How to Select a CRM Vendor (646 words)

How to Select a CRM Vendor (646 words)

By Donna Loyle

Today, about 200 vendors sell CRM solutions, according to analysts at research firm Gartner.

Indeed, vendor selection is a tricky affair. You want a solution that offers the right applications for your needs; is scalable, flexible and affordable; and is offered by a company that will be around in a few years to help with upgrades and further implementations.

Heidi Lanford, a project manager at Executive Marketing Services (EMS), an online marketing and analytical services provider based in Naperville, IL, recently assisted Brandango, a dot-com start-up, to select its CRM solution.

Eileen Womac, Brandango's former marketing systems manager, originally worked with Lanford on the CRM vendor-selection process, and then went to work for EMS about four months after the program was completed.

At February's Chicago Direct Marketing Days, Lanford and Womac teamed up to present the following sage advice on selecting a CRM vendor.

Requirements Defined

Brandango wanted a CRM tool that could do the following relationship-

marketing tasks:

•manage prospect, customer and external data sources;

•rapid-cycle marketing;

• acquisition programs;

•manage customer e-mails;

•predictive algorithms;

•cross-sell and up-sell analysis; and

•real-time reporting of campaign results.

In addition, the dot-com company wanted the solution to be cost-effective and suitable for outsourcing. And, since Brandango was new, it had no legacy systems to work around.

The Brandango/EMS team's preliminary research narrowed the search to three CRM vendors.

Visits & Evaluations

Team members invited the three finalists to visit Brandango's headquarters for thorough product demonstrations.

Says Lanford, "We were insistent about one thing during these demos: We controlled the mouse, not the vendor." They wanted vendors to be mere guides to help team members navigate the software on their own.

After the site visits, team members set out to discern what they found. Fearing the results of subjective evaluation, the search team devised an ingenious plan to objectively judge each of the three finalists' offerings.