. In this section, I detail the activity management capabilities of your program, with special attention on precisely how the program helps people carry out these tasks rather than merely recording the results of an activity. Please tell me whatever you think is important or unique about the activity management capabilities of your program.

Working With Contacts

  1. Telephone Dialing Outbound Calls

  2. Inbound Calls

  3. FAX Messages

  4. E-Mail Messages

  5. To-Do’s

  6. Activities automatically linked to contact

  7. Activity prioritization

  8. To-Do list - sort on any column

  9. To-Do list - filter

  10. Completion of activities?

  11. Email notification

TIME MANAGEMENT

In this section, I detail the time management capabilities of your program. How are activities scheduled and managed? How do you use the power of automation to simplify work for the sales people? Please tell me whatever you think is important or unique about the calendar management capabilities of your program by addressing as many of the following points as you feel appropriate.

APPOINTMENT MANAGEMENT

  1. Listing and managing “Today’s” Calls

  2. Monitoring Last Call

  3. Monitoring Next Call

  4. Auto Reschedule Undone Tasks

  5. Recurring Appointments  (reschedule, clear, edit ?)

  6. Sound Alarms

  7. Day, week, month calendars

  8. Multiple day banners

  9. Drag & Drop scheduling in all calendar views

GROUP SCHEDULING

  1. Check For Conflicts

  2. Publish calendar to intranet site?

  3. Sharing Calendars with other users

  4. Calendar Printing (Printing to various planner formats)

Other Issues

  1. Goal Management

  2. World Clock?

  3. Schedule world holidays?

  4. Personal Appointments (not synched, private view)

OUTLOOK INTEGRATION

Most users of CRM solutions are also current users of Microsoft Outlook. So, it is essential that the CRM solution integrate logically and tightly with this ubiquitous PIM!

  1. Ability to view Outlook activities on application calendar

  2. Ability to view Application activities on Outlook calendar

  3. How do you synch with Outlook contacts?

  4. How do you synch with Outlook calendar items?

  5. How do you integrate with Outlook messaging system?

WORD PROCESSING & OFFICE SUPPORT

Most users of CRM solutions will also be frequent users of Microsoft Office. So, it is essential that the CRM solution integrate logically and tightly with the various components of Microsoft Office.

 

Please review how you integrate with Word, Excel or any other components of the Office Suite.

 

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES

Capturing useful information from the entire customer sales/support team and effectively sharing this knowledge with all team members, on an as needed basis, is very important.  So, here I examine the knowledge management capabilities of your solution.

 

Marketing Encyclopedia System

  1. Centralized organization, navigation and searching of multiple document types, including literature, presentations and Web pages.

  2. Monitors time-sensitive documents and Web pages and automatically notifies users of updates and new information

  3. Automatically delivers copies of critical documents and links to Web pages to selected groups and users

  4. All documents are searchable

  5. Can create personalized document collections

  6. Effectively store complete product information, including part number, price and specifications.

  7. Please discuss any other ways your program helps with the growing issue of complex knowledge management.

REPORTING CAPABILITIES

Once a CRM solution  captures all this information, it is only useful to the sales team if it easily can be summarized in a variety of reports. 

STANDARD REPORTS

Please provide a complete list of all predefined reports

CUSTOM REPORTS

Please tell me the important points about your reporting capabilities here, responding to the following points:

Custom Reports

  1. How Easy

  2. How Elegant

  3. Executive Reporting Capabilities

  4. Crystal Reports (or alternative) interface and options

  5. Mapping interface (which programs)

CRM ANALYTICS

Please detail your CRM analytics capabilities:

OLAP

Please detail any online analytical processing capabilities, , including support for any third-party OLAP tools.

Data Mining

Please detail any data mining capabilities, including support for any third-party data mining tools.

 

What else would you like our readers to know about your solution's analytical capabilities?

 

TOTAL CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

At this point, it is necessary to introduce the concept of a customer relationship continuum. When you first discover the name of someone who might be a candidate to do business with you, this person is just an unqualified suspect. You may have some useful information about this person. For example, they might be a referral from a trusted business colleague. However, you do not have a relationship with this suspect. This “unqualified suspect” defines the starting point for our customer relationship continuum.

