Originally appeared in GATF Technology Forecast 2006
By Chuck Gehman
There is nothing more important to any company than its customers. That’s why the idea of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and the systems to implement the concept, has become an area of great interest for printing companies. Printing companies have always gone to great lengths to acquire and retain customers. And since the number of potential customers is finite, and it is well documented that there are more printing companies than there are profitable print jobs to go around these days, competition among printing companies for customers (and a worthy share of their business) has become fierce.
CRM is, on a basic level, all about understanding customers and building stronger relationships with them. CRM systems can help printing companies grow by providing the ability to know who their customers are, what they buy, when they want to buy it, and how much of it they will buy. These systems improve a company’s ability to market and sell. Knowing who your customers are, and what they want, is a fundamental principle of marketing, and is the goal of deploying a CRM system.
This simple idea should be relatively easy for any printing company to implement. Customers and prospects give the printing company information about themselves all the time. As a result of every sales call, Request for Proposal or Request for Quote (RFP/RFQ) received, response to an email blast or direct mail campaign, events like PIA (Printing Industries of America, local affiliates) open houses, transactions with existing customers, and even web site visits, they tell us something about themselves. The challenges begin with understanding what CRM is, and how to apply it to a printing business.
Printing companies also constantly look for advantages that will give them the upper hand against their competitors. There are several well discussed ways to achieve such advantages, including Digital Smart Factory concepts, like customer-facing Internet applications and Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) techniques, which primarily address the bottom line in terms of lowering costs by streamlining operations and removing waste, as well as improving quality (although customer-facing Internet applications also help with revenue growth).
Conversely, the appeal of CRM is that it brings primarily top line improvement by helping your company sell more to existing customers and identify new growth opportunities. It can also help you lower your cost of sales and help retain customers. CRM is very compatible with CIM for Print for a number of reasons, the main one being that a printer who implements CRM will need the efficiency advantage CIM provides to profitably produce all the new work the CRM system will help you win.
What exactly is a CRM System?
The definition of CRM used to be somewhat fuzzy. There was a CRM “craze” in the late nineties and early 2000’s, a period in which software companies with all breeds and stripes of applications called what they were selling “CRM”. This helped to defocus the definition of CRM, and its understanding. On a basic level, it can be said that CRM is the programs that a company uses to connect with its customers. There are really two distinct focus areas of CRM systems:
- Operational CRM, which focuses on call centers (i.e., CSRs), sales force automation and supply chain management), and
- Analytical CRM (customer analysis, database marketing)
Operational CRM systems
These systems can range from simple “off the shelf” contact management products to high-end interactive systems that provide product configuration, quote and proposal management, and marketing tools. Some CRM systems incorporate applications to support complex pricing, promotions, commission plans, and team selling methods. Enterprise-level CRM solutions that have traditionally been installed at large companies with many employees have call center, help desk and field service capabilities.
Sales force automation (SFA) is the primary application in the printing industry for operational CRM. There have been simple PC-based software solutions available to small business for several years (think ACT! And Goldmine). These systems provide contact managers (like a fancy address book) and simple tools for keeping track of sales activities and forecasting. These systems usually don’t connect with other systems that printers have—for example, Print MIS systems that have the history of jobs won/lost, and the volume of business that customers provide, nor do they generally provide analytics that help Printers understand what type of products and services customers buy, or how profitable that customer’s business is for the printing company.
But these systems do provide a basic foundation on which you can manage the data coming in from your field—sales reps, CSRs and potentially all the other touch points of customer interaction we’ve discussed. A key to being able to reap the real benefits of CRM is to improve the data going in, so you have valuable data organized in a way that you can execute analysis to achieve your goals (if done right, without “heavy lifting” by an IT staff). A well thought-out and easy-to-use Operational CRM system is essential to provide the foundation via which an analytical CRM system can do its job.
Analytical CRM systems
Analytical CRM software provides a higher level of value in a CRM implementation, because it gives you visibility into the information about customers that you have in your systems that can be used to help make decisions about how to sell to them. These systems have been used by large companies for many years, but at costs ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to license, implement and maintain. Much of “data mining” we hear about is really application of “analytical CRM”.
Analytical CRM systems should connect to your other databases (in the printing industry, an example of such a database would be a Print MIS system), and allow you to record and analyze the buying habits of your customers, so that you can offer them goods or services which are targeted to what (and when) they are most likely to buy.
