6 steps to more successful CRM and Enterprise 2.0 deployments

Just a quick post on a Saturday morning.  I just returned from a refreshingly cool run.  While running I was thinking about a panel discussion I am participating in on Tuesday.  The panel is focused on measuring project success which led me to this short list of items you should keep in mind when delivering any large scale deployment:

• Ensure you have a clear understanding of what the business is trying to accomplish. Discuss with all teams involved and, if any discrepancies are identified, get them resolved.
• Identify all people who will be impacted by your work.
• Identify all business processes that currently exist in the areas being impacted by your work.
• Identify a stakeholder review team that can help ensure that the vendors and consultants involved the project are staying on track.
• Use an iterative design/execution approach.  Identify short-term milestones, similar to agile sprints, that can be used to ensure the project remains on track.
• If you have a strong project manager in house, give them ownership of the project, not the consultants or vendors. This is your project, take ownership, succeed.

I know this list is incomplete but it’s Saturday.  Let me know what you think.

John

Models of adoption for Social Business Design

I’ll use my next few posts to dig further into the key attributes of Social Business Design, the tools, the strategies.  However, let me first set the groundwork for how I define Social Business Design.  I will repurpose my definition of Social CRM (the mislabeled framework), and state:

Social Business Design (SBD) is a framework for incorporating social solutions (the combination of strategies and tools) into your overall business strategy.  SBD is focused on people first, processes second, tools third.

The incorporation of SBD into businesses is in its early stages and I feel it is important to discuss how companies might progress from social novices into social gurus within their niches.  This is based upon my opinions and I would love to hear your feedback as we can further shape this definition collectively.

• SBD Model 1:  The business has a defined strategy for how social processes will be leveraged to achieve business goals.
• SBD Model 2:  Defined social processes in use.  Social communications are often controlled centrally with limited employee participation outside of “approved” social communicators.
• SBD Model 3: Analysis of the results (ROI) of your social activities. Social strategy adjusted as a result of analysis.
• SBD Model 4:  Wide-scale employee participation in social channels.  Have moved beyond the “approved” list of communicators.  Policies may be in place to control/limit communications.

 The tools being used are unimportant as they are simply used as reflections of your strategy, ways to automate and refine what you are already buying into manually.  The models are focused upon the level of corporate social engagement and the formal nature of the processes being used.

What do you think?

John

Hypocritical or Ignorant…. You be the judge

As regular readers of my blog know I attended a webinar on Social CRM yesterday.  I won’t repeat that post but would suggest you read it first.  In short:

Companies like HelpStream are not providing Social CRM (SCRM), they are providing Social Support Communities (SSC).  While both are valuable SSC is but a small subset of SCRM.

• SSC is valuable but is not SCRM

While HelpStream presents it’s software as Social CRM it is not Social CRM, it is a great example of a Social Support Community.  See yesterday’s post for a definition of SSC.

My concern with vendors misrepresenting their software is two-fold:

Customer confusion.  Social CRM holds great promise for the business world and will transform the way sales, marketing, support, finance, and other departments function.  SSC transforms support only.

Software cost are higher than necessary.  Customer pay for hype over value leading to further frustration with “CRM”.  The hype cycle defeats the promise.

 Note that my impression is that all of the “Social CRM” vendors are only delivering SSC.  HelpStream is just one example.

• Engagement is a critical component of Social. 

When people hear “Social” they think of engagement, of transparency, of two way conversation.  This dialogue must address both the positive as well as the negative.  Bob Warfield, CEO of HelpStream, said it well in a recent blog post when he said “Today, we have to reverse that trend of isolating ourselves from our customers”.  Well said.

I have to challenge HelpStream to live up to this statement.  Following the webinar, and my pronouncement that  HelpStream is delivering SSC, not SCRM, I immediately received silence.  While nearly all of the other tweets from the webinar were responded to, none of mine were.  Now, my blog is small, my opinions are those of a student, not an expert, and I am certainly not “an important person” in CRM circles.  However, it would be great to know that a “Social CRM” company took social seriously, responding to comments that align with their desired  brand messages as well as comments that question their brand message.

• Companies should know what they are selling.

If you went into a hardware store and asked for a wrench would you be satisfied when the store owner gave you a hammer instead?   The store owner may try to convince you that it’s a wrench, will you fall for it?.  Would you continue to go back to this store?  While I can’t give you advice on hardware stores I would suggest you think twice about buying from any company that fails to understand the products it sells.

What do you think?

John

Following up on the Crossing the Chasm Webinar for Social CRM

If you read/listened my blog post yesterday you’ll know that I was attending the HelpStream webinar that  was supposed to discuss if Social CRM has Crossed the Chasm.  As I listened and tweeted about the webinar conversation I came to a few conclusions:

• Social CRM is far from the chasm.  If Social CRM were a marathon runner it would still be tying it’s shoes, stretching before the race has even started.
• Companies, including those that are building so-called Social CRM applications, do not understand what Social CRM is all about.  Most, including those who spoke in today’s webinar, were describing what I refer to as Social Support Communities (SSC).
• Companies must be careful about preaching engagement when they are not prepared to listen.

