What is a CRM Road Map?

A CRM road map is a strategic plan that identifies how an organization can meet and exceed its
customers' needs. This includes, but is not limited to, assessing how the sales, marketing and
service entities work together to 1) gain insight from their customers (e.g., purchase history,
desired products/services), 2) produce valuable offerings/products (e.g., personalized product)
and 3) provide the ultimate customer experience (e.g., multiple touch points, 360 degree view of
the customer).
The Figure 1 provides a "line of sight" that links the business strategy to customer expectations
and is described in the following pages. Following these steps can ensure that your company
meets its CRM goals.

Figure 1: Link Business Strategy to Customer Expectations

As illustrated in Figure 1, while developing a CRM road map involves aligning an organization's
business strategy with its prioritized CRM capabilities are identified. For example, if a company's
business strategy is to become more customer-centric or develop products faster to gain unique
market positioning; the capabilities that the company needs to master should be aligned with
that strategy and might include:
 Leveraging customer information from the service process (e.g., integrating customer
feedback during service calls with the marketing department),
 Effectively managing product mix (measure success by campaign), and
 Effectively managing sales channel strategy (eliminate conflict between distribution
channels).
How do organizations know which CRM capabilities they have and which they need to realize
their strategic goal? The primary steps (which have been used cross-industry including financial
services, electronics and high tech, consumer products, manufacturing, etc.) to follow when
developing a CRM road map include:
Step 1: Gain Senior- Level Sponsorship
The sponsor for a CRM road map effort must have a vested interest in the project and ideally
have P&L responsibility for the group to be impacted. This helps develop buy-in from the senior
management team and the operations staff.
A road map effort without senior-level sponsorship and with little cross-unit influence can
diminish the returns of such an effort. As with any project an organization undertakes that
involves significant change to business processes, organizational structures or roles and
responsibilities, the lack of key, influential sponsorship reduces the effectiveness of the project
since there is no driving force for implementation.
Step 2: Gather Information
It is critical to gain insights of various key stakeholders and decision- makers within the
organization. These insights can be acquired most effectively by holding one-on- one meeting.
We use an "interview template" that consists of more than 30 questions. This template serves
as the foundation for framing initial discussions with the client.
Examples of questions that help us gauge the health of the client's CRM include:
 How would you define what does CRM mean to you?
 What types of customer information are captured/tracked (acquisition/retention costs,
churn, cost to serve, etc.)?
 What information would you like to know about your customers that you currently do
not?
Depending on the scope and effort of the project, these meetings may include not only
executives, but also individuals all the way to the front line. Given their more frequent and direct
interactions with the customer, front-line personnel may know more about customer needs,
preferences and concerns that may not have been communicated to the executive level.
Step 3: Assess Current State and Define Future State Gaps
Through these meetings, we gain an understanding of the client's current CRM capabilities and
significant opportunities to improve their customer relationships and map out our findings. We
also strive to understand their company's future direction (usually between six months and two
years).
We use the results to analyze and determine how close these organizations are to meeting and
exceeding their customers' expectations and present the gaps between their current state of
CRM and their desired state.
Step 4: Identify Value Opportunities
Value opportunities represent the potential benefits delivered by being more customers centric.
We identify and categorize for our clients value opportunities along the lines of in the people,
process and technology dimensions by analyzing the their gaps between the organization's
current state and its desired future state. Once value opportunities are identified, meetings
should be held with the executive team to prioritize them.
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Examples of process value opportunities in the process dimension included improving how data
was captured processes for all customer contacts across sales functions and touch points (e.g.,
phone, e-mail, etc.). People value opportunities may involve additional training on service
procedures for capturing customer data. Technology value opportunities might include
developing a data warehouse.
Step 5: Link Value Opportunities Strategic CRM Capabilities
Once we determine where the value opportunities lie, we map each to the 21 world-class CRM
capabilities detailed in the study previously mentioned. Identifying which strategic CRM
capabilities are needed enables organizations to more effectively direct their CRM efforts and
ensure they derive the projected value of any CRM projects.
 Figure 2 is a sample of link between a specific value opportunity and its corresponding strategic
CRM capabilities:
Value Opportunity Strategic CRM Capability
Improve customer understanding. Possess good knowledge of the customer.
 Leverage customer information from the service
process.
 Understand customer profitability and cost to serve.
Figure 2: Sample of a Link

