customer relationship management

Illustrated CRM: How CRM Process Helps the Sales Process

kirk_wakefield 2015, CRM, Relate, Sell, Tickets September 7, 2015October 31, 2018CRM training, customer relationship management, customize, process, report, Sales, selling, training 0 Comment

by Alex Karp – September 2015

Three things will make CRM a great tool for your organization:

consistency,
ease of use, and
documentation of activity.

All of these are essential, particularly the last one, if management is going to be able to use CRM effectively. I wanted to share some best practices that I have gathered from my short time in the industry and how those best practices can contribute to the overall growth of your organization.

Focus on the learner: Keep training time short

Let’s consider the documentation of activity. A wise previous boss of mine once said, “If it’s not saved in CRM, it didn’t happen.” Documenting every activity is the goal every CRM staff member and sales manager strives to meet. It’s not easy.

Whenever sitting down with a new group of sales reps, the first training session should focus on one thing: How to document/save a phone call. Reps do this task a hundred times a day or more. The process of saving a phone call is tied to many other reporting aspects of CRM. Drill them on this until you know they are doing it right every time. The many other features of CRM (e.g., advanced finds) can be covered later. Making sure reps know how to save a phone call is the first step to helping them succeed.

Another way to focus on the learner is to have training sessions grouped by department. Group Sales and Season Ticket Sales use CRM differently. Training by departments provides relevant content and keeps everyone engaged. Otherwise, people tune out when the training isn’t relevant–and it’s hard to get them engaged again.

Fewer clicks leads to more calls

At Fan Interactive, I get to work on multiple client CRM redesign projects. A project goal is to make CRM a little more user friendly and reduce necessary clicks. As you can see in Panel A , reps have the ability to add an activity and notes directly from the opportunity. This is a bit different than the out of the box version of CRM, where more clicks are required to add an activity to an opportunity. Reps can enter information, save and close the opportunity and move onto the next one. This process also stores the last activity data and counts the activity as being completed, as in Panel B. Reps are then able to search using fields from this opportunity such as ‘last activity date’ and ‘number of activities’ within the opportunity.

Reporting

Now that the reps can easily and document a phone call in a consistent way, what’s next? A daily activity tracker (see Panel C) is a good start. This helps re-enforce the importance of saving a phone call to reps since they will see their results and know where they stand compared to the rest of the group.

With software such as Tableau, which combines the layout of Excel with the power of SQL, you can create scoring models based on rep activity. After tracking activities, the next step is to track the revenue associated with those activities. The campaign report below shows revenue generated in a rollup version as well as a more detailed version.

These reports were made possible by the re-design (ease of use) and consistent documentation. With a more user-friendly version of CRM, it’s easier for everyone to use CRM the same way, which leads to more accurate reporting.

Conclusion

CRM is a powerful and essential tool for sales and marketing. For it to succeed, sales reps need to enter data in a consistent and thorough manner. Documenting phone calls in CRM is a process sales reps will repeat thousands of times throughout their sales careers. By making the process easier, both through training and redesign, CRM can help you generate reports and analytics that will allow you to make effective business decisions.

CRM Made Easy: How to Track Account Renewals

kirk_wakefield 2015, CRM, Relate, Sell, Tickets September 3, 2015October 31, 2018CRM, customer relationship management, data, renewals, tickets, tools, tracking 0 Comment

by Michael Hurley – September 2015

Are you using your CRM system to project final renewal numbers? Are you able to identify accounts that might be harder to renew?

The Way We Were

In 2012, during my first renewal campaign with the Houston Astros working with then Director of Season Ticket Services, Alan Latkovic, our “CRM system” was an Excel spreadsheet with every single account listed as a line item and the columns laid out to reflect “touch points” or times of contact with Season Ticket Holders (example below).

This method of touch point management worked in lieu of an actual CRM system. But, there isn’t much tracking and it’s not easy to project renewals. When we rolled out Microsoft Dynamics CRM before the 2013 renewal campaign, our eyes were opened to the benefits of tracking renewals. Today, after years of tracking accounts and tendencies, we can project renewal numbers to the percentage point even before we receive the first response.

