Selling Social CRM

I continue to be impressed by Oracle’s social CRM approach to sales applications. If you have not had exposure to these apps yet, I would encourage you to take a look at the demo Oracle created to tout this social CRM tool set.

The material highlights a series of CRM application modules delivering on a promise of improving how we sell. It is a sales-centric design as opposed to a more common management- centric design. From that perspective, it is a sea change over the majority of selling applications available today.

For as long as I can remember, striking a balance between collecting data from and returning useful information to the sales team has been at issue within companies engaged in deploying CRM applications. It was relatively easy to establish a perception of benefit with the sales management team. The early automation clearly supported business requirements from this perspective. The trick was to convince the individual sales associate that the tool would make him or her more proficient in day-to-day selling. This proved to be a much more difficult task.

At best, the initial sales offerings helped the user to gather, organize and report customer activity within the selling channel. Once opportunities were entered, the automation would collate and redistribute the information providing much needed visibility into the active sales pipeline. It became essentially a one-way feed from individuals working lists of prospective customers to the management team. Unfortunately, very little benefit was returned to the sales associate. If you could convince the frontline troops that you had found an improved way for them to organize and manage their time, you could achieve acceptable levels of buy-in and adoption. This was not an easy sell.

There were drawbacks associated with the management centric approach. As you might expect, a reliable sales practitioner more often than not had a competing off-line tool in place. Consequently, the new on-line tools were viewed as incremental and complex when held in comparison. Furthermore, a higher level of management scrutiny came along with the new tool and that did not sit well with the sales associates. Most of the customer-facing audience did not see an advantage to the watchful eyes peering over their shoulders and into their business. Lastly, management was attempting to build consensus around tool utilization with sales associates hired for their advanced negotiation skills. Sales can be very persuasive in support of a position they are backing even if it runs contrary to the corporate direction. It is not a very good formula for success.

To be effective, both sales management and sales associates need a reason to embrace the CRM application. The union of lead generation, qualification, distribution, and tracking to the sales automation package tool set was an early attempt to deliver value and bring the two sides closer together. Lead workflow augmented an individual’s time spent prospecting and provided additional opportunities to make quota. Lead integration was a marked improvement for CRM and a clear shift in benefit toward the sales associates.

With the advent of Oracle’s Social CRM, we kick into high gear. The applications take advantage of social networking technology geared to surface opportunities of merit. Data is mined from repositories containing the collective experience of the company as well as assets obtained from outside sources of applicable industry information. The knowledge delivered assists sales to cull out the opportunity wheat from the chaff from within their assigned customer space.

Close ratios for particular products and services can be reviewed against the backdrop of a targeted market segments and presented in a graphical format that helps to define a course of action for a specific customer. It is very powerful information in the hands of a tenured sales associate and absolutely essential to a new hire in the throws of learning the ropes.

Peer review and endorsement are leveraged to rate the quality of collateral and presentation materials in support of the selling effort. Ratings are particularly useful when companies are introducing new products. With this advantage, it takes less time for associates and managers to determine which assets are effective. Without this advantage, the ever-increasing complexity surrounding a new solution sale and the tendency for companies to inundate associates with information obfuscate the desired results. I have seen this kill new product launches.

It is also an advantage to the groups supporting sales. Efforts can be targeted to the creation of collateral pieces that are proven to deliver results, avoiding costly creations that essentially have no traction with the customer base. This saves real dollars over time for any organization.

The technology is becoming increasingly attractive as well. The new tools to plug and play in most existing CRM environments. No need to replace your core sales application to take advantage of the advancements. It is in line with a philosophy long embraced by Oracle to protect the existing application investments companies have made to run their business.

I see a lot of potential in this new direction for Oracle Sales Applications. It is a sign of significant progress on the CRM front and that Oracle is listening to the user community. It is about time we all had a listen and deliver on the promise of value creation for the guys and gals that make the business happen. After all, it all starts with a sale.

David Ferguson is a 2009 board member for the OAUG. He has been an active member of the OAUG since 2003. He is working as Director, Transformation Management Office, Global Customer Relations Management and is a 28-year veteran at Diebold Incorporated. In this capacity, he has overall project responsibility for the global implementation of Oracle 11i CRM/SCM Suite of products to include Oracle Sales, iStore, OIC, Order Management and TCA across the Prospect to Order process. He is a practicing Lean/Six Sigma Black Belt and is a certified Sales Process Engineer.