The most frivolous article about CRM

We are now 17 years old, our CRM is 12. On our birthday, we decided to abandon boring long articles and see how they are looking for CRM systems, and how they are joking about them in comics abroad and with us. The “study” turned out to be amusing, but very revealing not only for us, but also for the entire enterprise development. In Russia, they like to become personal to vendors, in the West they actively sneer at the concept of CRM. And everywhere they don’t equally know what it is - a CRM system. In general, this is a must see. Mostly 18+.

Part 1. Not serious. CRM in pictures

Behind the hill are able to make fun of business

For two years (and on Habré we are exactly 2 years old) we in the RegionSoft Developer Studio published 54 articles, and for each we needed some illustrations. We drew all the schemes and principles of CRM on our own, but the KDPVs were searched on the Internet and noticed long ago that foreign users more often, more qualitatively and more cheerfully draw cartoons and comics about business, development and even CRM systems. Honestly, for ourselves we didn’t answer the question: why is this a different cultural layer, a habit for similar forms of humor, or a huge love for one’s work bordering on fanaticism? In any case, it's cool to the point.

One of our employees at an interview with a previous company was asked what marketing is in one word. The answer was given correctly, although after a couple of minutes of reflection - “Information”. It was 2008. After 10 years with this one word you can answer the questions of what is management, marketing, sales, CRM. This is all information. Indeed, CRM systems accumulate data and aggregate information. But, alas, end users often do not know what to do with this amount of accumulated data.


- What is the main meaning of CRM?
- We collect data! Email, Facebook, YouTube profiles, mobile app ...
“So what are we going to do about it?”
“I don't know, we'll find out later.”

Speaking of analytics, this is how sometimes users look with a huge array of valuable information. Definitely, thin tools are needed to work with the client base, and many CRM systems provide them in one form or another. One has only to attach a little head and use the experience.
Analyst: "Dude, I have good news for you."

The project of introducing a CRM system sometimes turns out to be a history of several months or even years. This does not mean that you wait so much for CRM and lead a customer base on birch bark or in a notebook, this means that this time interval passes to reach the end point and fully automate the necessary processes and tasks. By the way, if the half-daily and very nice scheme seems to you to be somewhat confusing, download our (without registration and SMS) - it is complete, universal and adapted to the Russian realities.



An excellent illustration of building CRM as a process and as an automation within a company. Look carefully at this picture, all in the classics. Among the seeming confusion can be identified: a client with a budget, requirements of 360 degrees of customer review, development and deployment, use with data and options, admin-superuser who knows everything about how it works, and expectations that in a couple of years the CRM system will lead to success and take the business to a new orbit.

One of the most painful issues of CRM-systems, like any other corporate software, is security. We have already written many times both in articles and in comments that any system can be hacked, there would be brains, desire and ... sometimes money. Hacking millions of Salesforce entries spawned a panic in the business of many countries and shaken confidence in cloud services. But, of course, for the giant developer the blow did not become fatal and did not bring any special losses.


The picture has been redone for the publication of the largest data breach in Salesforce - the largest CRM in the world. In the article, which was illustrated by the ironic picture about the frozen hell, it was about the fact that, despite the leaks that hit hundreds of thousands of companies, the corporation was taking profits.

And this is a different kind of CRM than the universal systems to which Russian users are accustomed. Social CRM (eng. Social CRM) is a system that allows you to collect data from social networks and manage customer relationships through this software. In Russia, there is no full-fledged social CRM - this is either integration or simple add-ons based on API. It seems that in Russia such solutions have no promising future, since the development of a full-fledged system is quite expensive, and the main consumer, a small B2C sector, is not ready to pay for CRM any significant amount. But the fact that in every CRM every client should be covered by 360 degrees is a fact and a given. Otherwise, the value of software drops sharply.



- Hi, Lucy, do you want to look at my new CRM? I brought all my friends there and now I can manage connections in one place.
- It sounds cool! You can do a 360 degree survey of your friends and predict the best time to socialize and you can determine the connections between your friends.
- (to myself) Damn, I do not understand what she is talking about. I just wanted to impress her ...
- Hi, Lucy! Rate my new social CRM on my mobile. She is in the cloud!
- Oh, class.
- Hmm. It is necessary in her system, perhaps, to put Lyuska the status “In Relationships” ...