Using renewal scores we have real-time information on which accounts require a little more “love.” We quickly see which accounts have not responded at all. We strategically plan an offsite visit with them and maybe even take Orbit along.

Using CRM to Track Renewals

Alan Latkovic (@AlanLatkovic), Senior Director of Season Ticket Services and Operations with the Astros, accentuates the importance of using CRM to track renewals and project the final renewal numbers.

“With the tools of CRM we are able to score accounts who respond to the initial renewal call daily, monthly, and annually. Providing this data to our analytics team, we are then able to project renewals and carry the information over each season to create new renewal benchmarks.”

Tracking every conversation and response for each account ultimately makes the big picture become more clear. The Astros use a very simple but effective renewal tracking method throughout the renewal campaign. We categorize accounts based on an initial indication of renewal. If an account’s initial response to us when they receive their invoice is that they are not renewing, we mark them as “unlikely to renew” in CRM, at the same time if an account lets us know they are planning on renewing and processing the invoice, or “the check is in the mail” we mark them as “likely to renew” in CRM. Using renewal scores, we can project what an account will do, and by tracking the data of renewal scores over time, we then have an idea of what percentage of accounts in each score grouping will ultimately renew.

The Importance of Tracking Renewals

When it comes down to it, we simply cannot overlook the importance of tracking renewals and building renewal campaigns around the tools of CRM. Katherine Tran, Manager of Membership Services with FC Dallas, stresses the importance of being able to forecast future renewal cycles by using CRM:

“The importance of tracking renewals is second to none. It allows teams to pinpoint customer trends over the seasons and helps forecast future renewal cycles. Teams can plan their renewal efforts and campaigns based on data from previous years.”

When following trends in renewals over the years, and knowing which accounts renew and when, a much clearer picture emerges when forecasting renewal numbers. While using Excel will get the job done, it’s no comparison to the benefits a true CRM system provides.

Cover photo courtesy of Ezhil Ramalingam, India.

10 Things Newbies Need to Know About the Sports CRM World

kirk_wakefield 2014, Careers, CRM, Learn, Relate June 1, 2014November 1, 2018analytics, careers, CRM, customer relationship management, entry level, experience, jobs, training 0 Comment

by Chris Zeppenfeld – June 2014

I get this call/voicemail at least once a week from other sports teams…it goes something like this:

[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”350px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]“Hey Zep! We’re looking for someone to manage our new CRM program. Do you know anyone who would be good for this CRM opening for my team?”[/dropshadowbox]

I’ve had this conversation hundreds of times, so I thought it would help to summarize those talks in one spot:

1. The job market for CRM is growing rapidly. If you’re an aspiring CRM wanna-be for a team, that’s terrific news.

- Over ¾ of the NBA teams have CRM currently in place.
- By the end of the 2014 calendar year, I expect 90% of the teams in the league will have implemented a CRM system.
- Almost all of these teams have at least one person dedicated to CRM but many of them have hired or are looking for a coordinator underneath them.
- Over half of the teams in the 4 major sports have CRM right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if every team in the “Big 4” has a CRM within the next 2-3 years. It’s a matter of when, not if at this point.

2. CRM Departments are starting to become their own recognized departments. Over the last 2 years, we’ve seen teams start to branch CRM/Analytics/Business Intelligence into their own departments separate from Ticket Sales, Sponsorship, or Marketing. What do these departments look like?

- Many have a Director (3+ years of experience with a team) overseeing the department,
- One or two analytics personnel (3-5 years of experience), and
- One or two CRM Coordinators (entry-level).

If you’re coming out of college in the next 12 months, the entry-level CRM Coordinator job is starting to become a regular posting on the job boards (check TeamWork Online regularly!).

3. There’s not a large pool of experienced “Sports CRM” people. The job is relatively new to sports in general. When I started with Charlotte in 2009, I was one of the first 10 people to be fully dedicated to CRM in all of sports. That means in sports most have only been in CRM roles for 1-2 years. Therefore, hires often come from outside the sports industry.