 

Now, think of your best customer. These people are your “raving fans.” They love your products, your company and do not hesitate to recommend you to everyone they know! These are your happy, repeat customers ¾ your best and most profitable customers. I assume that, in a perfect world, this is the level of relationship you would aspire to with all of your customers. This “raving fan” the target level for our customer relationship continuum.

The goal of most customer-focused businesses today is to efficiently move people along this customer relationship continuum. You do this through a series of interactions that engage your customer in a dialog to establish a meaningful customer relationship. So, the next measure of any strategic CRM solutions is how well it supports the different interactions appropriate at any point in the customer relationship continuum. Since too many of these programs are giant passive beasts, serving only to record transactional information, pay special attention to the section labeled SALES IMPACT.

In our traditional definition of an organization, different departments are responsible for the interactions and different points in the customer relationship continuum. For this reason, the next several sections of this In-Depth Review examine the program’s capabilities from this departmental perspective. We begin with the Marketing Department, responsible in most organizations for developing the unqualified suspect into a “warm” lead. Then, we progress through the other typical departments that would be responsible for nurturing the precious customer relationship.

 

MARKETING SUPPORT CAPABILITIES

Any application claiming to provide total customer relationship management capabilities must also address the lead acquisition and management stage of the customer life cycle. Here I look for strong marketing automation capabilities.

MARKETING AUTOMATION

Describe exactly what capabilities you provide to streamline web response management at this time.
 
How do you move leads from a web site to the CRM system?
How do you update/append contact profile information via a web questionnaire?
How do you capture a contact’s web interaction to the contact’s history file?

Web Marketing 101

The first marketing task just about every company wants to solve with their CRM solution is a simple one, moving new prospect information directly from their web site to their CRM solution. This is a two part process. First, you must post a “Contact Us” page on your web site where prospects may request further information. Usually, this will include a web form that is automatically emailed to a web marketing alias in your email system. Then, you need something, preferably a simple wizard, to easily import this information to your contact database. Naturally, when these leads are imported, any rules to automatically assign territories and lead nurturing action plans should kick in at this time.
 
So, how does your solution help people solve this common problem?

Web Response Management

Describe exactly what capabilities you provide to streamline web response management at this time.

  1. How do you move leads from a web site to the CRM system?

  2. How do you update/append contact profile information via a web questionnaire?

  3. How do you capture a contact’s web interaction to the contact’s history file?

Campaign Management

Describe exactly what capabilities you provide to streamline campaign management at this time.

  1. Campaign management and marketing program execution

  2. Single-step, targeted and personalized e-mail promotions

  3. Continuously executing, multi-step, multi-offer campaigns delivered via e-mail, fax, web, direct mail or call center

Lead Qualification and Distribution

Leads are individuals who have indicated an interest in finding out more about the products or services offered. They have been identified by a salesperson as recipients for additional information or other activities aimed at eventually making a sale.
 
Describe exactly what capabilities you provide to streamline lead management at this time.

Relationship Marketing

Please discuss any other ways that your program helps move customers to higher levels on the relationship continuum.

MARKETING OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

Describe exactly what capabilities you provide to streamline marketing operations management at this time.

Event and Seminar Management

Describe exactly what capabilities you provide to streamline event & seminar management at this time.

Collateral Fulfillment

Describe exactly what capabilities you provide to streamline collateral fulfillment at this time.

Online Incentive Promotions

Describe exactly what capabilities you provide to streamline online incentive management at this time.

MARKETING RESEARCH

Survey Management

Describe exactly what capabilities you provide to streamline survey management at this time.

Marketing Analysis

Describe exactly what capabilities you provide to perform meaningful marketing analysis at this time.

  1. Customer segmentation/profiling

  2. Product and revenue

  3. Cross-sell and up-sell

  4. Personalization rule creation

FIELD SALES SUPPORT CAPABILITIES

Tell me what you have to offer here by addressing the following issues, as appropriate.

  1. Do you feel your solution does an effective job of supporting a geographically distributed field sales team?

  2. Scalability – Please note the size sales teams that will be best served by your solution.

  3. After reviewing the previously discussed capabilities, DB synch, contact management, etc., please comment on your strengths, as you see them, for supporting a field sales organization.

GETTING READY TO SELL

Goal Setting & Time Management

What capabilities does your solution provide to track and manage Goal Setting & Time Management?

Territory Management

What capabilities does your solution provide to help individual sales people manage their territories?

