“Where have you been all my life?” was the principal thought that ran through my head after my first hands on experience of MS dynamics CRM 2011.
With 11 years sales experience under my belt most of which spent at two of the UK’s leading media companies, positioned top in their market sectors. I thought I had using MS office as sales tool down-pat. I’m sure many of you, like I was, are using a combination of Excel and Outlook for recording, contacting and analysing your own and your team’s sales and your probably thinking the same ‘this works- I’ve got this sussed’.
I remember it well, the Spreadsheet with umpteen colours that all mean something important to you. It’s all there in black and white, green, blue, red, pink orange, magenta and many more. The status of this lead or that lead or contact on a marketing list is all there, it’s as clear as water, and all the notes are there in column Q if anybody else wants to know what’s going on, and if that’s not enough then I can check my sent items to see where were up to.
Control +C - alt+ tab - Control +V - alt +tab - control +C – alt+ tab control-+V - alt tab an on and on and on until the keys are rubbed out or keyboard fails. Taking text from one email to paste in to a Spreadsheet, taking contacts from a Spreadsheet to paste into another email or a sales report and on and on and on. Not to mention the KAM (Key Account Management) record keeping done via outlook designated folders and word document journals.
*
It worked for me, didn’t ever stop me selling or understanding my customers’ needs and how I could best meet them. But I was pretty good at doing it this way, not every member of my team could say the same. But if you look in to it every action, every click, every page change every search for an email sent or received to file and save and every colour coded row and every look in to the sales figures as filed by my team as number on a speadsheet all adds up to a lot of minutes in a lot of hours in an 8 hour day.
Not to mention the problems caused by staff absence or turn over “now what did light green mean on Joe’s spreadsheet, was it the same as light green on mine?” Or I’m sorry mister key account I’ll have to get back to you on that because ……. Add one of many excuses to save the embarrassments of admitting “I don’t know what on earth you talking about.” It all adds up lost minuets, loss of detail and worst of all lost clients and lost sales!!
As Tolkien once said “Not all those who wander are lost” but they definitely don’t take the most direct route. It’s always nice to have a map and an ideal of where you are going and what’s going to be coming up, only an idiot would disagree! It’s even better if you can see where you have been as well and all in one place at one time without having to think too much about it.
**
Dynamics has done this for me! This is why I say “Dynamics where have you been all my life?” I love the seamless integration of all my important emails and data in one user friendly intuitive familiar environment! The possibilities are endless! The more I learn the more I understand and the more I understand the more potential I see and it is endless, CRM, XRM, sales force management, marketing campaign management, customer service, stakeholder management ………………………………………….. etc. … etc. . .
I don’t even think I’ve found second gear yet!
So where do I start and where and how do I make the most of this fantastic system?
*Image from http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5057/5395982500_3e895b48bd.jpg
**Image from http://www.compassdude.com/i/read-a-map.gif