CRM Software Reviews

Thankfully, companies are becoming more and more aware that CRM is about a new way of doing business, not a set of software features. The software companies provide a list of whiz bang features designed to make your eyes POP!  But will they really make you a more customer focused business?

CRM Reviews, simply put, will not help you down the path to customer-centricity. Features discussed in software reviews never really get to the root of your problem. Something I harp on all the time is that you cannot work backwards. This means that the software has not meet your requirements, not a list of features the vendor things will make a quick sale.

Don't Do It The Old Way!

There have been CRM software reviews around for years! Yet the CRM failure rate has always run high. It's common thought these days that they are the result of poor planning. And I'm not talking about implementation planning. It doesn't matter how well you install software.  It matters how well you identified how you will circle your company around your customers instead of your departments circling their cubicles.

Have you ever wondered how a software review can possibly address what your business needs it to address. It's not possible. And frankly, most of the experts I've read over the years don't convey that they have any real knowledge about how any business would work with a customer focus, let alone how your business needs to do it.

Instead of reading CRM software reviews, let me suggest the following:

1. Do not involve your IT Staff until technology discussion take place

2. Define a CRM Strategy for your business

3. Realign your cross-functional workflows putting the customer at the center

4. Define new work processes to support the new workflows

5. Identify specific opportunities to automate workflow or tasks for use in defining software requirements

6. As a vendor how their software can meet the needs you defined above (it's OK to include the IT staff)

At this point a software review isn't really going to help you because a vendor may have to demonstrate how they can change their software to meet specific needs. They may also realize that they need to integrate with other tools due to your specific needs. CRM Software reviews just can't do that.

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