Step 6: Define CRM Projects and Requirements

Once value opportunities are prioritized, specific CRM projects need to be developed. Defining
and executing CRM projects will ensure the company masters the relevant strategic CRM
capabilities.
An effective way to define relevant projects is through brainstorming sessions with the client.
Samples of the outcome of a session might include:
 Understand customer profitability
 Enhance call center operations throughby implementationing of sophisticated touchpoint
technologies
 Establish included establishing a data warehouse
 Improve sales force training
Once CRM projects are defined, it is critical to go one step further and identify the business and
technical requirements needed. These should be specific and address the necessary people,
process and technology components of each project.
For understanding customer profitability, functional requirements might include:
 Creating a common definition of the formula for profitability formula for. products,
channels, sales staff, customer segments, individual customers;
 Ensuring consistency across the enterprise; and
 Defining components of in the formula. (acquisition, marketing, servicing costs, etc.).
Step 7: Develop A Business Case
Once the projects and requirements are defined, it is necessary to develop the business case to
support or refute the criticality of a specific project. The business case seeks to justify the dollar
investment needed and the ROI (return on investment) that will be realized over the course of
the investment (usually three to five years).
Each business case should include:
 Details and costs of required resources (people, technology, training, outsourced
resources, etc.),
 Projected duration time of each project, and
 Options for completing the project using internal or external resources.

Step 8: Develop a Rollout Strategy

Developing a rollout strategy enables organizations to focus their resources, money and time on
the most important projects that help them become customer driven.
CRM EIGHT BUILDING BLOCKS:

CRM initiatives need a framework to ensure that programs are approached on a strategic,
balanced and integrated basis. Gartner has developed such a framework, called the Eight
Building Blocks of CRM:

1. Vision —CRM vision requires a leader to define CRM, set objectives and draw a “picture”of
what the enterprise wants to be to target customers. The vision is the “what and why”; the
strategy is the “how.”

2. Strategy — developing a strategy to turn the customer base into an asset by delivering
customer value propositions. This includes setting objectives and determining how resources
will be used to interact with customers, How do we create awareness of what we offer to
potential customers of value?, How do we acquire valuable customers who will value us?,
How can we retain or win back customers of value?

How is a CRM Strategy Developed?

1. Audit the current market position and customer position

2. Segment both consumers and customers and identify target segments
3. Set customer objectives (i.e., acquisition, development and retention) and market objectives
by target segment
4. Outline the strategy to create the CVP anddesired customer experience by target segment
5. Define metrics for monitoring the execution of the strategy and evolving it
6. Specify the capabilities and infrastructurerequired (e.g., people, IT and data)

3. Valued Customer Experience — ensuring that the enterprise’s offerings and interactions
deliver ongoing value to customers, are delivered consistently and achieve the desired market
position.
“You must design the customer experience, otherwise
the customers will design it for you”-Tom Peters

4. Organizational Collaboration — changing cultures, organizational structures and behaviors to

ensure that employees, partners and suppliers work together to deliver customer value.

5. Processes — effectively managing not only customer life cycle processes (for example,
welcoming new customers, handling inquiries and complaints, and winning back lost
customers), but also analytical and planning processes that build knowledge of the customer.
Process change must accompany any technology implementation. Process change could have
a greater effect/be an alternative place to start Optimized processes are an opportunity for
competitive differentiation.

6. Information — collecting the right data and routing it to the right place. Treat customer
information as an asset and a "blood supply," focus on tighter integration between operational
and analytical systems.
7. Technology — managing data and information, customer-facing applications, IT infrastructure
and architecture. Outline your CRM architecture first, consider CRM as one big integration

exercise, and assess the best style of CRM application for your enterprise .
8. Metrics — measuring internal and external indications of CRM success and failure. Set CRM
metrics at multiple levels. Consider this the most difficult block: Without performance
management, a CRM strategy will fail.

FOUR PERILS OF CRM ROADBLOCKS

1. Implementing before creating strategy

It seems obvious that you should draw up a plan before implementing anything. Yet a surprising
number of firms dive headlong into CRM without carefully working out an exact customer
strategy that the technology helps the company execute.

