CRM: Art or Science?

Last month I asked you to tell me about your experiences with CRM successes and failures.

One reader said that sales is both art and science, and that CRM tools fail because they focus too much on the latter. He defines Science essentially as the management and marketing metrics portions of a CRM system. The art, in his words:

"The missing piece is that CRM fails to provide value and especially on the side of things where the sales artist needs them - how to understand and strengthen relationships, how to act on intuition, how to build trust and reputation with customers and prospects through networks and connections."

I both agree and disagree with this assessment.

I agree because the majority of CRM systems are implemented with the design purpose being to provide these metrics. This is a classic "top down" design. It is understandable because the ones making the CRM purchasing decision are typically the sales or marketing management teams, and they benefit greatly from these metrics. They therefore instruct their VAR to design the system to meet these objectives.

I disagree because modern CRM systems such as Microsoft CRM absolutely have the ability to support sales reps on the "artistic" side. The problem is not in the CRM software, but in the way that it is implemented. Management must understand that the first priority is to make the system succeed. This in turn means providing perceived value to the sales staff so that they will actually use the system. Only then can you focus on those oh-so-valuable management metrics.

Harvey Mackay, in his book, Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, focuses almost exclusively on this artistic side. There was once even ...