4. Teams want to get smarter on how they make business decisions. [dropshadowbox align=”right” effect=”lifted-both” width=”250px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]CRM has become a terrific gateway into sports analytics. It is the core function of most business analytics departments. And because its greatest strength is its ability to consolidate information, it naturally becomes the gateway to learning related business skills, such as database management & integration, business intelligence software, email marketing, consumer profiling and customer segmentation. ~Brett Kahnke, VP of Analytics & Technology @MNTimberwolves [/dropshadowbox]As recent as 5-6 years ago, sports teams were light years behind regular business when it came to database and analytics tactics. The teams’ thirst for getting smarter has evolved quite rapidly in the last few seasons. The amount of new technologies has increased tenfold. I dedicate at least one day a week to researching new technologies, programs, or improvements I can make to my CRM just to keep up with everyone else!

5. Most teams with CRM have (by now) integrated all revenue generating departments into their CRM. Three years ago, most teams with CRM only had one department at most in their CRM (usually Ticket Sales or Sponsorship). At the recent NBA Analytics Summit, a quick show of hands revealed that most teams have Ticket Sales, Email Marketing, and Sponsorship corralled in the CRM world. Being in charge of the program that controls the world of the three biggest sources of revenue makes the CRM people more valuable to the organization….and further exposes the CRM personnel to a wider range of areas of the team’s business.

6. If a team is hiring for their #1 CRM position (head of department), they will look for experience. Usually a team just getting CRM will also look to hire their very first person in CRM around the same time or after implementation has finished. Personally, I think this is backwards…you should hire the CRM expert first, then go buy the CRM, but I digress.

What kind of experience is needed? This person must have a solid foundation of the technical aspects of a CRM database. They should:

- be comfortable moving large data table sets, customizing forms, entities, fields, etc.,
- have experience creating user interfaces, and (most importantly)
- have experience training people on software.

I can’t stress enough the need for CRM Directors to be skilled “teachers” as user adoption is the #1 reason CRM implementations fail. It won’t be the technology that causes it to fail. I’d put more emphasis on the candidate who has experience teaching people how to use a software and working with high-level management on analytical reports than the world’s most knowledgeable CRM person.

7. If a team already has a #1 CRM person, the skillset for their #2 and #3 CRM people is more about potential to grow than past CRM experience. The 2nd and 3rd in-command CRM people should be groomed to eventually take over the #1 role within 2-3 years either for the team (when the #1 perhaps moves on) or for another team who is looking for a #1. We’ve hired two coordinators in my time here in Charlotte, and both times, I was much more interested in their potential than their actual database knowledge. And so should you.

8. The entry-level CRM job is like an apprenticeship. I’ve often said that being my CRM Coordinator is like being in an apprenticeship. I’ll teach them all I can about CRM for 2-3 years; then they should know enough to be as successful as they want to be in this field for their careers.

As a newbie, it’s OK if you don’t know Microsoft CRM or Salesforce very well. My concern is that when I show you how to do (insert task here) in CRM that you can pick it up quickly, learn it, and remember how to do it in the future. Both of my coordinators have been excellent hires, yet neither one of them had more than a semester or two of database internship experience.

Here’s what I look for in order of importance:

Can you quickly pick up what I teach you?
Do you have the maturity to eventually run a department in a few years?
Are you an extremely organized person? Are you nearly obsessive with having things in a neat, organized fashion?
Are you self-motivated? Do you want to be in front of a computer for up to 12 hours a day? Do you see CRM as a career?
Do you have at least some basic idea of how databases work? Have you worked with contacts, opportunities, accounts, etc.? If not, have you ever done any kind of importing leads into a database?

9. Not everyone has to do ticket sales to get into sports; there’s a spot for the analytical yet creative type out there. Ask yourself these questions:

Do I consider myself to be a creative person?
Am I a person who tends to make data driven analytical decisions in my life choices?
Am I the type of person to get annoyed when some messes up my alphabetized DVD collection?

If you answered yes to all three of these questions, the ticket-sales-make-100-calls-a-day path is probably not for you. A lot of college students choose the ticket sales path simply because it’s the most prevalent way to “get your foot in the door.” Just because it’s the most common way, doesn’t mean it’s the best fit for you. Creative, outside the box, analytical personalities typically do not make great sales reps. They do, however, make great CRM Coordinators.