In some ways it's similar to the rush to be on the web a few years back. It was so hip and "must-
do" that everyone joined in. Yet most never stopped to ask why they were doing it or what they
would get out of it. As a result, few websites to this day produce much of anything. Most were
poorly thought out and almost nobody visits them. Only those who understand the Web and the
role it plays in overall customer strategy have mastered how to utilize it.

It may well be that the same thing is happening with CRM. Companies hear that Siebel
or SAP or PeopleSoft CRM is the thing to do and they go ahead and buy the software. That
leads to implementing it before drawing up a customer centered acquisition and retention
strategy.

But the right away to go about it is to lead with strategy. Before even considering a specific
CRM technology, organizations should figure out where they are going. This would include such
basic planning actions as segmenting customers from most to least profitable, deciding whether
to simply invest more in profitable customers, manage costs better to improve overall margins,
divest unprofitable customers, or a combination of various options.

Companies should be asking strategic questions such as "What customer experience do we

want to achieve?" and "Is the company organized around the customer or does it have an
internal focus, around product or service lines?" By doing so, organizations define the strategic
changes they have to make. From that perspective it is far easier to implement the technology
enablers that will actually forward that strategy.

2. Installing CRM in an organization that isn't already customer focused

It is no wonder a large percentage of CRM failures stem from insufficient change management
based on trying to force CRM down the throats of staff that don't yet have a customer focus or
an organization that's processes are not conducive to the building of strong customer
relationships. It is folly to embark on CRM without taking the time to survey the company then
reconfigure all processes and systems so they actually fulfill customer needs.

For instance, many companies spend a lot of money on voice prompt systems that can
drive businessaway. By making it virtually impossible to speak to a live person, some have
learned the hard way that technology isn't just to make your life easier -- it is supposed to make
it simpler for customers to do business with you.

It takes time to prepare an inwardly focused group for a CRM initiative. But it is time well spent
as it oils the lines by giving staff a reason to want CRM and a purpose to get behind it.

3. Solving CRM implementation problems with more CRM technology

Some companies try to implement a state-of-the-art CRM system in one fell swoop. They
spend, and often waste, millions in doing so. Their faulty reasoning considers that the latest
technology will instantly solve a decade's worth of people problems that plague the business.
More often than not, the expensive technology goes largely unutilized and the same problems
continue to haunt the company.

A West Coast call center, for example, woke up one day to the fact that its costs were much too
high compared to results achieved. It called in a consultant who found that the training and
hiring budget came to $2.4 million annually, more than double what the organization thought it
was paying. Worse, customer service rep (CSR) turnover rate was 195%.

This company's strategy was to invest lavishly in technology while stinting on training. What
executives overlooked, though, was the huge amounts it paid to trainees each month in wages,
most of which was wasted due to attrition. The technology itself was also found to be little used.
Even among veteran agents, a good portion of the functionality was ignored due to lack of
training and familiarity.

In many cases, then, it may be better to start small with a relatively low-tech approach to CRM.
Some, for example, stick to a few simple aids for sales or call center staff -- inexpensive projects
that make life easier for people to sell or interact with customers. Building on that success, CRM
buy in is increased and management obtains a better perspective on how to phase in higher-
tech solutions.

4. Don't confuse customer interaction with hounding

In some cases, organizations have implemented CRM in such a way as to hound customers
with repeat messages by phone, fax, email or direct mail. While marketing has used CRM to
devise innovative methods of inundating the mailing list, this approach may actually drive
business away in the long run.

"The idea is to woo, not stalk, customers," said Waterkamp. "Just because you can contact
people, does not necessarily mean that you should contact them."
The important thing is to identify the right customers i.e. those that actually want to form a
relationship with you. Next, you have to work out how to contact them in the best way so that
they continue to value the relationship. Spam, for example, is almost a sure-fire way to destroy
respect.

A better approach is to better understand the demographics of key customer segments, survey
for what types of communication they most value and deliver your message in such a forum. For
some, this may be direct mail, for others via seminars or personal meetings. Bottom line: the
right communication is 1,000 times more valuable than dozens of poorly though-out attempts.