Audaxium Blog

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Throughout 2011 Audaxium has been working with more and more companies and we’ve seen some interesting situations. In working on NetSuite fixups, and implementing Pardot with customers with various CRM systems, both NetSuite and Salesforce, we’ve noticed companies getting into trouble in systematic ways.  Often, problems happen when the data in the system doesn’t match what’s happening in real life.

Life is complicated.  People like simplicity.  And getting people to use CRM properly can be challenging depending on your organization.  So why not just keep things simple? Doesn’t KISS apply?

Here are some examples of somewhat common decisions that cause problems later.

Custom Field for Sales Rep

The client decided, that, in order to not let sales reps think they “Own” accounts, to not put the rep in the default Sales Rep Field.  Instead they used a custom field for Sales Rep and left the main field blank.  Result?  Difficulty in using standard reports.  Difficulty in getting notifications to Reps.  Difficulty in integrating with marketing campaigns.

Duplicate Contacts on Customers

The client decided that, to make it easier on the tech support team, if a person called in to discuss an issue at a certain customer location, (which they were tracking as sub-customers), they would enter a NEW contact on that company record, with the same name, email address and phone number.  Result?  Massive contact duplication in the database, no single source of the truth with regards to communication and emails.

Manual Prices on Items

To make it “easy” on order entry, the client decided to put only a few items in the item master, and overwrite the description and price.  Result?  No ability to report on the delivery and fulfillment of particular types of services.

The above are just a couple of examples of compromises made that lead to problems later. But anecdotes are just that, there are, to my mind, 3 main reasons why you should truly map what’s going on in your business in your CRM or ERP system.

3 Reasons Why Reality is Important

Information Accuracy

There is a balance between segmenting your data for reporting purposes, and capturing every last detail. What level of accuracy do you need to both operate, and make decisions?

Take a company that sells chickens and eggs. You could weigh and measure every egg you sell, sell them by grade, sell eggs separate from chickens, or sell 1 item called “Chicken and by-products”.  In this case, the reality is that the customer buys eggs by grade, either by the flat or by the dozen.

To take an example closer to home, what about our contacts example above?  There is only one person with a particular name, email address and phone number. There should be only one contact, but that contact should be attached to multiple companies as most CRM systems allow.

Easy to Train Multiple Teams

Sometimes by oversimplifying, you’ll need to be constantly explaining how fields are to be used and how to look up certain information.  Because most people in your company will understand how you do business, it’s easier to have them understand the system if it matches real life processes.  The sales team, support team, and services teams need to think of each other when considering how data gets entered.  There’s nothing like hearing things like; “the main contact field is whoever is the decision maker, until they are closing, then it’s the buyer, until they’re a new customer, then it’s the project lead, until they renew, then it’s whoever cares about the renewal”

Your CRM system should enable your business process, not be a workaround for it.  If your processes are too hard for your team to enter into a system, consider changing your processes.

Integration with Other systems

We’re in a world of integrated applications, and when a company writes an integration with another app they make certain assumptions of how you’ll use it.  You’ll need to think long and hard about taking default functionality and using it for another purpose.  Just why are you using a custom field when there’s a similar default field available?  By getting creative with core fields, you’ll risk giving yourself more work down the road when it comes to integration. Sometimes that work can be worth the extra effort, but make sure it’s necessary.

Challenges

Often, customers do understand the above, so why do mistakes get made?  Here are some common reasons.

No system is Perfect

Sometimes they can’t represent the reality of your business because they lack the functionality. Until recently, a good example was NetSuite’s multi-currency function.  You couldn’t create transactions in multiple currencies to the same customer.  This caused un-wanted duplication of records and work-arounds needed to be found.  Fortunately this is no longer an issue. When evaluating systems, ask your implementation partner just what the ramifications of a certain functional limitation are.

Clicks and Keystrokes

Often, when selecting systems, the client, and the end user, will focus on how “easy” things look and feel on some standard screens. If they have to fill in two more fields, or wait 5 more seconds for a screen to load, they’ll be frustrated and complain about productivity.  It doesn’t matter than those 2 fields save their co-worker 10 minutes.  It won’t matter that they can see information they’ve never had access to on that new screen.

Saving someone a few seconds at the price of a messy database is a bad trade-off.

