Finding out how groups work

Last Updated on Monday, 12 December 2005 09:03 Written by Steve Monday, 12 December 2005 09:03

I’ve talked about how we’ve decided my job is to implement CRM, not create databases. What we’re trying to do is help groups make the shift to “customer centric” relationships–focusing on the value they provide for their constituents, and thereby increasing the value of that relationship for both parties. We think CRM can be the technology support groups need to make this change, and lack of good CRM is one of the main reasons groups are doing this more effectively right now.

To papaphrase the president, CRM is hard work. It’s hard because for it to be helpful it has to very closely match the way you work. What often happens with CRM is that it doesn’t support the way you sign up volunteers, or it doesn’t let you manage mebership renewals–it doesn’t support you in the way you work. And if it doesn’t support you in the way you work, you’re either going to stop using it, or hate working with it. Either way, CRM has failed.

I’m currently working with my first customer to understand how they work so I can design the CRM to meet their needs. I just had a two hour conversation with them about:

1. What currently sucks with their database, and with the way they work?
2. If there were no limits, how would they want CRM to change the way they work?
3. What unintended negative consequences could using CRM gring about?
4. What measureable things will we look to in the future to determine if CRM is in fact helping?

The weird thing is, we both had fun going through these points. It was somewhat cathartic for them to tell me all the stinks with the way they work now, lifing the weight of small chunks of time lost to repetitive process added up over months. And I can’t get enough of raw process inputs into my crazed, analytic head, constantly fitting them to patterns I know that exist in the technology, and thinking of new things to invent to solve new problems. But it was fun, and after I spend a few hours analyzing the results, we’ll be back at it again for a few more hours getting more in depth about how they handle major donors and memberships from start to finish. The great thing is that after this process not only will we have a better shot at making CRM successful, they’ll better understand the way they currently work, and will be more able to change because of that.