Is Social magic to fix CRM adoption and CRM data decay?

I caught a conversation last week in a tradeshow alley: « At the end of the day, my CRM app is just a shared Excel online. So why do I spend so much in licenses? ». Have you ever thought this way? I kept my mouth shut but wondered: « If you use your CRM just the way you use Excel, pray for your competitors to do the same or you may be out of business soon ». Unfortunately most of businesses still think in silos, not in processes.

Because CRM apps have become exactly this: one critical central layer to store account information while dozens of other business apps read, write, and append the CRM. As a result the capability for the CRM to provide ‘third party integrations’ is now a key criteria in the buying decision.

All along the year we see companies building sales war machines around their CRM: integrating contact forms, emails, public conversations, marketing campaigns, etc. Marketers are ecstatic about the ability to build automated sales processes over their CRM.

But even in this wonderland, some of us bleed, sweat and cry: marketers face CRM data decay and sales reps hate updating the CRM (both issues being obviously connected).

The nightmare of CRM data decay

According to a recently published study, up to 70% of B2B CRM contacts become out-dated within 12 months. The figure is astonishing and is worse year after year (60% in the 2000’s)! Marketers are the most frustrated by this, urge sales reps to update their accounts & contacts and eventually buy databases to update their CRM data (while compilers’ databases are also out-dated by 40% at best).

CRM adoption is painful

There are many voices on the market to try to explain why CRM adoption is so low with users reluctant to enter their contacts and update this Rolodex. I propose one single explanation: we ask users to give time to append the CRM while the CRM doesn’t give them much in return. Human beings are this way: they need a good reason for doing something (!)

What social data can bring on the table?

Everything is in place on the market to feel quite sure that social data is about to successfully address both issues mentioned above.

Regarding CRM data decay (especially in the B2B field), social connectors pop up to update CRM data with fresh information (i.e. contact information updated by the contact himself): LinkedIn launched its Salesforce.com plug-in last year (updating CRM contacts one by one and manually until now), Data.com/Jigsaw now matches US contacts with social profiles (though this is a manual update as well) and our team at IKO System has conducted several implementations during the latest months. The driver to make these solutions become mainstream relies in the technology to match the CRM contact with the right social profile. As data reliability is key in CRM, providers absolutely need to provide 100%-sure matches to append the CRM automatically with social intelligence. Stay tuned :)

Now let’s look at the issue of CRM adoption. CRM adoption is going to rise as soon as the CRM becomes the central point of sales intelligence to CRM users. As of today, the top research tool used by most sales reps is still Google, far beyond LinkedIn. This is a drama for efficiency.

Specific sales intelligence applications (such as IKO System, Insideview, Data.com, or OneSource) still remain confidential and dedicated to very mature companies. Most of these sales intelligence solutions now integrate within CRMs (even if 80%+ of CRM apps are not yet supported by these providers) and offer corporate news, financials, social profiles, conversations, emails and phone numbers. With this intelligence in hand, the CRM users have a central point of information (their CRM!) for every public data on a contact or an account: less time spent in prospecting research and measurable ROI on sales results.

Fantastic marketing solutions (Marketo, Eloqua, Hubspot) also flown to provide sales intelligence on the contacts and accounts : interactions with your content and web resources, like hood to buy now or later, habits, personal interests and so on. As we said in the beginning of the article, everything comes to feed the CRM with live and actionable data.

What else can social bring to sales processes?

Social intelligence is mostly used today in a static manner: when you check a CRM contact, you see basically everything to place your call, break the ice and build the trust.

What social is also going to provide is a dynamic view of your market: content sales triggers (when news, tweets or conversations happen in the wild to spot a new mature prospect) and relationship sales triggers (when your partner or competitor just met a good prospect or one of your client).

Old fashioned sales tools are no longer adapted to current sales challenges, just as the financial markets were before the launch of Bloomberg terminals. The massive blind cold-calling industrialization is ending rapidly due to a lack of effectiveness. In this way we are in a pre-revolution time where the knowing of customers and the processes to reach and engage with our clients dramatic change.

A collateral benefit we saw in the 80’s in the financial markets is that the user (broker/trader) stopped administrative tasks and low-profile works to gain immense power and effectiveness. We can imagine the same benefit for salespeople, ending cold calls, rude pitches and calling routines to become corporate superheroes.