The next picture is half a lie, but life itself is sweet and sweet. Managers of all stripes dislike CRM systems until they learn and get used to it. But when they get used to it, they absolutely precisely feel the system with at least their right hand and a part of the brain. But entering data from the tables is not a good pastime: first, the vendor suffers from the import, then the employees manually add the rest and try to break the habitual patterns. Nobody will refuse a lunch just to run away from this work. However, the work through the tears is worth it: working with an orderly and informative client base is to increase sales, profits and bonuses. Will you refuse?

“Come with us for a business lunch?”
- The campaign will not work. Forced to download data from the plates in CRM.
- Still? I thought the new CRM is the best!
- The best? Oh yeah. I love her so much, she's just my best half now!

In addition, training sometimes happens this way:



Source of - Pay special attention to this stage of training. We will make calculations on the positioning of new products, messages and trading strategy ... before we begin, do you have any questions?
H PC screens: come back later, the list of products, maps.

And this is our favorite comic book series, which was made by one car dealership. Their entire series is excellent, but most of all we liked the attitude towards CRM and the paradigm of CRM.

The first comic characterizes very accurately the attitude of many companies towards CRM systems: why is it needed, since everything is done perfectly on paper and on tablets? However, this opinion is tenacious before the first incident with the head of the sales department or the lead manager who leaves and takes with him a bag of money to the company of clients, believing that if he has accumulated them, then they belong to him. The idea that this is done for remuneration in the form of wages and with the help of the name and resources of the company is always omitted.


Source Oh, so who needs this CRM-system?

And this is about the paradigm - that is, about what the CRM system is for, for managing customer relationships. There is a class of professionals in loyalty and customer service abroad - these are CRM managers. In Russia, this is a little sought-after position, because CRM is smeared over sales, public relations and marketing. Well, the support gets.


Source - Well, you said that you want "old school" CRM. (Here we are talking about CRM as a paradigm)

Again, a very funny comic about loyalty managers - it is important to find a person with a deep understanding of the specifics of customer requirements. This dude with a car dealership, most likely, will not cope. Although for viral marketing it would have completely disappeared, in vain they are with him.


Source Something I'm not sure that this new guy-manager for CRM will work ...

And now we come back to one of the most pronounced and at the same time completely contrived problems of CRM-systems - “excessive” functionality. Indeed, the most powerful and versatile CRM-systems in the Russian and foreign markets have been developing for more than a decade and therefore have absorbed the best practices and the most requested functionality. Many of them essentially come down to ERP - for example, our RegionSoft CRM in the senior Enterprise edition is nothing more than an ERP system.

So there is some truth in the actions of a superhero - there is enough functionality for everyone.

Source of Jimmy has a secret business technology formula. (Jimmy Brainsell - fictional hero).

Tables, tables, these spreadsheets! It was 2017 in the courtyard, and we were forced to write an article about CRM vs Excel , because many managers stubbornly do not part with their “exellers”, and then worry about the damaged and lost data. We repeat once again - this is not the best idea, take care of the customer base, this is your profit!


- I decided to manage using spreadsheets. I will keep track of things until all our problems correct themselves.
- I am touched by your optimism.
- Thank. Some kind of you are unsure.

The topic of clouds, we usually can not get around. But not at this time. Comics are not so much about the clouds, but about the fact that often top managers do not try to understand the essence of the technical things around. This guy with glasses is generally well done - no need to be content with only the assurances of vendors and providers, ask for technical explanations in human language.

I was hoping for a slightly more detailed explanation of how cloud computing works than “This is magic”!

Hanging corporate software is common and, unfortunately, some CRM systems are not without this drawback. I remember one of the vendors even had a promo video at the beginning of which the girl manager said that she was drinking coffee while the CRM was loading. This, of course, is not the case and not the best idea for the video. Therefore, when choosing software, ask directly about the download speed, work, processing operations, and most importantly, test on the amount of data close to your worker, so as not to be disappointed.

By the way, we are literally obsessed with speeding up our CRM system: constant refactoring, well-thought-out architecture and well-chosen DBMS work wonders - users hardly have time to notice the data processing in the system. We are proud.


- I'm always trying to skinscreenet this CRM, but it switches all the time.
- All right, this is your chance - the system is completely frozen !!!

