When deciding on a CRM application—or for just about any software application—many companies consider “service” to be synonymous with “ease of use”.
C-suite members often fail to consider an organization’s culture, and how this would impact their ability to embrace a tools UX and service. If your team isn’t on board, they’re not going to stick with that solution very long.
Getting Your Team on Board – the Challenges
Technology is not the hardest thing to change within a company—it is the human beings who need to shift behavior in navigating new prospects, tools and customers. That is why a company must embed transparency into its DNA.
When selecting a CRM, look around and see how other customers and company teams respond to it. How did management get their team’s buy in? In this case, how excited is your team is about the tool? Hold staff meetings to discuss the pros and cons of a tool. The more you will be paying for that CRM solution, the more important it is to look for detailed feedback on it.
Your employee’s recommendations are your company currency. They follow a company and its products everywhere they show up – long term team members switch jobs. Recommendations are either gained through great service or lost through bad service. For that reason, it is incredibly important to train that service culture into every aspect of your company, especially those that touch its prospects and customers in any way.
Transparency
Another vital aspect—related to cost as well—is transparency. Share with your team exactly what they’re getting, what features and service will be provided for the money paid. Hold company training seminars. This is another very crucial factor when it comes to our digital world, because a reputation for non-transparency will spread rapidly, and potential customers will soon know about it. People sometimes are, but often they’re not, capable of putting themselves in the shoes of their customers. That is why they must be trained, and management must constantly put attention on it.
Of course, this service culture begins at the top; management must set the ultimate example. It’s like parents setting the example for children—if the parents set the example, the children will follow. Management are the “parents” in the company.
The Service Culture
Service and technology are very much two different things. An application can have the best possible technology, usability, and functionality in place and running smoothly. But unlike technology, service is something that is delivered to the customer. It’s not something that the customer is using, it’s something that the customer experiences.
When it comes to CRM, an important question is: should the support ticket system be part of the CRM application?
Service—along with functionality and usability–is related directly to cost. When a company provides provide great service, people will generally pay for it. Just think back to the last time you were in a restaurant: if you had a great experience, you left a good tip. If not, you most likely didn’t.
Cost correlates with what the customer receives. This means the technology, usability, functionality, and how customers are treated, which is service.
Simplicity
Cybernetics, the science of simplicity around UX, is a topic widely spoken about in CRM tools today. To make it possible for users and potential users to easily understand the CRM application as well as the charges. Simplicity certainly makes for transparency, and for cost-effectiveness.
A great quote along these lines, attributed to Albert Einstein, is, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
About the Author
Nikolaus Kimla is the CEO of Pipeliner CRM and the author of over 100 ebooks, articles and white papers addressing the subjects of sales management, CRM and business.
He has founded and run several software companies. He and his company uptime iTechnology are the developers of World-Check, a risk intelligence platform eventually sold to Thomson Reuters for $520 million. He is currently the founder and CEO of Pipeliner Sales, Inc., developer and publisher of Pipeliner CRM, the first CRM application aimed squarely at actually empowering salespeople.