Product Information

What capabilities does your solution provide to track and manage product information?

Competitor Analysis

What capabilities does your solution provide to track and manage competitor information?

PERSONAL SELLING

Prospecting

What capabilities does your solution provide to assist with sales prospecting?  

Pre-Call Planning

What capabilities does your solution provide to assist with pre-call planning?

Discovering Requirements

What capabilities does your solution provide to assist with discovering requirements?

Presentations

What capabilities does your solution provide to assist sales people with their presentations?

CLOSING ORDERS

Opportunity Management

From the sales person's perspective, what capabilities does your solution provide to improve opportunity management?

Configuration Management

What capabilities does your solution provide to assist complex product configuration management?

Quotations & Proposals

What capabilities does your solution provide to assist in the preparation of Quotations & Proposals?

Order Entry & Management

What capabilities does your solution provide to convert sales opportunities to orders?

 

CALL CENTER SUPPORT CAPABILITIES

Many organizations find a call center, whether they have 10 agents or 1,000 agents, an effective tool to take better care of their customers. Here you should detail any capabilities you offer that will help people operate a great call center. 

INBOUND CALL SUPPORT

  1. Multiple Touch Points

  2. Telephone

  3. E-Mail

  4. Live Chat

  5. Voice Chat

  6. Collaborative Surfing

  7. Shared Whiteboards

  8. Streaming Video

  9. Automated Call Distribution (ACD)

  10. Built-in

  11. Third Party add-on

  12. Unified Message Queue

  13. Remote Agent Support

OUTBOUND CALL SUPPORT

  1. Predictive Dialing

  2. Built-in

  3. Third Party add-on

  4. Sales Scripting

COMPUTER TELEPHONY INTEGRATION

Please all detail telephone equipment supported.

 

Please also discuss any other ways that your program helps people operate a great call center. Please also note the size (number of agents) that is your specialty.

SALES IMPACT

I review programs with the premise that they should help you make more sales. With that in mind, I ask two questions. Does the program help you cover basics like periodic phoning and follow-up letters? Simple stuff, but the problem is finding time to do it. A good CRM solution not only vigilantly reminds you to do these things, but makes them easier.

 

The second question is whether the program breaks new ground? Does the program help you take steps you might not have taken otherwise? Here I look for things like automated strategy assistance. Does the program automatically help you plot sales strategies? Or help you notice if you are spending too much time with one prospect?

 

So, another very important question, please tell me precisely how your program impacts sales! How does your program help people take better care of their customers? How does your program help people sell more? This is one of the most important issues I evaluate, I look forward to your thoughtful response here! , please tell me precisely how your program impacts sales! How does your program help people take better care of their customers? How does your program help people sell more? This is one of the most important issues I evaluate, I look forward to your thoughtful response here!

  • Strategy Formulation

  • Proactive Account Management

  • Automated Action Plans

Many of you seem totally baffled when I talk about "Sales Impact" and proactive relationship marketing.  So, here are some additional comments to help.  If you still have questions, let me know.   The first thing you should do is visit Jim Cecil's web site.  Buy his tapes or hire him for a day, you'll be glad you did!   If you prefer a book, check out Mark Peck's, Integrated Account Management.

 

The first thing I look for is what I call "The Birthday Card Test."  Assume there is a field on the contact record for the birthday.  If I enter a valid date in this field, I look for the software to automatically schedule a birthday greeting.  When the date arrives, the birthday greeting is sent and automatically rescheduled for the next year.  Obviously, this could be used for any simple annual event.  The sales person doesn't have to think of anything, beyond discovering the contact's birthday, for this little relationship marketing touch to occur.  Of the hundreds of programs that I have reviewed, I can think of just a few that offer this simple capability

 

The next thing I look for is a simple way to send a series of letters to a contact.  These "Action Plans" might be launched manually or triggered by some external event.  Everyone has an OMS to tell me what stage of the buying cycle each prospect is sitting at.  Great.  But how do you use your powerfull technology to push people through the pipeline?  Consider a simple example.  Almost every sales cycle has a step where the prospect is awaiting final approval of funding.  Many systems might schedule a follow-up call to ask if the funding was approved.  A preferred alternative, from a relationship marketing perspective, would be to launch a series of letters that would go to the prospect - designed to reinforce your marketing message to keep the prospect "sold" while they await funding approval. 

