This is part 2 of a series on choosing a Customer Reference Management Solution.

 

You can lay the groundwork for a highly successful selection process before you begin searching for and reaching out to vendors in the Customer Reference Management systems space. And believe us, it will save a lot of time and missed expectations later on.

 

Which technology is right for you?

There are quite a few options available now and the path to deciding which is right for your organization is usually determined by a couple of key questions:  How available is the IT group for a project like a reference management system (RMS)? It’s natural to want an RMS built to your specifications from ground up. But only the very biggest organizations can typically secure that level of IT time and budget for both the initial build and ongoing maintenance. At the other end of the spectrum are hosted (Sofware as a Service, or SaaS) solutions which require little if any IT support. In the middle are solutions that are assembled from modules by an outside vendor, then installed and maintained on your servers. Some offer hosting as well. From our experience there are very few vendors in this last category, but they exist. We co-wrote a paper on the topic of buy versus build for MarketingProfs a while back which you might find interesting.

 

How much executive support does your CRP have?

This is a huge factor for so many reasons. First, you’ll need a lot of exec support to if you choose the in-house, custom RMS route. It’ll divert IT away from other projects, and require significant budget. If you think the SaaS solution will meet your needs then IT will scrutinize your choices—being IT—and you’ll need exec support to back that decision. So just how vital is a strong Customer Reference Program (CRP) to your executives? What’s the history of customer reference management in your organization? Is there any baggage you’ll need to address? Be sure to have a clear idea of what can and cannot be achieved before that first vendor call. This will save you and your potential solution partners a lot of time, and allow us to provide counsel since we’ve experienced a lot of different environments.

 

Know the facts and figures

The next step is to understand the nuts and bolts of what your chosen RMS must support.

·         How many users would there be?

·         What departments would be included?

·         What geographies will be supported?

·         What tools do salespeople currently use (CRM, portals, etc.)?

·         How well-adopted are these tools?

·         If content (videos, podcasts, case studies, etc.) is to be stored in your RMS, how many of each type exist?

·         Where does content currently reside?

·         Who will be supporting the RMS and how many CRP team members there are?

·         Do you envision a phased or “big bang” approach to rolling out your solution?

·         What time period do you have in mind for the launch of your RMS?

 

Related systems and data

We haven’t come upon a company yet that didn’t have at least a few, if not a half dozen, systems already implemented that contain information that could be useful to a CRP. Product information could reside in an Oracle system, the CRM system might be Siebel, content might be in Interwoven, and so on. Doing some discovery work in advance to understand what these systems are, what data of interest they contain, and how often they need to be replicated in your RMS will be most helpful. Don’t be dismayed when a vendor can’t provide a data integration estimate without seeing the data. We’ve all been through the ringer and have learned our lessons making uninformed commitments.

 

Get to know the Sales organization

We can’t emphasize the importance of this enough. Having been in sales a majority of our careers, we’re all too familiar with the chasm that can exist between Marketing and Sales. An RMS project can build bridges with immense value if it’s approached in a “bipartisan” way. This begins with a deep, not cursory, understanding of Sales:

·         How salespeople find references and related content today. This includes the method (email blasts, portal, product marketing, etc.) and the typical criteria (industry, product, region, etc.).

·         What tools they use and which ones they don’t use, and if possible, why.

·         The recent history and future plans for sales tools. What and how many tools have they recently absorbed, and what’s coming and when. This will factor into the launch of an RMS.

 

Finally, get to know the sales operations or sales enablement team. They understand how to best implement new technology in the field, largely because they’ve seen the good, bad and ugly. Get their buy-in and take their advice. 

Next up:  Defining your requirements…

Checkout the complete Choosing a System podcast series.