Implementation by Department

I’ve seen NetSuite implemented a few times for a particular department and only later does the client discover that they’ve painted other departments in to a corner.  Both Sales and Finance are equally notorious for doing this with NetSuite.  Unless both groups are considered during an implementation, the easy options will be chosen that don’t let the system represent what really happens for the other team. Even if you’re just implementing for one group, work with an implementation partner who understands the bigger picture.

Recently we’ve been working on a project where the customer would like to merge cases together in NetSuite in order to eliminate duplicates that occur from time to time in the system.  Sometimes customers won’t reply to their case, but will send a new email to support, which will then open up a new case.

In these situations, there’s no way in NetSuite to easily identify that the new case is actually copy of the existing one, and there’s no way to move that incoming message over, except by cutting and pasting.  If you’ve accidentally had two support people working each case, it’s impractical to do that.

If you’re interested in this type of function for your support team, please contact us.

Recently I’ve spoken with a number of companies who’ve been getting decent traffic to their websites, but haven’t been getting as many leads as they feel they should.  This seems to be a fairly common complaint, but the good news is that there’s a few simple steps you can take to improve the number of conversions you get.

Put another way, there’s a few simple steps you can take to make it more valuable, and less painful, for your prospects.

Step 1 – Simplify your Forms

Use conditional fields to keep things short and sweet.With landing pages, less is often more. Nothing frustrates a visitor more than arriving at a landing page, seeing a compelling white paper offer, but then realizing she will have to fill out a long and complicated looking form before receiving anything of value. Companies who ask for more than a handful of data points in the first interaction with a visitor are encouraging form abandonment.

Step 2 – Track User Behavior, not just field data

Track implicit data in addition to explicit data held in your CRM system. Your prospects are telling you a lot more than it seems.You can gain valuable data from prospects on forms, but often even more telling is the implicit information that can be gleaned without your visitors even telling you. Read More »

Pardot recently posted on their blog that they now have a plug-in for Firefox that allows send Pardot-tracked emails via Gmail.

This is great news for Google Apps users who’d like to get off of other paid for email clients and servers and keep everything online.

Rather than repost their content, I’ll link you directly to the page on the Pardot site.

http://help.pardot.com/faqs/add-ons/gmail-extension-firefox

Many companies still conduct calling programs, using either internal resources or a third party company.   NetSuite has the ability to log phone calls of course, but what’s the best way to automatically populate the call records quickly, rather than filling out each field.

Here’s how one of our customers does it.  This might not be the most slickest way to do it but it’s effective and makes it easy for users to click and log a call.

First, create your custom phone call form.  It can be a copy of your regular one, or it can have more or less fields than usual.  Get the ID number of the form.

Second, create a custom field on the customer record, of type html link, and don’t store the value.  Have the value driven by a formula.

The formula looks like

‘https://system.netsuite.com/app/crm/calendar/call.nl?l=T&refresh=activities&invitee=’ || {internalid} || ‘&company=’ || {internalid} || ‘&cf=47′

The &cf=47 text is telling NetSuite to use Entry Form ID number 47.

Third, create a basic script, or workflow if you prefer, to fill in the form with program specific default information when it is opened.  Below is an example:

var BLITZ_CALL = 7;
var NO_CONNECT_NO_MESSAGE = 6;
var CALL_TITLE = 'Blitz Calling 2011';
var CALL_COMPLETED = 'COMPLETE';

function pageInit(type) {
	setOriginPhoneOnCreation(type);
}

/**** CORE FUNCTIONS ****/

function setOriginPhoneOnCreation(type){
	if(type=='create'){
		nlapiSetFieldValue('custeventcalltype',BLITZ_CALL);
		nlapiSetFieldValue('custeventcalloutcome',NO_CONNECT_NO_MESSAGE);
		nlapiSetFieldValue('title',CALL_TITLE);
		nlapiSetFieldValue('status',CALL_COMPLETED);
		/* nlapiSetFieldValue('message','Does the company do design? Y/N \nWhat design software do they currently use?'); */
	}
}

Now make sure this script is attached appropriately to your call form in NetSuite,  such that anytime someone creates a call using the form it runs.  This is obviously best done when it’s not the default form for people.

Finally, create a saved search of companies that need to be called.  Use any criteria you can think of, there are a million ways to do it.  And, include your custom field above in the results.

