Fixing CRM (Pt. 1): Rename It.

Last week, in the post "Why Sales Reps Hate CRM," I promised to fix CRM and make it into something useful. This is going to take a few posts, so bear with me.

Product names are important. Companies spend millions of dollars trying to come up with product names that give buyers a positive feeling or describe whtat the buyers are buying in a positive way. If you want people to use a product, the last thing you want it name it something that annoys them from the very start.

CRM was originally called "Sales Force Automation (SFA)" -- an incredibly stupid and insulting name that implies that the purpose of the technology is to automate the sales rep out of a job. And, in fact, the people who invented SFA were largely propeller-head types who hated sales professionals and considered them deadwood who could and should be eliminated. No wonder it flopped.

SFA, of course, begat "Customer Relationship Management (CRM)," which is almost as bad. The "CRM" term implies that the software, not the sales pro, will be "managing" the customer relationship, which is the essence of the job. It also implies that the real reason for having the software is to reduce the cost of selling. And, indeed, the main thrust of all CRM marketing is to give lip service to selling and then focus completely on cost-savings and providing reports to managers.

Neither of the terms SFA nor CRM have any natural appeal to the sales professional. They're off-putting and irritating. So let's dump them, since they're not helping and they're probably making things worse.

Instead, let's come up with a moniker that has some appeal. Sales pros want to sell. Sales pros are always interested in technology that helps them sell (like cell phones and GPS). So, if you want sales pros to use a technology, you name it something that appeals to THEM, not sales management. I suggest:

"Computer Assisted Selling (CAS)."

I'm sure that some of you could probably come up with an even better term, but "Computer Assisted Selling" puts the emphasis on the right thing, which is selling. CAS describes what the CRM and SFA was supposed to do (but mostly didn't), which is assist sales pros to sell. To help; not to replace.

To implement this first step in fixing "CRM," you decide that, whatever technology you install in your shop, you aren't going to call it "CRM." You tell the sales pros explicitly: "WE DON'T BELIEVE IN CRM; WE'RE DOING SOMETHING DIFFERENT."

In the next few posts, I'll explain exactly what you're going to do that's different.