Disparate Systems Across the Customer Lifecycle
CRM, Marketing Automation, Support Desks, Web Analytics, and more services are emerging every day that are designed to capture precious data about your customers. Businesses are armed with more data than ever before about leads and customers. But how do you leverage that data to drive more revenue? Let's explore the problem with your "CRM".
Marketeers at some of the largest CRM companies have done a great job of spinning the definition of a CRM in their favor. Instead of bickering over the true definition, let's simply categorize the following as examples of CRM solutions that you might be using: SalesForce.com, Zoho, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics. Or you may have a custom CRM solution. In any case, the "CRM" is usually ran by sales. They are the interface between your organization and your leads/customers. However, with the recent rise of other software solutions that encompass the broader customer lifecycle, a turf battle is brewing.
1. Prospecting Tools (Marketing): Google Analytics, Omniture Site Catalyst, HubSpot, InfusionSoft, Pardot, Eloqua, and many others have features that tell you about website traffic and what happens before the first conversion event.
2. Lead Nurturing and Management Tools (Sales and Marketing): Zoho, HubSpot, MailChimp, InfusionSoft, Pardot, Eloqua, Microsoft Dynamics, and SalesForce.com. These types have features that track interactions between your organization and the lead.
3. Invoicing and Contract Management (Sales, Finance, Management, Legal): Quickbooks, PeachTree, Sage, PeopleSoft, SalesForce.com, and others manage documents and transactions between your organization and the customer.
4. Customer Success (): Companies like Totango, and Tri Tuns have SaaS solutions for this phase, but many organizations use a combination of the previously mentioned tools along with some custom built tools to facilitate the customer success effort where everybody is involved.
