CRM Consultant Staffing Level

by Jerry
(Southeastern US)

I need a drink!

This may be the worst kind of failure there is. You tell me. It all started out with a slick salesman...

I knew that I needed to do something about the way my staff was working together. My business had been around for 25 years and we were all stuck in the paper and people way of doing things. Obviously, in today's competitive environment this just wasn't going to cut it anymore.

So, I was convinced by the owner of a CRM reseller firm to purchase software removed to protect the innocent and I entered into a leasing deal where the reseller got all the money up front and I was locked into multi-year payout. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

I was hoping to get this implemented within a few months. Six months went by. I was told a new consultant had just been hired and would be working on the project shortly. Six months later, two consultants that I had worked with before were either fired or left; leaving the new guy to pick up all the outstanding projects they had.

Suffice it to say that my project got put on the back-burner. Probably because I'm too nice of a guy. But I then started playing hard ball. So, 18 months after the new consultant was hired, he was finally available to work on my project. Meanwhile, I've been making lease payments for nearly two years.

And then, the new consultant left and the slick reseller / salesman had only one guy left who lived 1500 miles away from my facility. And I'm guessing he was overworked too.

At this point, what do you think I should have done? I'd love to hear how you all would handle a situation like this.

I wish this site had been around 3 years ago!