Existing printing company systems, like the Print MIS systems, are loaded with data about customers. The challenge is that raw data does not have value in and of itself—it needs to be turned into useful information. That is where analytical technology comes into play. Analytics in the CRM software helps you “see” patterns in the data you possess so that you can turn the raw data into valuable information and use it to gain insight. EFI’s Enterprise Information System (EIS), is an example of analytical technology combined with Print MIS to bring higher value to data you’ve already collected from numerous activities in your business, and then present that data to the people who need to use it—production and finance managers, as well as executives and sales reps.
A combination of both
At one time, you’d spend a lot of money for one or both of the above types of systems. Today, we’re seeing a combination of these types of systems delivered in affordable packages. Because of the new affordability of this advanced technology, systems with these sophisticated capabilities are now becoming popular with small businesses.
A great example of such a system is Salesforce.com’s monthly subscription-based service (it is software as a service— delivered via the Internet— versus buying, installing and maintaining another server and set of applications). This system is getting to be very popular at printing companies, because of its low cost (and low total cost of ownership- TCO, with no software to install or servers to maintain). Salesforce.com provides the tactical management tools you need to manage your people and their data, and also provides the analytics to help you use that data to your advantage, all in one “seamless” package.
At EFI, we’re building a connection between our PrinterSite Internal system (which gives sales reps and CSRs an Internet-based “view” of sales, estimating and status activities in the Print MIS), and the Salesforce.com system, as well as combining both with our EIS system, to provide all the sales force automation and analytics applications that a CRM system needs to deliver to a printing company environment.
While CRM is relatively new to printing companies (and, in fact, to most small businesses), it has been around for quite a long time in corporate enterprise. Our industry is well positioned to reap the benefits of the experience of many other, larger endeavors (both successes and failures) to make the most of CRM implementations.
Managing sales activities with a CRM system
Sales force automation (SFA) is one of the cornerstone applications for CRM for printers. It gives businesses the upper hand with their sales data, by providing the tactical, Operational CRM we’ve discussed. One of the key benefits to using SFA is to let companies manage people and processes more effectively, so reps can close more deals. Sales reps spend more time selling and less time on “grunt work”.
One of the key impediments to any software installation, especially one that targets busy sales reps, is ease of use. Reps need solutions that make their jobs easier, not more complicated. Sales reps often care about only one thing: “how much money is it going to put in my pocket?” A system like Salesforce.com gives them fast access to data — online, offline, and via mobile devices — and links to popular tools like Microsoft Office and Outlook. An interface that is simple and intuitive, that delivers valuable information that the rep would otherwise have to hunt for, and that works with other PC-based tools they already have, leads to adoption.
Without total adoption, you won’t get the benefits of a CRM implementation. CRM implementations naturally offer benefits to the printing company itself that greatly exceed those delivered to an individual sales rep. To get sales reps to “buy in”, a solution has to be extremely easy to use and provide direct benefits to the rep.
For owners and senior managers of a printing company, the analytical side of CRM takes precedence. Some of the applications may overlap among different staffers in your company. For example, in many small companies, the President of the company may also be the top sales executive. A sales manager might also be a key individual sales contributor. There may be others that need to see the data provided by the CRM system, too—for example, production managers and accounting staffers: so they can plan for future production needs and make important business decisions.
Sales Rep Applications
Sales reps have a unique set of applications they need from a CRM system. Their primary goal is to meet the challenges of managing the day-to-day business flow with customers, with the desired outcome of winning each deal.
Opportunity Tracking
Sales reps want to make sure they win all possible opportunities that present themselves from customers. With a CRM application, they can track all their opportunity-related data, including milestones, decision makers, partners, customer communications, and a host of other information unique to the particular printing company, its customers and its products.
Opportunity Update Reminders
With the sheer volume of business communication today, you need automation to remind you of upcoming challenges and opportunities. A good system should let you automatically schedule email reminders to ensure the sales people keep their opportunities up-to-date, for example to make sure an important quote gets delivered to the decision making print buyer prior to the deadline. In addition, managers should be able to set up automatic, recurring emails for themselves and their teams.
