Outsourcing some and even many elements of CRM, in the “traditional” sense, has gained popularity during the economic recession, both in the midmarket and among larger companies.

The recession was and is not the reason why businesses increasingly outsource certain parts of their CRM-related activities though and, obviously, certain parts of the CRM process are more outsourced than others. Among them we typically find IT-related activities and call centre operations.

In this age where customers and prospects increasingly control their buying journey online and call the shots in their interactions with businesses, one might question this outsourcing evolution.

On top of that social media is changing CRM. Well, it’s not social media themselves. It’s the demand for more relevant, valuable, real-time, personal and adequate answers and solutions people want from businesses that are changing CRM.
It’s also the overwhelming amount of data we obtain about contact moments and digital footprints and, finally, it’s the transformations that are necessary to service a customer and nurture a lead in a customer-centric and cross-channel way.
CRM and (interactive) marketing are becoming integrated. CRM and communities are becoming integrated. And everything is happening in real-time and across a variety of channels.

Getting the conversations going

So, outsourcing CRM maybe is becoming more risky. Besides the traditional questions regarding “data ownership” the question is also if you can still outsource the increasingly complex interactions with customers.
Is it safe to outsource call centre and customer service operations in a time where customer satisfaction is a main driver of customer acquisition?

There are some arguments for outsourcing CRM because managing customer relationships can consume a lot of time, money and energy (and in a customer-centric companies it really should but at the same time it does not have to consume so much resources as many companies think).

Does the benefit of possible savings weigh up against potentially losing “control” over the conversations with your customers by trusting a partner to do it for you? And how much control do we really have?

The answer depends on elements such as the type of CRM-related activities you wish to realize, your industry, the size of your company and whether you are more focussed on personal relationships (for instance in B2B) or on brand-related interactions (like it is often the case for big consumer brands).

Since customers become smarter in recognizing advertising and have more control than ever before, it can be difficult to gain knowledge on how to approach this ever more online customer.

But that still is not an argument to outsource all this to a partner. Instead, you might need a partner that helps you to get the conversations going again in this digital era where the rules of sales have changed and that helps you to guide your customers in and through the buying process.

Outsource or not? The question is what to outsource

On the other hand: outsourcing (parts of) a customer relationship program to a specialized partner can also provide you with (customer) intelligence that you did not have before, for instance regarding digital marketing, IT-related matters, call centre operations or the necessary processes and tools, while your internal CRM team can then concentrate on aspects you might want to reserve for yourself, like branding and other activities.

But in the end the aim should be to gap the bridge between your marketing, sales and CRM teams in order to get the right information to the right customers yourself, as much as your type of business permits you to.

‘Outsourcing or not’ should be ‘outsourcing what exactly?’ And there are various criteria to answer that: what benefits our customers most, what do we want to achieve, what are the risks and benefits and maybe most of all: what is the ROI in the short run, but especially in the long run.

Outsourcing will continue to exist across different business functions such as CRM and call centre operations, which are not the core competency of some companies. But what should probably never be outsourced is the CRM strategy, only (some of) the operations and possibly IT-related aspects.

And then finding a partner that helps you to define and refine your CRM strategy, based on a ‘customer buying journey’ approach is probably the most important challenge.

The author is an interactive marketing consultant and experienced blogger. You can connect with him via Twitter or visit his blog.