CRM and ERP News

Lean manufacturing’s simple philosophy of 5S has had a profound impact on the bottom-line of shop floors and these same principles can have a profound impact on your CRM project.

If you’ve spent any time at all looking at the principles of lean manufacturing then you’ve come across the idea of 5S. It’s a Japanese concept that has been translated into English (the Japanese words all start with “S” and magically 5 English words all starting with “S” were found too!)

They stand for:

1. Sort - get rid of unecessary items and free up valuable floor space.
2. Set In Order - place things for optimal and obvious usage
3. Shine - keep the shop, machines and the tools clean.
4. Standardize - adopt best practices that are followed by all.
5. Sustain - resist the temptation to go back to old ways and keep pracitcing the first 4 S’s.

Don’t Be Fooled By Its Simple Appearance

I must admit…the first time I came across the 5S philosophy, memories of my mom keeping a neat and tidy house came to mind and I didn’t take it very seriously. However, after hearing and reading about how adopting the 5S philosophy can have dramatic impact on both morale, efficiency and the bottom line, I started realizing that 5S is an example of the power in simplicity.

How CRM Can Benefit From 5S

Inevitably the simple truths have a universal application and this is exactly the case with 5S and its application to CRM.

SORT

One of the keys to getting users to use your CRM system is to give them a simple, easy to use system. Simplifying the user interface by removing all unecessary menu items, buttons, tabs and fields makes the system much more intuitive, allowing your users to focus on their job at hand.

SET IN ORDER

The progression of simplifying the user interface is then to arrange the interface for optimal and obvious usage. This means, doing such things as:

• Arrange the fields visually in the order that users will most likely use them, so they can tab naturally from field to field.
• Consolidate information onto fewer screens so users have fewer screens they need to navigate between.
• Use workflow engines to step users through business processes and where possible have the system fill fields in for them.
• Design the fields in the database with their ultimate usage in mind. If users need to be able to filter or report on various fields, make sure you’re designing the system to make the filtering and reporting tools easy to use for that purpose.

SHINE

A lot of data goes into a CRM system and it’s important to “shine” that data or keep it clean. The old expression “garbage in, garbage out” applies to your CRM system. If you expect to quickly and easily generate targeted marketing blasts or get useful and actionable information out of the system then you need to pay attention to keeping the data clean. This includes:

• Removing duplicate records.
• Keep addresses up-to-date.
• Look for incomplete records. This includes records missing key information (e.g. phone number, address, key demographic fields)

Keeping the data clean will foster a sense of ownership and buy-in with your users.

STANDARDIZE

Once you’ve looked after the first 3 S’s, it’s time to turn your attention to standardizing how the system is being used. Ultimately, everyone’s various inputs into a CRM system comes out as a single output…be it a report, forecast, alert. Therefore, it’s critical that the information going in is standardized.

A great example of standardizing information is with the Sales Funnel. Involve your salespeople in developing standards around:

• What the sales step are.
• How to guage certainty of the sales closing.
• How to estimate sales revenue for a deal.
• What do the terms “lead”, “suspect”, “prospect” really mean in your organization.

By standardizing your usage of CRM and the definitions for the words you use, you’ll be creating a new corporate culture that will pay dividends for you.

SUSTAIN

Implementing a CRM system represents a big change to a company. Not only do users have a new system to learn, they have new behaviours (habits) to learn. Resistance to this change is natural and its critical that the temptation to revert to old ways be resisted. You must sustain your CRM initiative with:

• continued training
• enforcement of compliance
• system improvements to make the system easy to use and relevant to the business objectives you’re trying to achieve

BENEFITS OF APPLYING 5S

While the 5 S’s sound simple on the surface, implementing them can take leadership and follow-through. I dare say that most CRM systems in small to medium sized companies could stand with a good treatment of 5S. The benefits are increased morale, efficiency and profitability.

Take a look at your CRM system and for each of the 5 S’s, ask yourself what you can do to improve your CRM system.

Technorati Tags: CRM, Lean Manufacturing, 5S, Customer Relationship Management, Sales Force Automation

Replay! Listen to Russ Lombardo, host of Sales Talk, with his guest Scott Gingrich, CEO of The CRM Coach as they tackle the challenge of how to make CRM (Customer Relationship Management) deliver bottom-line results and increase sales. Companies invest a lot of money buying and implementing a CRM system inthe hopes of a more effective, accountable and profitable business. Unfortunately, too many of these implementations en dup as a disappointment. Scott goes beyone the promise of CRM and outlines practical tips to transform a poor performing CRM system into a star player.Tune in for a “must listen hour” of unlocking the profit potential of your CRM system.

There are a host of great, meaty business programs available at this Internet radio station

Here’s the replay of Sales Talk Radio Interview with The CRM Coach

Technorati Tags: CRM, Customer Relationship Management, Sales, Sales Management, Sales Force Automation

Sometimes the simplest way to get closer to our customers and “get in their thead” is to just ask them! And Survey Monkey is a great, inexpensive tool to do just that.

We recently ran one for The CRM Coach using this tool and found it very easy to construct our survey and build in logical branching of questions depending on answers.

[If you didn’t take our survey, we’d still love for you to do so–and you can experience the tool for yourself.]

We were surprised at the percentage of people who did the survey and even more surprised at the great answers we received.

A couple of tips:

• Provide an incentive to increase the number of people taking the survey, but make it something that qualifies them. We used free copies of the Insider’s Guide…not something someone uninterested in CRM would care for.
• Make your survey ANONYMOUS…this increases the quality of response you get.

Consider incorporating surveys into your business practices and fine tune your marketing and product offerings accordingly.

Technorati Tags: CRM, Customer Relationship Management, Customer Service, Survey