Social CRM is far from the chasm

While the webinar was supposed to focus on Social CRM’s location in regards to the chasm no one discussed this, or even attempted to answer the question at all.  The core question failed to be addressed…. 

As I noted yesterday, CRM Software has been across the chasm for  years.  The successful implementation of CRM, and for that matter Social CRM, is far from the chasm.  It does not see the chasm, it is still waiting for directions.

Social Support Communities are not Social CRM

Every participant in the webinar discussed their use, or their support of, Social CRM.  However, as the concepts were discussed it became clear that they were all discussing SSC.  Since I have never defined this term before, let’s clarify:

• SSC is a discussion group, a forum, on steroids.
• SSC incorporates social networks as additional channels through which customer conversations can occur.
• SSC enables customers to directly converse with other customers.  Companies and partners can also be equal participants in this conversation, but are often playing the role of moderators in the examples provided by the webinar participants.
• SSC is a small subset of Social CRM, a very small subset.
• SSC focuses on the customer almost exclusively, ignoring in large part, other participants in the marketplace including the company, partners, and competitors.
• SSC focuses on customer support services.  It fails to provide value in marketing, sales, finance, or other aspects where CRM is utilized.

Eat your own dogfood.  If you preach engagement, engage, listen.

Throughout the webinar several people, myself included, challenged the conclusions being drawn during the webinar.  As is typical, I will raise concerns if I do not feel the full story is being told.  At around 1:30 PM ET my Social CRM friend Esteban noted “@JohnFMoore webinar as well as most published case studies are about communities – not SCRM. SCRM not yet done #scrm #scrmseries #scrm”.

At around the same time I noted, also on Twitter: “RE http://bit.ly/KZ0UL(expand) @gyehuda Yes, true. However, this #scrmseries addresses #social support communities, not #scrm” .

If you are a Social CRM, or SSC, company engaging in a webinar about Social CRM you must be proactive in engaging, communicating, relationship building.  Leaving open questions like this in the market speaks more to a company working with old models of preaching messages vs. the new world where companies are expected to listen.  Time will tell how this all shapes up, I’m not impressed yet.

John

Product release reflections

We released a major update to our Milestone Tracking Matrix product this evening.  When release milestones are achieved it is important to reflect upon the good points as well as the areas where improvements are needed.  I’m tired tonight so I’ll simply share with you my scorecard for this release by including the e-mail I shared with the entire company:

“

   I wanted to take a moment and acknowledge one of the largest product releases we have ever delivered.  We met more than 30 customer-driven requirements, some small, some very large.  Not only did we meet these requirements but we also revamped the entire user interface so as to be much cleaner and easier to use, we delivered.  Our customers will benefit greatly.

   He is my quick scorecard:

• Customer Requirements: A-.  We met the vast majority of requirements, only falling short on some minor points.
• Scheduling: C.  While I take ownership for this one we must all seek to become more rigorous about upfront scheduling, tracking progress, and communicating challenges.
• Code Design Quality:  B.  We made some solid improvements in terms of code maintainability.
• Test Coverage. B.  We did a really good job but need to look at how to do a better job allocating resources earlier.  The challenge here is both schedule-based and resource limitations.
• User Interface Design: A.  We should be really proud of the work in this area, it feels like a brand new application.
• Usability:  Good usability improvements, customers will notice the changes we have made.
• Performance Improvements: C.  We only made minor performance improvements in most areas.
• Scalability: C.  We only made minor improvements.

Overall Score:  B

A great product release overall. We have plenty of room to get better, which is good….  If we did it perfectly what would we have to look forward to?

“

How does this compare to most of your releases?

John

Why are developers so bad at software estimation?

I read an article by Zeichick this morning discussing the reasons why developers are poor software estimators.  While I have my own strong opinions on the subject I would love to hear what all of you think.  I’m looking for opinions, not necessarily statements of fact so don’t hold back.

I’m looking forward to your votes and your comments.

Thanks,

John

p.s. For the record I do not think we’re really that bad at estimating software projects.

Reflecting on startup hiring

I have been focused on hiring this week, as I’ve already discussed.  I love the entire process, from writing the job posting to reviewing resumes to chatting with people on the phone.  It’s a great way to meet people.

I read an interesting post on The “Top 7 Hiring Mistakes for Startup Businesses” which does a nice job of summing up the process;  I’d recommend giving it a read.  My only disagreement with the post is point # 4 which recommends against hiring generalist.  This is dangerous advice.  Start ups are full of ups and downs and there are times you must lay off staff to make ends meet.  It is far from ideal, in fact it’s horrible, but it is a reality.  I have seen this in every start up I have worked in (4 total) and we  were fortunate to have these jack of all trades on the team.  It made it possible to have people that would write code, design UI, and write help.  It made it possible to have people producing marketing materials, making sales, and even answering the support lines.  Would we have been better off with specialist?  Yes… If we had the money.  The generalist saved the day.