 

Ideally, the system would be smart enough to launch a different series of letters depending on the competitor or other pertinent issues.   These "Action Plans" need to be simple enough that they can be designed, written and maintained by someone like a product manager.  Don't talk to me about stored procedures or IT resources!  Another thing, when your customers fall in love with these powerful concepts, their systems will generate a lot of letters every day.   There needs to be an easy way to handle the grunt work of printing letters & envelopes and automatically scheduling the next step in the plan.  There also needs to be a simple way to send the letters by e-mail if prospects indicate that is their preference.

 

So, there are a few more ideas on Sales Impact for your consideration.  If you have further questions, ask.  If you disagree, tell me.  The customers I talk to, when they understand the power of these capabilities, want them!

 

SALES MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES

One of the reasons customer relationship management efforts can have such a profound impact on the overall results of a company is because of the tremendous potential leverage of the sales team.  Increase the performance of your “average” sales person, and the results generally flow right to the bottom line.  So, when I evaluate customer relationship management programs, I look for any special features that might help sales management increase the overall performance of the sales team.

PLANNING & DEPLOYMENT

What capabilities does your solution provide to assist with the set up and management of the corporate and executive structure of the sales organization and manage global internal information, such as adding users and assigning security permissions.

Territory Management

  1. What tools do you provide to plan and optimize sales territories?

  2. What tools do you provide to assist with territory reorganization?

Recruiting & Selection of Sales Staff

What capabilities does your solution provide to assist recruiting & selection of the sales team?

Training & Development of Sales Staff

What capabilities does your solution provide to assist training & development of the sales team?

PROACTIVE SALES MANAGEMENT

Sales Process Management

  1. From the sales manager's perspective, what capabilities does your solution provide to improve opportunity management?

  2. Please discuss your solution's Support for the various Structured Selling Methodology systems.

Best Practices

What capabilities does your solution provide to help sales management spread best practices across the sales team?

Quotas & Sales Forecasting

Part of sales management is obtaining realistic sales forecasts and managing the sales activities to reach those forecasts. If actual sales consistently do not meet forecasted figures, management needs to find out why and identify whether the issue is with sales practices or forecast methodology.

  1. What tools do you provide to help management set quotas?

  2. What tools do you provide to manage sales forecast?

  3. How do you roll-up sales forecasts?

Measuring Sales Effectiveness & Productivity

  1. Sales Cycle Tracking

  2. Sales Team & Performance Metrics

  3. Progress toward sales objectives

  4. Comparative analysis - individual sales people vs. the entire sales team

SALES FORCE ADMINISTRATION

Sales Compensation

  1. Please discuss any tools you provide to help sales managers optimize their compensation plans.

  2. If you do not offer anything special here, do you integrate with one of the tactical solutions available?

Expense Account Management

  1. Please discuss any tools you provide to help sales managers optimize their expense account management plans.

  2. If you do not offer anything special here, do you integrate with one of the tactical solutions available?

Please clarify any other ways that your program assists sales management

 

CUSTOMER SUPPORT CAPABILITIES

In these days of total Customer Relationship Management, strong customer support capabilities are also important. If you provide customer support capabilities, please detail your offering by addressing the following issues, as appropriate.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT EXCELLENCE

Web Support 101

The first customer support task just about every company wants to solve with their CRM solution is a simple one, opening a support case directly from their web site and moving this information to their CRM solution. This is a two part process. First, you must post a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page on your web site where your customers may start their search for a solution to their problem. Usually, this page will also include a web form that is automatically emailed to a customer support alias in your email system. Then, you need something, preferably a simple wizard, to easily import this information to your CRM database. Naturally, when these support cases are imported, any rules to automatically assign follow-up responsibility should kick in at this time.

How does your solution help people solve this common problem?