Win-Loss Analysis
Why didn’t your company get the bid? How many times did you provide a quote to the same print buyer in the last six months, only to be rejected? Who is winning the bids? Identify the key issues that are costing you sales, and stay on top of past and emerging competitive trends.
Pipeline Analysis
This is important for both reps, and managers. You need to be able to see what the next month, or the next quarter, looks like from a sales perspective. What is the level of confidence that the sales rep has in winning the bids you’ve quoted? Perform segmented, historical, and rolled-up pipeline analysis for insight to help shape your business and drive it forward.
Managers are more likely to embrace CRM than individual sales reps. Reasons include their need for better visibility into the activities of their reps, the total picture of the manager’s business, and the insight a CRM system will provide into where each rep stands with their pipeline versus their quota.
Managers will typically use the same applications as sales reps, and add a few more. Some of the most important applications for managers include:
Competitor Tracking
Track the competition and key competitive issues on each deal. Roll up competitive data in win-loss reports to understand competitive trends and emerging threats. Who are the competitors we are up against? What are they doing that we aren’t?
Opportunity Analysis
Managers need to be able to analyze their team’s sales pipeline across multiple reps, so they can quickly identify and eliminate any bottlenecks in the sales cycle or determine the cause of downgraded sales opportunities. How can I help my reps be more effective, so they can win more deals?
Forecasting
Sales managers want to know where to focus their resources. A clear, accurate, up-to-the-minute forecast gives everyone in the organization a clear, reliable understanding of near-term events so they can focus their resources accordingly.
Similarly, because of the benefits CRM delivers virtually “automatically” to executives, they will often drive the purchase of a CRM solution. They need accurate information so they can evaluate their company's past performance while looking ahead to the future. They want to answer critical business questions quickly without sifting through reams of data.
Forecast Customization and Roll-Up
This is information that many different groups within a printing company can use. You should be able to use any forecasting methodology you choose and view sales data by timeline, manager, territory, individual sales rep, product line, product unit, expected close date, and more. Roll up sales information across unlimited levels of sales regions. Drill down for a closer look at the details behind the numbers. Production planners need to know what business they can expect, so they can staff up appropriately. Accounting staffers need to know what the job load will look like so they can plan cash flow for buying consumables and buy-outs.
Product Tracking
Are we selling the right products to the right customers? Which products are our most competitive and profitable? You’ll want to be able to track product-level information on each sales opportunity, including quantity, standard price, quoted price, and product codes.
Reporting and Charting Tools
Every organization has a unique set of goals and needs from which they view the data that is captured in its systems. Any system you implement will need to have the ability to create and customize reports on the fly and produce custom, highlighted charts with easy-to-use wizards.
Furthermore, one of the biggest fears of printing company owners and senior sales managers is addressed by CRM solutions: that of sales reps leaving with valuable account intelligence. Because you can control access to the information, and because reps “must” input their data into the CRM system, an owner or senior manager will always have up-to-date, and in-depth, information that they need to support a departing rep’s accounts in the event that he leaves.
CRM systems provide a “corporate memory” of the customer side of the business, so you aren’t as dependent as you might be if important proprietary information is kept in the heads of a few staffers.
The Value of the Customer
Most successful companies are acutely aware that it costs a lot more to acquire a new customer than to hold onto an existing account. Improving customer satisfaction should keep costs down, but only if it is executed properly and proactively.
Do you consider your customer service reps to be a “call center?” In effect, that’s what they are—even if you only have a couple of staffers. They are in place to support the ad-hoc needs of customers calling in to get service around the jobs you’ve sold.
With a CRM implementation used by both sales reps and CSRs, you will be able to track customer’s orders, provide status and respond to requests for changes in an optimal way that causes the least amount of pain for your own people and for the customer. A good CRM system can provide the foundation for a new level of excellence in customer service. It will help all the members of your team focus on the common goals of your company.
Summary
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a logical addition to the IT arsenal any forward-looking printing company needs to compete effectively in today’s marketplace. There’s never been a better time to embrace this idea, both from a cost standpoint and from the benefits it can bring.
A lot of printing companies don’t really do all that much marketing. However, if there were only one marketing initiative you would implement in 2006, I’d suggest that it should be CRM. By using CRM to know who your customers are, what they buy, when they want to buy it, and how much of it they will buy, you can logically figure out how to make them buy those things from you. The end result—success!
