Getting a Grip on CRM

A key message to SaskTel employees will be that CRM will help them dotheir jobs and meet corporate goals. The company has establishedvarious measures of customer satisfaction and has set objectives interms of such things as frequent contact with customers. Wecommunicate the message that this program will help us to do thosethings and I think we have achieved buy-in because weve been saying itover and over again. Lefebvre says.

SaskTel brought its sales managers together in the fall to talk abouthow CRM will change sales, and to encourage them to help employeesadjust to the changes. The company is now finalizing achange-management plan that includes assessing what employees need tocope with the new systems and then providing them with that help.

Communicate, com-municate, communicate, Sommerville agrees. I cantstress that enough. You really want to start with why we are doingthis. To maintain employee support for a CRM program, he adds, whatthe customer is telling you has to be put into use, and therepresentatives have to see that youre putting it to use.

Rob Shields says Hudsons Bay Co. is trying to promote an attitude thatcustomers are important. The customer is king, he says, and the topline is directly attributable to the customer. If you can get peopleto talk about the customer as an asset, youre really making greatstrides.

Grappling With Technology