Case Management

  1. Easily enter call

  2. Reassign call to an individual or a group of people

  3. Automatic assignment of issues to queues based on product

  4. Ability to track escalations

  5. Support reps can share customer information and work on the same issue

  6. Track who worked on the problem

  7. Track contact methods used (i.e. phone, voicemail, e-mail, etc)

  8. Which product the call is about

  9. New issues logged

  10. Ability to support simple “single event” calls and complex “multi-event” issues

  11. Track how much time was spent on the phone and beyond for each event

  12. Ability to e-mail customer/others contents of call record

  13. Ensure covered by a service agreement before providing support

  14. Scheduling

  15. By task

  16. By Representative

  17. Easily schedule on-line, off-line, research times, Paid Time Off (PTO)

  18. Ability to compare scheduled on-line to actual on-line times

  19. Ability to copy a schedule week to week

  20. Prevent call assignment to representative on PTO

  21. What is staff work load

  22. Proactive customer service by scheduling follow-ups

Product Database

  1. What does the customer own?  (Versions, serial number, license number, expiration dates)

  2. Easy product registration

  3. Easily identify customers who need upgrades

  4. Return Material Authorizations (RMAs)

  5. Ability to track all returns

  6. Supports different types of RMAs – Exchange, Repair/Replace, Cross-ship, etc.)

  7. Single or multi-quantities per item

  8. Track all repair data/work performed

  9. Track cross shipments

  10. Link to technical support trouble-shooting call or receive returns unannounced

Knowledge Base

Businesses tend to have the knowledge of how to solve problems or answer questions that their customers encounter. Unfortunately, this information is usually known by one or two employees in the organization and is not shared. As a result, a CSR that encounters the specific question may not have the answer available and has to track down the person with the answer. 

What capabilities does your solution provide to manage knowledge base capabilities?

Problem Resolution

  1. Easy to use

  2. Easy to maintain

  3. Easy to add new

  4. Easy to send out to a customer via email/fax

  5. Multiple sets of solutions based on product, industry, version, etc.

  6. Support Boolean, natural language searching

  7. Offer both case-based and tree searching

  8. Automatic Escalation/Workflow

  9. Escalation based on anything in the database – not just calls

Web Self-Service

  1. Customers need direct access to information, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

  2. Field reps need direct access to information, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

  3. Customers can be self-sufficient by entering/updating issues

  4. Access to knowledgebase

  5. Register products

  6. Accessing any information captured (order status, RMA status, etc), given proper permissions

CUSTOMER SUPPORT OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

Performance and Productivity Management

  1. Logging and monitoring service requests provides the information needed for precision scheduling, workforce forecasting, and improving performance management.

  2. What capabilities does your solution provide to measure performance and productivity management capabilities?

Change Requests

  1. Easy to search

  2. Easy to add new

  3. Track which product, version issue occurs in and in which version it is fixed

  4. Easy to track all customers who are affected by the issue (1:many relationship)

  5. Easy to send out to a customer via email/fax

  6. Track and share work arounds

Customer Feedback

Traditionally, the success of customer service operations is measured by internal and quantitative data, such as how long the average interaction time is and how many calls each CSR works on. One reason that these metrics are cited so often is because quantitative data can be collected and analyzed automatically and internally.

 

What capabilities does your solution provide to manage customer feedback?

Service Agreements

One of the challenges of managing customer services is keeping track of what customers are entitled to, both internally and from the customer’s standpoint.

  1. Amount of Time

  2. Amount of Money

  3. Number of Calls

  4. Blanket

  5. Ensure meeting service level agreements

  6. Proactive customer service as well as reactive

  7. Ability to bill customer at different rates for different levels of staff that work on issues

  8. Ability to have Service Agreements at a product level as well as an organization level

FIELD SERVICE MANAGEMENT

What capabilities does your solution provide to assist with field service management?

 

Please clarify any other ways that your program helps people provide great customer support.

 

EBUSINESS SUPPORT CAPABILITIES

Even if your customers primarily use a “classic” sales and marketing approach to serve their customers, every business must plan an electronic commerce strategy to assure their long-term survival. So, here I examine the specific e-commerce capabilities of each program.

SELL-SIDE COMMERCE

How does your solution help people solve this common problem?

SALES CONFIGURATION

How does your solution help people solve this common problem?

Internet Marketing Tools

Please clarify any ways that your solution helps people implement the following internet marketing capabilities:

  1. E-Mail Marketing

  2. Search Engine Marketing

  3. Affiliate Marketing

  4. Click-stream Analysis

  5. List Management

  6. Web Site Interaction

Please clarify any other ways that your program helps people provide great eBusiness support. As always, if you don't actually provide these capabilities, please indicate which third-party solutions you integrate with.

