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There are usually a lot of questions when you first start building your fiber net. One of these questions is about what systems you need to effectively roll out your fiber net. Since the main goal is to get customers to your new net, many fiber operators think they need a CRM system. If you choose this option, there’s a chance that the CRM system won’t be able to handle the needs of the fiber operator’s business once the customers start streaming in. The risk here is a very long, costly, and difficult process to broaden and complete the CRM system with other systems and adjustments.
According to our experience, a CRM system often requires many adjustments, and part of this is that CRM systems aren’t generally appropriate for managing fiber businesses. Let us explain.
What is the purpose of a CRM system?
Let’s examine a CRM’s purpose and function. It is primarily a way of managing interactions with clients.
What is a standard CRM built for?
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To create a view of the customer
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To understand which marketing channels are profitable and to follow up on sales activities.
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To structure sales teams and to make sure that they are working effectively.
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To handle sales opportunities
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To solve customer errors quickly
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To model the lead to customer process
A standard CRM tool is built for an entirely different business, not a fiber business. It presumes a way of working where you deal with a smaller volume of customers with more manual interactions and bigger business. The fiber business is about effectively handling a lot of customers and a lot of transactions. It’s a matter of volume. Standard CRM tools are generally built for B2B, while a fiber business is generally B2C (even in cases where you deliver to SME small and medium enterprises).
Another important aspect is that CRM systems are built to cover many business segments, not only fiber operators. The result is more generic functionality that needs to be adjusted, configured, and customized. When you start rolling out fiber, it can seem like there is no big need for adjustments, but when you start to grow, you realize that you want to automate more and more, and then the customizations increase in size and cost.
Why you shouldn’t start with a CRM
If you are planning to start your fiber operator business with a CRM, you need to understand that a CRM only delivers a very small part of the functionality and structure you will need. The worst problems with CRM are that the data model for fiber operator businesses is not supported and that it is very expensive to automate the business. CRM systems usually don’t have any integrations to networks and other systems that may be needed. If you start out with a CRM, you will have to spend a lot of time building everything that is needed around it.
CRM is focused on the customer object, but in the fiber business, the object that lives the longest is the address to which the customer is connected. The address is a very important object in the fiber business, and it is even more important in a wholesale scenario.
CRM is a large domain but generally has a small focus on automation, customer self-service, and businesses with large volumes of transactions.
CRM systems are often so generic that for every component within the platform, you need to customize and configure to match the requirements of running a fiber business.
CRM provides support for manually moving a customer from lead to customer. In a fiber scenario, you would like to have this process fully automated so that it can grow quickly. The margins on each customer do not justify the cost of having too much manual work to onboard the customer.
To summarize
CRM systems are mainly built around the customer as the most important object, while the fiber operator business has another very important object that needs to be included—the address together with its relation to the infrastructure.
A standard CRM is not enough to support a fiber journey system but may work in combination with a purpose-built system.
If you start with a CRM, there is a big risk that the cost of process modelling, automations, and interactions will be very high in the long run.
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