May 9, 2011
Chatter is the latest and greatest service cloud collaboration tool from Salesforce.com. In the first part of this series of Chatter posts, we shared how service cloud collaboration is essential among cross-functional teams. It adds the greatest value for change management tactics to drive success.
It starts with a couple of snowflakes
During business process design, we constantly see an arbitrary starting point across the customer lifecycle. It usually begins with the product management function in a company. Let’s assume that a new product once launched will be handed off to a second function, product marketing. At this handoff, Product Management must pass off all their experience and wisdom in what it will take for the product to meet revenue objectives. What we see consistently is Product Marketing having different perspectives on the cost structure, competitive differentiation and value proposition. Assuming Product Marketing’s view is correct, then the product goes back to the innovation incubator with inevitable delays and increases in cost. The other scenario is that Product Marketing is stuck with a product they feel they can’t position, don’t believe in and that may ultimately be flawed. Either way, at the process boundaries between these two groups, there is an opportunity to reduce waste, ineptitude, or an intense blame game debate.
A snowball starts rolling downhill
Marketing then hands over the product to the Inside Sales team whose function is to generate leads for the new product. We find that there are dozens of potential disconnects waiting at this process boundary. Customer segments that were proposed by Marketing may not fit the customer master data for Inside Sales, or possibly the value proposition is too complex for Inside Sales to articulate. Again, the result is waste, delay, frustration, and plenty of “red faces” after senior management reviews early financial results.
Brace yourself for a snowstorm
When Inside Sales finally succeeds in generating demand, leads are distributed to Sales. Be prepared, another process boundary dispute is ready to rear its ugly head. Sales complains that the leads are low quality and not worth the high-cost of sales follow-up. This problem is not diagnosed for several months so that when Sales complains, then Inside Sales responds with “Sounds like the problem is that you can’t convert. The leads aren’t being nurtured and you can’t close”.
The customer gets left out in the cold
Of course Sales develop some of the leads to the point where customers are ready to discuss customizations, special configurations, or technical capabilities. At this point, Technical Support enters. This function is almost always irritated with the technical skills of sales, and as a matter of professional pride, feel obligated to inform the customer how badly sales has advised them and did not assess their true needs. “Deal breakers” was a label that one of our client’s sales force gave to technical support; “Exaggerators” is what the Technical Sales and Engineering called salespeople; yet another example of problems that exist between process boundaries.
Collaboration between the lines: The ultimate ice melter
It’s amazing how many people have told us “You’ve obviously worked in our company, that’s exactly what goes on here”. As you can see in this somewhat worst case example, the process boundaries and disconnects are the source of the problem.
In the past, the only answer to this problem was consulting jargon or a three inch policy and procedure binder that collected dust on a shelf. Many Bluewolf clients are experimenting with a new, disruptive and innovative tool in the Salesforce stack to dramatically improve sales and operational effectiveness. It’s called Chatter and it is part of an overall service cloud implementation.
Was that helpful? Up next, we're sharing how Agile Business Transformation approaches and Chatter can break down process boundaries and get rid of these challenges. Want to learn more faster? Request for an appointment.