10. There are plenty of Sport Management majors, but not a lot of people who “majored” in running CRM. There’s a ton of sport management programs around the country, but an overwhelming majority of these focus on marketing and selling. They churn lots of good candidates for future marketing and ticket sales positions for sports teams. These candidates have experience being in a CRM environment (namely making calls within the CRM), but that’s honestly not all that helpful. While I’d still value personal traits over experience, I admit one reason why I value candidates from Baylor University is I know these students have direct experience assigning leads to reps through CRM, making customizations in the CRM, and analyzing data. So, if you’re still undecided, check out the S3 program here. Or, start getting CRM experience at your university or the university’s contacts.

Digital CRM is the New Ticket Sales

kirk_wakefield 2014, CRM, Digital Strategy, Marketing, Relate, Sell, Social Media April 1, 2014November 1, 2018CRM, customer relationship management, digital, digital ticket campaign, innovation, Property Consulting Group, revenue, social media, ticket sales 0 Comment

by Neil Horowitz – April 2014

The most eye-popping statistic shared at this year’s National Sports Forum (February 9-11, Dallas) came from Associate Athletic Director and Chief Marketing Officer at the University of South Carolina, Eric Nichols (@ericnichols):

A $38,000 digital media budget realized $922,000 in track-able ticket sales.

That number is astounding to be sure, but the point isn’t so much the level of success, but that taking shots in the dark in digital should be a thing of the past. Data is the new & reigning king in making marketing, sales, and activation as efficient and effective as possible. Companies like the Property Consulting Group who executed the digital CRM campaign for South Carolina are the wave of the future and the now.

Where do you start?

Before investing in some expensive data mining software or hiring an agency, the first thing to do is commit to integrating social, digital, partnerships, & sales. This means insights and ideas are shared across channels and inform best practices:

Is the sales staff ready for a new marketing campaign and the messaging coming from the team to its fans?
Does the marketing team know what questions, concerns, and suggestions are coming from sales leads and fans?
Are sales and leads acquired tracked by source so the value of digital dollars spent can be assessed?
Are analytics from social media content used to optimize messaging, campaigns, and calls?
Social CRM with Microsoft Dynamics

Integration = Sharing

“We’ve gotten better at incubating ideas for web and social media that sales can use in the future,” said Ali Towle, San Francisco 49ers Director of Marketing. A similar sentiment came from Jeff Meyer, Senior Vice President of Event Marketing and Sales for Feld Entertainment. “Our marketing and sales people are one and the same in our organization.”

That sounds all well and good, in an abstract kind of way. But, as is the common refrain in sports, it all comes down to execution. And execution begins with one simple concept: sharing. Sharing data, that is. We may be tired of hearing it, but as long as it’s true we must keep reminding ourselves to eliminate “silos” within our departments.

Understanding what drives sales, what works in marketing, what could be useful for partnerships – all of this data, and the insights drawn from it, should be consistently shared.

Start small and build

We can easily be overwhelmed with the amount of data available. Start with those on your team with the talent and willingness to share and collaborate to reach a common goal. Then begin to utilize big data to get more nuanced with:

specific marketing campaigns
targeted sales programs
sales lead scoring
customer relationship management
web and email marketing analytics
equipping partnerships with data to sell and renew clients

Every action a fan takes to interact with the team is a signal of intent, an insight about their personality, desires, lifestyle, activities, or opinions. The interaction with the customer is where it all starts.

You have a choice: lead or lose

Leaders in the field of sports recognize that mass marketing campaigns and ticket reps pounding out calls to single-game buyers lists from 2009 are old-school.

As David Peart, Senior Vice President of the Pittsburgh Penguins, shared, “There will be a digital transformation. In the next five years, we see marketing as primarily digital and social media and ticket sales relying more heavily upon CRM and analytics, as we interact with fans on a 1-to-1 basis where they are and in the way they want to be reached.”

Those clinging to the status quo will be left hanging by a thread. Those who see the future of digital and big data have already begun the transformation. Where will you be?

Cover photo courtesy of the Digital Traffic Squad.