Picture of speed in pursuit. About SAP, we'll talk a little lower, but this picture speaks for itself. We made an approximate translation from German, but it seems that the essence is clear without it.


Source of He just wanted to open a new module in SAP

By the way, about the sales of the CRM system itself and with the help of the CRM system. This is limped by both domestic and Western consultants: there is a script, and to retreat from it is like death. Of course, this is wrong - the sale must be alive, regardless of the tool, because we automate the routine and business processes, not the manager’s brain. Unfortunately, not everyone in the business understands this.



Source of I perfectly understand your desire to buy our solution right now, but according to the new regulations of the sales process in my company, you are now only at the fifth stage and I cannot sell software to you until you find yourself at stage 12.
(And this he says to the buyer, who is holding a payment order in his hands!)

1C and all-all-all

In our country, there are worse cases with comics about CRM, but corporate software and near-business topics have been drafted at the level. Minus one - specific vendors are mentioned. And here we make a reservation that we love all our colleagues in the workshop, and we quote and comment on folk art. In general, as they say, the opinion of the editors may or may not coincide with folk jokes.

So, the unequivocal and unconditional leader of popular humor is 1C. What is logical: the higher the popularity, the more attention and diverse emotions of users. The first fiasco we suffered in the search for Yandex.



But how many treasures found, digging deeper. For example, this is a continuation of the programming theory of programming languages ​​- how to shoot yourself a leg. Dubious decision in terms of ballistics.

In fact, they love 1C in our country, just a special love - like accounting software, the system is good, there are failures and successes with the rest, everything is like everyone else. They were just lucky to be the first to choose the optimal development model at that time.

Considerable shadow on the image of 1C is thrown by accountants who are not much of a PC, which periodically add to the software problems the problem of the human factor.


This can be attributed to users of most large corporate systems. Well, at least, the users themselves see this.

But we know that ...


In second place after 1C in the rating of popular love is SAP. This software was one of the first to hit the post-Soviet territory and struck the imagination of system administrators, developers and users with functionality, glitches, bugs, unique features of the translation (it was necessary to ask Goblin!) And, most importantly, the space price. This is not 1C.


Actually, the price has become the most discussed and ridiculed topic, on which many caricatures were created. Nevertheless, many even not very large companies are drawn to SAP just like young people to the iPhone X.


They stifle a toad, buy it, then suffer, change it, throw it away, but how does it sound - “We have SAP!” By the way, the consultants were extremely professional and well-trained, now there are no such hard guys in suits.

However, Russian IT specialists would not be Russian IT specialists if they had not ridiculed the peculiarities of interaction with SAP from the point of view of an engineer and administrator. The most beautiful thing, of course, is this (by the way, who knows the author, respond - we give a link to him and his company):



Source of SAP - do or die. On the left you can see a schematic depiction of a human head and digestive tract, where the brain boiled, in the stomach - some substance that cannot be called on Habré, just below - logic, well, it all works through ... the logical end of the gastrointestinal tract. (Who does not know, SAP is from Germany).

Well, the hot rock dedicated to SAP R / 3, timesheets and suffering support.


As you can see, abstract images about CRM without foreign sources could not be found - almost everything we met in Russian was translated by us. Therefore, if you have something in mind - write in the comments, we will complement this post of frivolity.

Look at the root and laugh at the business

But we wouldn’t have any of these comics either abroad, if the business didn’t often show a denial of automation, a strange attitude towards customers and amazing internal processes. Moreover, the depth of the problem does not depend on the level of the company: such situations can be found both in international corporations and in small entrepreneurs.

The first problem is sometimes (we soften) someone does not want to work. If anyone wants - they interfere. If it wants, and does not interfere, then there, as a rule, it is good both with automation and with tools. In general, employees consider CRM to be something of an enemy and overseer. Of course, it is not. But if a person does not want to work, any automation is powerless.


In companies, a frank mess can occur - and not so much that everyone drinks tea and solves personal issues, but rather in business processes. Nothing is as tiring as uncoordinated, disproportionately divided and chaotic teamwork. This is the legacy of the USSR, when the ETS existed and a person could lazily do their work for C grade, and could otpahat shock, but still got the same salary. Now the same, if there is no KPI. And if there is no difference ... Another reason is the envy of the manager and the opinion that he is a slaveholder, so for that kind of money you can not only not work, but also harm a little more. Of course, automation in this situation will not give anything. However, the head is able to change the policy and motivation. Alas, many will have to part with.



