When CRM goes wrong: the Existential Crisis
When I run workshops for charities on getting the most out of a CRM I often start by saying that the central challenge is to ensure that your CRM system fits your organisation.
The basic idea is simple, but the reality quickly gets complicated. This is true on both sides of the equation. At a high level, your CRM is made up of both the underlying platform you’ve chosen and any configuration you’ve made to it. This means that there is a sense in which your CRM is unique even when you are using a popular off-the-shelf product. Moreover, the relevant aspects of your organisation the CRM needs to fit can encompass everything from the maturity of your programmes to the budget you have available for this kind of infrastructure.
Despite this complexity, I believe there are several common ways in which this rather slippery notion of fit can go awry. In this post I’m going to outline what I see as the most common way this happens and say something about how it can be avoided.
My focus here is on what I think of as the root cause of problems with an organisation’s CRM. This is important because different root causes tend to have similar symptoms. In almost all cases you end up with a system that is frustrating to use for staff and generally feels like it’s hindering rather than helping your organisation. To start to change this however you need to grasp why these things have come to be.
The Existential Crisis - a CRM lacking purpose(s)
When I talk to small organisations who are contemplating implementing a CRM for the first time I always ask them what it is they want the CRM to achieve. In other words, what is a CRM going to do for you that a set of spreadsheets can’t? Often the initial answer to this is unclear. Sometimes it boils down to knowing that a CRM system is something organisations of a certain size have so they getting one as a natural part of the growth process.
In these cases I push for clarity on the specific problems a CRM system needs to solve. Being specific matters, because the rationale for having this clarity is to prevent drift and ensure that what you end up with as close to what you need as possible. Any lack of clarity or ambiguity can send things off track. So rather than “we want to save time our frontline staff time” it needs to be “reducing the amount of time our volunteering team spend matching volunteers to beneficiaries”.
Of course these problems will change and evolve over time, just like your organisation. None of the above precludes that. The point is that at any point in time you need to be clear about the purpose (more likely - purposes) your CRM serves. As I’ve hinted at, one good way to ascertain this is by thinking in detail about the specific problems it should be addressing.
This is something that organisations with existing CRM systems need to think about, particularly when you feel things are not working as they should. In this case you need to diagnose the problem in terms of the underlying purpose. “It feels really clunky to use” may be a true and accurate description, but it is not specific enough to point to a solution. The task here is the same as above - being as specific as possible about the problems it should be solving but isn’t. This provides a much stronger basis for taking action to address it, whether that is something you are handling internally or outsourcing. When it comes to working with external partners in particular, I find that the presence of such clarity is a central factor in determining whether a project is successful.
To reiterate the key idea: often the issues you are experiencing with your CRM are a manifestation of an underlying lack of clarity regarding its actual purpose. Getting clear about this purpose - resolving your CRM’s Existential Crisis - is the vital first step in getting back on track.
Finally, I want to emphasise the importance of taking a holistic approach to identifying these purposes. In any organisation different stakeholders are going to have different problems they want the CRM to address. When clarifying the problems to be addressed at an organisational level, care should be taken to ensure that all of these needs are considered. A common mistake is to focus only on a subset of problems in a way that is counterproductive.
For example, it is not uncommon for charity leaders to focus primarily on what the CRM can produce in terms of reporting. The prospect of streamlining quarterly reports for funders is certainly enticing. However, getting that kind of data out of a system relies on the data being in the system in the first place. I’ve seen situations where the process of getting data into the system is entirely neglected in favour of reporting, the end result being that the onerous task is simply reallocated to frontline staff who have to battle with cumbersome data entry. Such an outcome can easily be avoided with a bit of thought and planning.