It is shocking to me how often I walk into a room and I hear sales executives talking about hosted CRM like it is the only option.  While it is easy as someone who offers Software as a Service (SaaS) CRM to just present that option and go with the flow I rarely take that route for several reasons.

There is a HUGE difference between the reason enterprise size organizations and the mid-market organizations I usually deal with decide on whether or not to deploy a on premise or hosted CRM.  In the larger organizations SaaS is usually an Information Technology strategy.  Conversely, most of the solutions I am involved with usually disclose that SaaS as an option is either a pricing decision or because of lack of knowledge of the other options.

To confirm my findings I decided to fill out a request form on a well known SaaS sight to see what the sales “Pitch” would be once someone called me to promote their solution.  The call came in just a few hours after I filled out the form from a call center and decided to play along.  I learned some interesting things through my conversation.

The sales person claimed that moving my sales team onto his product would provide a return on my investment in as little as a few days if not weeks.  He said that most of his customers were able to setup and import their information in a few days to a week and that my team would be “productive” in no time at all.

I thought it was funny that I had not even explained my needs and my payback would be almost instantly.  I told him that I wanted to do some analysis around my sales operations and then make some decisions around how to deploy a CRM product to get his response.  He told me that while some “big” companies spend a lot of time doing analysis the majority of his customers did not engage in hiring a consultant.  He did offer his company’s professional services if we needed help importing or setting up the program.

Needless to say there are certainly situations where this might be the case but in the last 10 years I have found few companies that can simply setup and go with little or no guidance.  Since he brought up the issue of his customers I asked how long he had been giving CRM advice.  He avoided the question for a while but then said he had been with the firm for a few months and never worked with CRM before this job.  I told him that I would be more comfortable if I could talk to a few of these references who had their payback in just a few weeks.

Once again there was some hesitation and he said that all I could read more about his company and made reference to a few articles on line that I could read about his company and their solution.  I told him that I would ask around and do some more reading and get back to him in a couple of weeks.  To my surprise he called the very next day with his manager and proceeded to try and convince me to get several people on a trial and that if we were happy with the setup we could do a contract by the end of the month.  I mentioned that I did some research and talked to a couple of the other household names in CRM and they were willing to come to my office and meet with me to discuss my needs and demonstrate how the software would meet my needs.

At this point his manager offered to setup a demonstration and said we could talk through my issues at the same time they showed me the software.  I asked about having someone come to see me and he said that for the number of users there was no way we could see someone in person and then have a customized demonstration to show a proof of concept.

Things went on for a while and told them that my management made me go in another direction to get the calls to stop.

I am not sure if anyone else has had a similar experience but as a long time CRM evangelist I have a problem with the method to the process for selling CRM in this manner.  It’s hard to even begin to go through the iterations of the how and the why selection of CRM isn’t just a couple of calls and a demonstration.

The most important thing that people should know is that if you look at the market share for CRM the hosted applications have not even penetrated 10% of the market.  That is hardly a hard shift in the deployment option for most companies.  This may very well be the option that you choose but understand several things before you make the leap:

1.        By deploying CRM what is it that you are trying to address?

2.       If you look at the cost of hosted vs. on premise can you justify the long term costs over a 5 year horizon?

3.       Do you need to integrate other on premise systems and what would it cost?

4.       Will the users of the system be able to use the system in their typical daily life or do they work disconnected most of the time?

5.       Are you really looking to deploy something quickly without looking at or changing your existing processes to better run and manager your business?

6.       How important is having a local presence for counsel and advice or are you going to succeed without much guidance?

Remember that fulfilling your mission includes making your user’s lives and productivity better than they were before you deployed CRM.  You also don’t get a second bite at the apple when deploying this type of technology.