Deadline Fakap - the sacred cow of Russian managers

The attitude of business executives to automation is also so-so - in short, it can be expressed with a slanty picture:



There are a million reasons to refuse to implement CRM or ERP, despite the obvious need. This fear is not to cope, not to justify the investment, to be deceived, not to cope with the boycott by the employees.

Some companies go to the other extreme and believe that they are all-powerful and can create their own CRM on the knee of a familiar freelancer. We wrote about what comes out of this in our spy investigation .


“And in general, we have a TZ of five years ago, here it is, make it according to it. And also to CRM to sell and report on the profit. And I will reduce the staff, why do they need me now! ”Recognizable, colleagues?

Of course, like any caricature, all the comics exaggerate the situation - everything is sometimes a little simpler, and sometimes not funny at all. But the positive point of such creativity is that all problem areas stand out clearly and clearly, without veiled complex sentences and catchwords. And it seems not so scary :-)

Part 2. Serious. Nuggle me CRM!

When our team starts to dig something, it will not stop. We decided to find out how about looking for CRM-systems from them and from us. After all, nothing reflects the aspirations of users as their search queries.

Consider three countries: Russia, USA and France.

Let's start with the trends.

This graph shows the dynamics of the “crm” queries on Google across Russia from 2004 to the present. Indeed, the primary boom and high business interest in CRM has subsided after several crisis periods and fixed at a constant level. Recently, interest has begun to grow again, this is due to the need to manage customer bases safely and to save data - one of the most valuable assets of companies.



On the second chart - requests for the word "crm system". The trend is lower than in “crm”, but, as experience shows, in Russia, CRM most often means just the program, and not the customer relationship management paradigm itself. This does not mean that there are no relationships in our country, just business does not build them according to the rules and in strict accordance with one or another paradigm.

And here is a fairly stable pattern of interest in CRM in Russia over the past five years:



Well, quite a characteristic fact: interest in CRM is higher in metropolitan and large regions, in other areas the culture of automation and business process management is much lower.



In the US, interest in CRM has almost not changed significantly - American companies are quite open about the idea of ​​automation and love software that makes human labor easier. In addition, the US business is flexible with respect to change, and with the advent of cloud services, CRM has experienced almost a rebirth there. Which, by the way, cannot be said about Germany - this is one of the most conservative countries choosing a desktop.



In France, interest in CRM is also relatively stable, largely because the country has a small business that, again, is automation. Moreover, it is in this country that the interest is distributed fairly evenly, since each region has unique features for business: tourism, wine, industry, textiles, logistics, beauty industry, culture and art.


France is also interesting because it is conservative in terms of accepting foreign words for business and everyday use. So, initially CRM in France is called GRC, but this is too universal an abbreviation to be preserved in only one national form.

Small offtopic. But with the word for "software" in France, everything is much more conservative and interesting. The national language form “logiciel” predominates, and recently the transnational form “app” is gaining popularity. That is, if you, for example, decided to sell your CRM in France, the key word would be “crm logiciel”.



Well, for comparison - the trend of interest in CRM around the world. This is for 14 years. By the way, new markets are immediately visible: Brazil, Singapore, India. However, unfortunately, interest in them most often remains just an interest due to the low solvency and sharp heterogeneity of regional development. This, of course, is about India and Brazil, there is plenty of money in Singapore.



Well, in addition to some search features.


Requests per month

6071 people in a month are looking for free CRM in Russia, in France (with language options) - 2160, in the USA - 6600. In relative shares in Russia, even fewer fans of freebies, but in general, taking into account unrequited requests, can be considered equally.

In the top queries in all countries, the specific names of CRM vendors that are most popular, although in Russia we expected a much higher position from some. In the United States of non-convincing, the most popular request is CR100 (CRM review) - 18100, which is crm - 18100, crm system - 8100, crm definition - 6600, crm meaning - 6600 is far behind.

CRM — logiciel crm 1900, outil crm 1300, — crm gestion relation client ( la gestion de la relation client (GRC) — 1310, crm marketing (, - b2c!) — 1300, opensource crm — 880.

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