CRM Is dead, long live CRM! In conversation with Morgan Norman, CMO, Copper

How is CRM evolving? How does that changing and evolving landscape impact both - the vendors and the users of CRM? While almost every business has some form of CRM – from the basic to the complex – the coming decade needs a fresh look at the concept of sales-marketing alignment; a renewed focus on data-driven decision making; and a rethink of the notion of personalized, relevant communication that helps customers along every stage of their journey. In other words, CRM is evolving into a hub to deliver CX across more touch points than ever – both pre-sale and post-sale. CRM has never been more exciting... or powerful! But even as the CRM industry reinvents itself, it’s time for marketers to ask if their CRM solution will step up to the plate.

SALES ENABLEMENT IN THE EXPERIENCE ECONOMY: STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS FOR B2B ENTERPRISES

Seismic is the recognized leader in sales and marketing enablement, equipping global sales teams with the knowledge, messaging, and automatically personalized content proven to be the most effective for any buyer interaction.

Register Now

But before we get into the future of CRM, let’s talk about its journey so far.  We connected with Morgan Norman, CMO of Copper, a CRM that has seen its share of reinvention (it was formerly called ProsperWorks) and positions itself ironically not as the tool that will create and grow key relationships, but as the tool that will give you back your time to work on those relationships (while it does all the boring work machines are so good at). Here are edited excerpts and key highlights of our conversation with Norman.

Highlights of this conversation

1. Modern CRM needs to be accessible to all those within the company that touch important relationships- not just salespeople.
2. They will act more as relationship enablers than data collectors
3. CRM adoption will continue to suffer due to the manual data-entry involved, as well as the UI and UX being out of sync with modern workers (or ‘relationship makers’)
4. Modern CRMs will resemble social networks, acting more like a workspace than a data repository
5. Simplicity will be key, and B2B salespeople will need to trust technology to get their tasks done quicker and more efficiently

Chitra: How have you seen the role of CRM; and the CMO and CSOs approach to CRM evolve over the last decade or so?

Morgan: Over the years, business priorities have shifted to become more focused on relationships than ever before. We’ve moved into an era where businesses are more like partners than vendors. To effectively manage modern business relationships, CMOs and CSOs need to move past old-fashioned CRM systems (that were only designed for managing sellers). They need to select tools that cater to the needs of the mobile, digital-savvy workforce by allowing them to access data, stats and insights that are more intuitive and available whenever and wherever they need it. They also need to stop viewing CRM systems as data collection tools and instead view them as relationship-enablers, built seamlessly around real people and real experiences.

Companies are looking to select CRM products and apps that work for everyone in the business—as everyone touches relationships today - allowing them to access data, stats and insights that are more intuitive and available whenever and wherever they need it.

Chitra:  CRM is one of the most ubiquitous pieces of sales or martech across industries – almost a hygiene platform. Yet, the adoption rates remain painfully low. Recent research from your own end even found that ‘traditional CRM technology has held teams back'? I’ve asked many CRM product leaders this question - why has CRM failed in the eyes of the user/ why are users unable to fully leverage the power of their CRM in strategic ways?

Morgan: CRM offerings often fail because they have yet to adapt to employers’ needs and the onboarding process seems daunting. Traditional, clunky CRM systems aren’t integrated with the digital workplace tools users prefer, like Slack and G Suite, and aren’t focused enough on maintaining lasting relationships. With the rise of machine learning and AI, CRM should also not require as much manual upkeep. In fact, our research found that one-third of people waste two to five hours of skilled time on manual data entry each and every week. This problem is compounded in enterprises, with 11 percent of people spending more than 20 hours per week on CRM data entry. It’s safe to say CRM technology hasn’t evolved and the market is noticing.

Chitra: On the user’ part, what are the typical mistakes companies make in their CRM selection, deployment or adoption/use, that leads to less than stellar business outcomes and ROI?

Morgan: Since enterprise CRM is largely a top-down effort, incorporating a strong committee for the decision-making process can make or break its adoption and usefulness down the road. A misaligned committee may design the CRM to only benefit salespeople, which will negatively impact business outcomes as people now manage relationships far beyond sales. If the CEO wants to incorporate features and functions that are tough for users to grasp, that may also lead to an overcomplicated tool or a non-intuitive page layout and design.

Chitra: Will CRM play an important role in delivering CX? What do sales and marketing leaders at high-growth organizations need to be thinking about; when it comes to leveraging the power of CRM to drive both - sales and CX forward?

Morgan: When it comes to leveraging the power of CRM to drive both sales and CX forward, it’s vital to have transparency and visibility into the inner workings of each department to allow for smoother flow from the customer perspective.

With CRM, every touchpoint matters and it’s vital for organizations to accurately capture them and make sure they surface to the right people so they can make the right actions and decisions. By focusing on the customer experience and integrating your CRM with the right tools, you can provide visibility into every customer touchpoint. People often struggle with not knowing what action to take once they have the available data. To streamline, companies should set up a CRM repository and a separate database for all marketing and customer processes.

Chitra:  In what ways is CRM evolving into the new decade?

Morgan: CRM has to evolve to meet the demands of today's modern worker, or relationship-maker, as CRM has forgotten the “Relationship” part of the acronym. Some CRM improvements will include recommending next actions, native integration with modern work tools (G Suite, Office365, Slack and more), and conservational-based behavior which will change marketing automation.

The next evolution of CRM will get simpler, will focus exactly on what the user needs to manage relationships, and will take minutes to implement instead of years.

As CRM platforms keep evolving, they’ll become more personalized and more able to cater to the needs of teams and organizations of all types and sizes.

With business relationships extending beyond individuals in the sales department, CRM now touches every team in the company and needs to be customizable to each function and vertical.

Chitra: What mindset and skill set changes do you think the B2B Salesperson needs, to thrive in the next decade?

Traditionally, once-a-year check-ins on customers were enough for B2B salespeople. But, while that has worked for SaaS models in the past, it won’t cut it anymore as salespeople need to focus on consistent relationship-building tactics to thrive in the next decade. Moving forward, simplicity will be key, and B2B salespeople will need to trust technology to get their tasks done quicker and more efficiently. They also need to be open to collaboration among teams to ensure that relationships are fostered at all touchpoints.

More about Morgan Norman, CMO, Copper

Morgan is a martech industry veteran, having previously served as CMO at Dialpad; as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Chief Creative Officer at Zuora and Netsuite, and at Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM division. He is also an abstract painter, photographer, avid backpacker, and pretty much loves all things creative.