Customer On The Edge

The March issue of CRM Magazine has a number of interesting articles, each with a top ten list. Unlike what we have come to expect from Letterman, they are provided in ascending order, but the content is still good, ranging from SFA through CRM Program Management. On the latter list, the top item is, “Put the User First”. There was a time when I would have enthusiastically accepted this recommendation with great applause. After all I have spent a good portion of my career as a self-proclaimed expert on change management, constantly extolling the virtues of user buy-in as a key critical success factor.

Now, before I make anyone upset with me, please understand that I still very firmly believe that a focus on the user to ensure acceptance is really, really important. However, I am no longer certain that it is correct to claim that good CRM requires for us to put the user first. Seeing that in print makes me cringe at the thought of the incoming hate mail.

Well, what about management needs from CRM? What about timely and accurate forecasting? Isn’t that important? I’m not fooling around here. This is really important stuff. How could the average user be more important?

This is resolvable.

It’s all about balance. Ultimately, I believe it is important that the needs of the user are balanced with the needs of management. Getting out of balance usually causes problems. When forecasting is all that matters, sale reps have a means of finding ways to not do forecasting sufficiently. Having declared this so emphatically, I’ll also disclose that there are times when being out of balance briefly is needed as well. For example, when the first phase of an SFA project is all about getting the forecasting module up quickly due to problems with inventory shortages, it is totally fine to let the second phase be all about the folks out in the field. Ultimately it is essential to get to balance.

There are a number of key balance dimensions in addition to the management / user relationship. Getting things balanced between headquarters and the field is good. Having a reasonable balance between a focus on business processes and a focus on technology is also good. Striking a balance between a customer orientation and an internal orientation is really good, too.

More on those later - go get balanced.