Customer Reviews

The Customer Relationship Management Planning Guide

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Perhaps Dick Lee is a guru of CRM and a valued consultant, but the book is not. I was disappointed in the fact that the book claimed to unfold secrets to Mr. Lee's success, but found nothing more than a few basic thoughts. There was no insight into any CRM planning, such as how to initiate contact with a prospect, nor any steps on how to conduct such a venture with a client. Any points that Mr. Lee brought up that might be insiteful, were left unfulfilled. I was expecting more than an advertisement for a seminar. I have no doubt that Mr. Lee is a wonderful consultant, and having worked for American Express, and with 3M, (both companies touted in preface of the book), I am a believer in his work. I have seen CRM have tremendous results. If you are looking to implement CRM there are a number of books to choose from, but this unfortuately is not one of them.

After hosting Dick Lee as our Live Expert Q&A Guest last week, I thought I owed it to the registered users of searchCRM.com to take a more thorough stroll through his planning guide. This spiral-bound "how to" manual is divided into four main areas: Barriers and Boundaries, Market View, Internal Information, and Redefining Roles. As Lee states in his opening remarks, "CRM doesn't work when approached as a technology. In fact, some 70% of stand-alone CRM technology implementations crash and burn. And for a very simple reason - they're not carrying out a business strategy." Although it certainly cannot be guaranteed, using Lee's publication may place you in the 30% group of customer-centric companies successfully implementing CRM. Initially, I thought that the price for the book was a little steep. Upon further examination, however, I realized that the book includes a planning diskette to make the process simpler. Perhaps an investment well spent. I would have liked to have seen one additional item added to Lee's publication - a real life example of his planning strategies as applied to a company's CRM initiatives.

I bought Lee's Planning Guide, Deployment Guide, and Survival Guide as one package. I read through the first two and was dissappointed to find nothing particularly revolutionary. Many of the concepts were ones I learned years ago in basic strategic planning. For $... this and the deployment guide fall way short on value.

That being said, I read the Survival Guide and was extremely pleased. The detail that was lacking in the Kinkos assembled planning and deployment guides was plentiful in the Surival Guide. It was an easy read and clearly and honestly points out the pitfalls of CRM implementation. The survival guide also has much more "how to" and references real life situations with which the reader can identify.

Spend the $... on the Survival Guide and save your money on the rest...unless you know nothing about strategic planning, understanding customer needs, and facilitating team activities.

It's clear Dick Lee understands both the CRM space as well as the growing need for non-IT executives to have access to a comprehensive, understandable guide to the concepts, the technologies and the philosophies of true Customer Relationship Management. Certainly not intended or promoted as a comprehensive blueprint to CRM nirvana, or for that matter, even as a consultants cheat-sheet. Rather, this excellent book is a vital, briefcase guide that helps non technological business decision makers stand toe-to-toe with the self appointed CRM gurus and at least make an intelligent conversation out of it. What executive facing a 'bet the company on CRM solutions' decision wants to go into any meeting and have to navigate the nuances of something so delicate and so dangerous as trying to manage a relationship with anyone, much less a customer. We actually purchase and provide our CRM clients with this book, expensive though it may be,as a personal starter tool and a means to open a vocabulary of common language to construct their new, customer focused, digital nervous system. If you think this book is expensive, consider the cost of missing just one red-flag alert out of the dozens highlighted in the Customer Relationship Planning Guide. If you have anything to do with the planning or execution of a total customer management initiative, buy this book and buy a bunch of yellow post-its. You'll use them.

This is a how to manual that will take you through step by step the process of implementation of a CRM system. This is not a "should I" book, this is a work book full of the forms and processes necessary to accomplish the task. Best and only book like it I have seen.

If you're serious about implementing CRM strategically, there's no better tool out there. Actually, there's no other planning tool out there. But it's not like sitting down and reading a book and finding easy answers. If you're lazy, don't bother. I've been doing SFA/CRM software implementations for fifteen years, and it gets painful watching clients start without a clue about what they're really doing or taking shortcuts to save time and work. If every CRM client would use this planning process before starting, there'd be a lot fewer messes to clean up afterwards. But not everyone's going to do it, because it means work. Not that trying CRM and failing and have to start over again isn't work. But it seems like we always have to try the easy way first.

I found this short, but expensive, report to be a very concise explanation of the steps involved in strategic CRM planning. This is not a book- it is a report. A close study of this text will teach the reader the critical elements of this important marketing strategy.

There is a quote in the text that I particularly enjoyed- 'CRM is not a technology'. It seems that for this important management trend, technology vendors have rushed out with vaguely related products positioned as CRM. If you are planning a technical, marketing infrastructure for your organization and vendors are hyping their products to you, then you need to read Mr Lee's report.

If you are very serious about this topic, I would say this is a 'must-have'. While it is a bit pricey, I am certain it is saving many managers a lot of money.

Dick Lee's latest book, The Customer Relationship Management Planning Guide V2.0, is packed with insightful advice for managers who are serious about successfully implementing CRM. According to Lee, most business people hate planning [it's hard work!] as much as they hate failure. Lee explains why CRM is NOT about technology and offers a proven, step-by-step process for developing customer-centric business strategies. Considering 70% of all CRM projects fail, this book is a must-read for those seeking to beat the odds.

This is a terrific tool to guide you through the processes involved in implementing CRM. It's practical and needed by those who have read all the theory in books on the subject, but still need the 'how to' basics you can't find in a book. It is what it says, a usable guide for the necessary processes to get you to a successful implementation.

This is a how to manual that will take you through step by step the process of implementation of a CRM system. This is not a "should I" book, this is a work book full of the forms and processes nessissary to accomplish the task. Best and only book like it I have seen.