Our CRM system works!
We built our CRM system – which we call our eCRMine – using our own software-engineering savvy and our own sales-management savvy. We did that because experience showed us off-the-shelf tools did not allow us to inject creativity…a necessary ingredient of a successful CRM system.
To summarize, we think a CRM system is successful when it has the following attributes:
- It gets used…used by staff, used by management, and used by leaders
- It serves the needs identified by staff, managers, and leaders [ie, it serves The Plan]
- It can be expanded or contracted…ie, it can be changed to meet changing needs
When we talked about creating eCRMine we knew about Wikipedia and The Internet Movie Database.
We knew about those information systems and we knew people embraced them…they were user-friendly and they were comprehensive, containing huge amounts of cross-referenced information.
That’s what we wanted in our CRM system. We wanted to capture names and facts. We wanted cross-referencing like that contained in Wikipedia and IMDb. I used to say - we want it Wikipedia-ish and IMDb-ish.
Using IMDb as a metaphor – we didn’t just want to know everything about Sylvestor Stallone…when he was born, what movies he was in, when those movies were made, etc. We wanted to be able to quickly find out who else was in those movies. We wanted to know the people who know Sylvester Stallone: the movie producers, the movie directors, the fellow actors, etc.
Thinking about what Malcolm Gladwell [
www.gladwell.com] had written in
The Tipping Point, about Kevin Bacon and Rod Steiger [the best-connected actor of all time], we wanted to capture relationships on multiple levels.
The good news: it is not difficult to build a powerful CRM system…and we would be pleased to share the results of our work with you.
If you would like to learn more about our eCRMine then let us know.
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Over the last 2 years, Spirited has talked with hundreds of businesses, all seeking help. We noticed trends and we developed a short list of questions to help us understand the precise nature of the help required.
In the next blog series, I will share and discuss those questions.