Clicking on the link will pop open a call record where your outbound calling person can simply hit submit at the end of the call without have to repeatedly fill out the same information over and over.

For this and other cool NetSuite ideas, connect with us.  If you like this give us a shout-out in the comments.

Often, while discussing systems, implementation, timing, scope of work, and integration, one often forgets to ask the simple questions.  Sometimes, taking a quick step back to think, will help guide the more complicated discussions later.

Here’s where we’ve taken the discussion recently:

How will this add value to the end user?

End user adoption is critical, in the fullest sense, to the success of a CRM implementation.  If you’re not adding value to the end users life, making them better and faster at their job, then you’re failing at building a framework for success.

Of course not every decision will revolve around this.  You may need the users to do more work to capture useful information for you to use to make decisions, but, the end result must be that there is a significant end benefit to the person keying in the information.  This principle will drive everything from your selection of the system, to how you deploy forms and searches.

How will I measure success?

You’ll need to show, in the short, medium, and long term, just how the project is going.  And, if you’re going to do that you’ll need to measure stuff.

Likely, you are not measuring, systematically, the thing that you want to improve.  Number of new leads by rep by product category for example.  I’d encourage you to take some time and measure that KPI prior to starting your implementation.   Doing so will help guide your thinking, and will ensure that the CRM system is effectively capturing the data you want.

What is the vision for the organisation?

Simply rephrased; Begin with the end in mind.  What does life look like at the end of go live?  At the end of Phase II?  Just what kind of information will the CEO be looking at on a day to day basis?  What will the front line team be doing as they fulfill service requests?

You won’t get the vision perfect, and it’ll always surprise you what the CEO wants on her dashboard in 12 months, but the exercise will help you figure out what’s critical, and what’s simply nice to have.

I hope these questions help at least one person get started on the right foot.

NetSuite 2011.1 Sneak Peaks is now available online here.

I encourage you to check it out.  It shows where NetSuite is headed with this release and just how deep the application really is with the types of things they are improving.

While I’m sure there’s more on tap, as usual, there’s a few things in the list that are going to make life better. The enhancements to the Suiteflow tool, for one, are my personal favorites.

Customer Relationship Management.  Perhaps the worst descriptor ever used to describe a class of products.

Why?  Because a CRM application does so much more than simply manage lists of companies and contacts, opportunities and orders.  It’s a business management platform that can manage any kind of information you want.  Well, almost any.

It’s also a bad description because CRM should, in the best implementations, be used to manage performance.  And the best way to manage performance is to set goals and targets for yourself and your business.

If you’re looking at CRM for the first time, here are three things to ask yourself as you examine your different options.

What are the 3 most important goals for my business, or my different business areas, this year?

Can a measurement and reporting system help me meet and exceed those targets?

What is the financial impact of exceeding those targets?

If you can answer those questions you’re on your way to figuring out the financial justification of a CRM system.  The important thing to keep in mind is that there are many systems that can measure results.  ERP systems are great at measuring.  But does yours allow you to put in targets and report against them?  Can it measure non-financial data, such as the number of new leads?  The percentage of RFP’s won or lost?  Because a (good) CRM system is so flexible you can measure much much more.

So as you consider either if you need a system, or, which CRM to implement, perhaps take the time to ask how your important goals and targets would be tracked, compared, and presented, and, how doing so would impact your business.

If you’d like to see a demonstration of this, please feel free to contact us.

The team at Audaxium has a long history with manufacturing companies.  We’ve spent more than our fair share of time working with Engineering departments talking about design.  We’ve taken over whiteboards during ERP integration planning sessions.  And we’ve helped companies improve their document control systems.

But some of the most intriguing discussions take place when we sit down with owners and managers who are responsible for sales, and growing the business at smaller companies.  Sales is about Customer Relationship Management no?

“We don’t have sales people.  We don’t need CRM.”
“Our sales reps are fine, they know their customers and they use Outlook for contact management.”
“We really only sell to existing customers.”

Those are some of the reasons given for not wanting to discuss a system for managing those relationships.  We don’t need a solution if there’s no problem right? And a small company doesn’t need more “Systems”. But there is a problem. These same managers will then begin to talk about how times are tricky and how they need to win new projects, expand into more markets, or introduce more product lines. CRM is not just for some sales people.  And it’s not just for a big company with money to spend. It’s for everyone in the company who deals with prospects and customers.  It’s for managing their experience with you and to keep track of your company’s goals. Which brings us to the 3 reasons.  3 out of 16 I’ve got written down.

