If your business has been delivering what's good for you versus delivering what's good for the customer is good for you(the customer-centric CRM way) than you will certainly need to re-align your work and information flows and supporting work processes before even thinking about CRM software choices. The purpose of business process mapping is to bring the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of your cross-functional work flows to the surface (if you even have cross-functional workflows).
In the front office, the biggest problem is always in the hand off of information between functional units like Sales and Marketing, or Sales and Customer Service. And once you begin the business process mapping exercise you will also likely find redundant work processes from department to department. The goal of realigning processes for CRM is to look at how things flow from a customers perspective. Bottlenecks, delays or even asking the customer to bridge the gap between departments, only serves to lower their satisfaction with the process and ultimately leads to lower customer loyalty.
How will realigning front office information flow help your company?
If you want to talk about front office re-alignment, the guy to talk to is Dick Lee of High Yield Methods. Back in the 1990's, when I was still talking about Sales Force Automation software, he was writing about CRM as a customer-centric way of doing business. It's taken me awhile, but I finally woke up and saw the light. If a business isn't willing to make fundamental changes in the way they view their most important asset, CRM is only a buzzword. I always believed CRM failures were related to the technical implementation of software (and so do most of the "gurus"). I'm happily willing to to admit I was dead wrong.
Dick has developed a business process mapping methodology called Visual Workflow designed specifically for the front office. He feels, and I agree, that there are fundamental differences between front and back office environments. Here are a few of his examples:
Office Manufacturing
Low Repetition High Repetition
Decision-based Process Fixed Process
Adaptability is critical Consistency is critical
Defects at Workflow Level Defects at Work Process Level
Invisible Defects Visible Defects
Empowered Staff Compliant Staff
That's not even a complete list of the differences he specifies. What you should keep in the back of your mind is that other methodologies, like Six Sigma, focus on manufacturing processes. I think Dick's approach is properly focused and I'll follow that over a buzzword and the industry that's cropped up around it.
If you're going through the effort of realigning your front office processes, you're going to want some positive outcomes.
* Driving toward shared objectives across functional lines
* Relationships with your customers will be improved
* Building stronger cross functional employee relationships
* Eliminating work flow bottlenecks
* etc.
In order to get the outcomes that you should expect from a realignment, your focus needs to address the issues that make the front office unique. A process for stamping a piece of sheet metal is well defined. A front office process where a person has to make a different decision each pass is fundamentally different. If you choose the wrong methodology for evaluating your current situation, you will have wasted the power of business process mapping. - 15246
In the front office, the biggest problem is always in the hand off of information between functional units like Sales and Marketing, or Sales and Customer Service. And once you begin the business process mapping exercise you will also likely find redundant work processes from department to department. The goal of realigning processes for CRM is to look at how things flow from a customers perspective. Bottlenecks, delays or even asking the customer to bridge the gap between departments, only serves to lower their satisfaction with the process and ultimately leads to lower customer loyalty.
How will realigning front office information flow help your company?
If you want to talk about front office re-alignment, the guy to talk to is Dick Lee of High Yield Methods. Back in the 1990's, when I was still talking about Sales Force Automation software, he was writing about CRM as a customer-centric way of doing business. It's taken me awhile, but I finally woke up and saw the light. If a business isn't willing to make fundamental changes in the way they view their most important asset, CRM is only a buzzword. I always believed CRM failures were related to the technical implementation of software (and so do most of the "gurus"). I'm happily willing to to admit I was dead wrong.
Dick has developed a business process mapping methodology called Visual Workflow designed specifically for the front office. He feels, and I agree, that there are fundamental differences between front and back office environments. Here are a few of his examples:
Office Manufacturing
Low Repetition High Repetition
Decision-based Process Fixed Process
Adaptability is critical Consistency is critical
Defects at Workflow Level Defects at Work Process Level
Invisible Defects Visible Defects
Empowered Staff Compliant Staff
That's not even a complete list of the differences he specifies. What you should keep in the back of your mind is that other methodologies, like Six Sigma, focus on manufacturing processes. I think Dick's approach is properly focused and I'll follow that over a buzzword and the industry that's cropped up around it.
If you're going through the effort of realigning your front office processes, you're going to want some positive outcomes.
* Driving toward shared objectives across functional lines
* Relationships with your customers will be improved
* Building stronger cross functional employee relationships
* Eliminating work flow bottlenecks
* etc.
In order to get the outcomes that you should expect from a realignment, your focus needs to address the issues that make the front office unique. A process for stamping a piece of sheet metal is well defined. A front office process where a person has to make a different decision each pass is fundamentally different. If you choose the wrong methodology for evaluating your current situation, you will have wasted the power of business process mapping. - 15246
About the Author:
Mike Boysen is a CRM purist and publisher of Effective CRM Consulting. Learn more about business process mapping for CRM and other topics at his website.