Since I’m on the subject of hiring, I wanted to share with you a few mistakes to avoid when it comes to the job application process.  I have seen all of these this week:

• Applying for a job and not including your resume.  I have received almost 40 applications through craigslist and 4 of them were sent without the resume attached.  I will not e-mail you back.
• Sending an application e-mail without any attempt at writing a cover letter.  Come on, make an effort and tell me why I should open your resume.  If you don’t make the effort, I will not either.  I received five e-mails with no message.
• Having typos in your resume.  While not a deal breaker you are failing to make a good impression.  Spell check please.
• Including the names of your references in the resume.  While not a bad thing when I know that your middle school vice principal is one of your references I have to ask myself how successful you have been in the first few years of your career.

How is your hiring going?

John

Hiring, getting back to basics

This week I shifted into hiring mode as I have several positions that we are trying to fill.  These positions have been open at Swimfish for a little while and filling them is now becoming a critical need.  With the high unemployment rate you would think we would have easily filled the support, development, project manager, and web designer positions we have open.  So what gives, why haven’t we filled them yet?

• Hiring qualified talent is hard, always.
• Hiring requires focus.  Life in the startup-lane is always crazed and you are balancing countless priorities.  If you want to successfully hire the right people you must focus on it.  You need to clearly identify the job needs, identify if you need recruiters, and work closely with these recruiters that you have brought on board.  It will not happen without focus.
• Our Support and Development positions are in El Segundo, CA and our main office is in Danvers, MA.  It is harder to recruit outside of your own backyard.  Ask your network for help.

Alright, so today began with focus on hiring, how did I approach it:

• Reviewed all open positions to ensure they were clear and accurate.  Sometimes you will write a job description and find out a month later that it is no longer valid.  Keep it valid.
• Reached out to my personal network, my LinkedIn network, my Twitter network.
• Posted the El Segundo position on twitter.  It’s not in my backyard and a $25 investment to post a job is money well spent.
• Repeat step 2.
• Repeat step 2
• … You get the idea.

Seems simple, right?  What were the results:

• Nearly 30 applications for the Support job in the first few hours, more continuing to come in.  The majority of these came through Craigslist but have 5 or 6 more leads through the networks.
• Have 4 new leads for project managers.  All of them are high quality and came from my network efforts.
• Have 3 leads for graphic designers.  This is a 3 week consulting gig and the leads were off the mark.  The issue is not the network in this case, the issue is with the job description.  I will go back and update it

Not bad for one person leveraging the power of their network.  Imagine the number of resumes you should be seeing.

John

Operational Responsiveness: Ideas from Progress Software

Progress Software was kind enough to reach out to me and share some of their thinking on Operational Responsiveness (OR).  Over the course of the next few posts I’ll share with you some of the key components of OR.  My approach will be:

• An introduction to OR, the point of this post.
• A deeper look at how Progress Software define OR.
• How does OR compare to Social CRM?  Is it the same thing?
• Where I would like to see Progress Software go with OR

Why am I interested in OR?  I see OR as being related to Social CRM, and I will share the reasons why in later posts.  Alright John, we’ll wait.  Tell us, how does Progress define OR?

“Operational responsiveness is the ability of business processes and systems to respond to changing conditions and customer interactions as they occur, enabling business leaders to capitalize on opportunities, drive greater efficiencies, and reduce risk.”

Flexible, agile, systems and processes that can react to changing market conditions to enable business leaders to make the right decisions…  If you’re thinking Social CRM you’re not alone.  While the concepts put forth in the white paper are not as evolved as the conversations the Social CRM (#scrm) crew is having on Twitter, I see the right core concepts in play:

• Awareness of the broader business environment.  You must clearly understand the goals of the business and the strategies and tactics being employed.   Your processes and systems must support this environment.
• Awareness of the market through observation.  Using the tools at your disposal to understand changing market conditions and how your business and your competition (both the competition you are aware of and that which you have yet to identify) are impacting this marketplace.
• Change management.  In OR the use of agile techniques to quickly drive process changes is critical.

While this has only been an introduction, what questions or comments do you have?

John

Brief response to customer service vs. social crm

I was reading this post and felt it was important to respond more broadly than I am able to via Twitter. Here is the message I left, I hope others will weigh in as well.

“While I like the article overall I have to disagree that customer service is about today and Social CRM is about tomorrow.  Here’s why:

• Social CRM is a superset of CRM, well defined by Paul Greenberg.  For the rest of this response I’ll simply refer to CRM
• CRM is not just about the long term retention of clients.  It is both strategic in terms of acquisition and retention but tactical in terms of short-term strategies and solutions too.
• Customer service is an activity that is part of the overall CRM offering, not something to be thought of as separate at all.

With that said, however, I agree that companies must embrace social media, and social CRM, now.  I will avoid sending you to my various blog posts, but will sum them up with the following comments:

• Social can be used effectively as an extension to typical support channels as you have indicated.
• Social should be used for relationship building, critical in both up and down economic situations.
• Social can be used for branding.

John Moore
http://twitter.com/JohnFMoore
http://johnfmoore.wordpress.com

“

What do you think?

John