Reason #1: Achieve Customer Service Excellence

How much time is spent in the office getting answers for a particular customer on fairly basic questions?  Are they getting bounced from person to person?Give your customer the confidence that you’re organized and they can get answers quickly and reliably.

The first area that comes to mind for me is post sale implementation and delivery of a project.  As a manufacturer, your CRM system will include the ability to manage this information and keep your whole team in the loop, thereby getting the job done right and keeping the customer happy.  You’ll incur less penalties and more follow on sales.

A solid CRM system will also help you keep track of any warranty, repair, or service issues.  Perhaps your ERP system keeps track of the material side of these issues, but day to day questions, inquiries, and service calls are an easy thing for a CRM system to manage and ensure that nothing gets overlooked.

Reason #2: Boost Your Sales

When it comes right down to it, everyone wants to sell more.  But how will a CRM system help that?

The first way it will help your team is when you engage a customer or prospect on a new opportunity.  Gathering the customer requirements all in one place will make sure that everyone involved has a very clear idea of what’s needed and what the difficulties might be.  You can then work with the customer to craft a solution. After some time, you’ll have a history of customer requirements that will give you insights into both specific customers, and your entire customer base.

We’ve seen many companies specifically having some challenges when it comes to responding to RFQ’s, the main issue being that the process takes too long as it’s handed off around the office, or, the configuring process, while a set of standard rules, is done manually.  There is often also very little knowledge of why business is being won, or lost.  This is incredibly valuable information that can be captured in your CRM system.

Reason #3: Expand into New Markets

It might be easy to continue to take orders from existing companies, but launching new products, moving into new territories, or targeting different industries, requires that your sales efforts are highly managed.

As you undertake these activities a CRM system will help in targeting prospects and managing those communications.  It will measure the team against the goals set for them.  Being organized and diligent, in combination with some good marketing, will mean the difference between success and failure with your new initiative.

The selling process will be different and it’s important to track that process.

Conclusion

There’s a myriad of different ways a CRM system can help a manufacturing company.  It could mean managing distributors as opposed to customers.  It may be a way to give more people access to data already in ERP.  The list is long.

Go to our landing page for an excellent whitepaper from IDC.  I encourage you to download it and give it a read.  It goes into a great deal of depth on this topic and has several different ideas on how CRM will help.  It’s 18 Pages long and concludes with a list of questions to ask for self evaluation.

Here at Audaxium, we have been spending a great deal of time talking to customers about how to get off on the right foot when implementing marketing automation software, in this case, Pardot.

These discussions are as unique as our customers, but there are a few constants in the equation that add up to a successful implementation. It’s important to give these careful consideration.

As point of reference, all of our clients sell to other businesses, and they typically have a lot of customers and contacts at those customers. But they also have a keen desire to both generate new leads, and manage leads sent to them by their partners. Our advice below makes the most sense in that context.

So what’s first? Where do we begin?

What first happens is a discussion of the value of marketing automation tools. Times have changed. It’s no longer appropriate to download lists of email addresses and spam them. It’s not valuable to email your entire customer base each week with every message you want to broadcast.

In a nutshell, you’ll be using an application like Pardot to achieve the following:

• Capture Lead Information
• Track Lead and customer behavior on your website and content
• Measure the “sales readiness” of contacts
• Manage the hand off of sales ready leads to the sales team
• Give customers content and offers they are interested in

But you already knew all that. You’re here to learn about your first steps.

Data Scrubbing

The first step is an analysis of your existing data. Just how good is it? This breaks down into two essential questions. How much data that you need to use to segment your database, is missing? Address, email, company size, industry etc. are typical but there may be others. The second question is, how much duplicate information is there?

While improving data quality should be an ongoing task in your organization, and not a one time program, you’ll need to make sure it’s happening as you move ahead with marketing automation. Clean your data.

Make sure you’re removing or merging duplicate email addresses. Put in place metrics in your CRM system to warn users when they are working with incomplete records.

Your database will never become perfect, but place a high degree of importance on the effort to make it so.

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