 

PARTNER MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES

This is where you should describe, in detail, whatever partner management capabilities you provide.  Other points to consider include: 

  1. Partner Acquisition

  2. Lead Distribution & Management

  3. MDF & Co-op Administration

  4. Partner Profiling

  5. Channel Program Management

  6. Extended Team Selling

  7. Channel Forecasting & Reporting

Please clarify any other ways that your program supports a partner sales channel

 

BACK OFFICE INTEGRATION CAPABILITIES

To really take better care of your customers, your CRM system MUST integrate with your back office (ERP, accounting, etc.) solutions. The level of integration appropriate will vary depending on your situation, order entry, checking order status and logging of complete order histories are logical starting points. So, in this section, I ask the CRM developers to detail their back office integration capabilities.

  1. Please tell me how your program integrates and exchanges information with other enterprise solutions.

  2. To properly manage the entire customer relationship, it is essential to capture and display order history information in the contact history file. How do you accomplish this?

  3. What programming tools and communication vehicles do you provide to simplify this process?

  4. Please detail any accounting software where you provide known, functional interfaces.

This is another major issue of growing importance to business!

EXECUTIVE (C-LEVEL) DECISION SUPPORT

Please discuss any work you are doing to provide executive dashboard views of the CRM data.

 

SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE (SAAS) STRATEGY

As an alternative to installing and maintaining your own servers, many CRM developers are now offering their applications in a web-based hosted environment. Are you one of these? If so, please tell me about your SaaS strategy here.

DATA CENTER & OPERATIONS

How many data centers do you operate and which partners do you use?

 

Please detail the technology you have in place:

  • Hardware
  • Software
  • Power Protection
  • Cooling & Fire Protection standards
  • Internet Connectivity
    • Bandwidth
    • Redundnacy
    • Backbone Carriers
  1. Once customer data is at your data center, does the customer still "own" it? What rights does the customer have to move or copy it?
  2. How secure is your data center? What measures are in place to prevent your employees from viewing data they are not authorized to see, or to prevent outsiders from hacking into the system?
  3. What happens in the event of a disaster that deletes or destroys data? Are there measures to protect against loss? Is data backed up regularly?
  4. Are your systems sufficiently scalable to support customer's one-, three- and five-year growth plans?
  5. Will you allow customer's to import key business data into the hosted application(s), so that they will have access to it from the moment they begin working with you?
  6. Do you provide all the services necessary to deliver the CRM application, or do customer's have to dedicate staff to supporting the solution either full-time or part-time?

SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT

Does your SLA include:

  • A specified level of customer support?
  • Provisions for system and data security?
  • A guaranteed level of system performance, such as sub-second response time?
  • Continuous system availability – 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
  1. Is your SLA a one-size-fits-all document, or are there different service tiers – such as gold, silver or bronze – that will allow us to tailor the SLA to our needs?
  2. If you fail to deliver on any service point covered in the SLA, does the customer have a designated contact person who can address the issue?
  3. What kinds of enforcement provisions are in place in the event that you do not deliver on the SLA? Does the customer receive a refund? Can the customer terminate the relationship and choose another ASP without penalty?
  4. What does the SLA cover?
  5. What are the penalties?
  6. What is the response time? Who gets notified?
  7. Who has to prove the network was down?
  8. What happens if the site has continual problems?

INDUSTRY SPECIFIC SOLUTIONS

Please provide complete details on your industry specific solutions here.

 

THIRD-PARTY PRODUCT SUPPORT

Please provide complete details, including contact information, on any third-party products that enhance the power or ease of use of your program here. Examples might include:

  • Sales Quotation Programs

  • Sales Proposal Programs

  • Order Configuration Programs

  • Electronic Commerce Programs

CASE STUDY

This is where I like to provide a real-life example of the use of your product. If, by chance, you have already prepared a good case study, please tell me the link here. If not, I would appreciate the recommendation of one of your customers who might cooperate for this part of the review. I look for a good business-to-business example where I can get some idea of how they have benefited from using your system.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you've made it this far, please take a deep breath! Better yet, go have a favorite beverage of your choice.

 

As for me, I write this part last. I will wait until I see your replies to the questions above. Then I will form my thoughts as I install and test your program in our network environment. Again, the objective is to help people see how your program will help them sell more and to discover the unique features that set your program apart from your competitors. Your comments and inputs play an important role at this final stage of the review process!

Thanks again for your support of our independent review efforts!

 

 

 

 

 

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