5 CRM Lessons from Volleyball

I got a thrill from watching the Olympic Volleyball teams compete this summer. Seeing the players fluidly switch positions, execute sets spikes and blocks, and dive like maniacs to make a save shows what high performing teams can achieve. It also reminded me of the best behaviors from successful CRM-supported sales organizations.

Here are five lessons CRM marketers can learn from volleyball:

1. Take the serve seriously: In volleyball, only the team serving can score a point making it doubly important to keep scoring. Just like a serve, new lead engagement needs to be practiced and perfected to deliver the best opportunity to cultivate a relationship.

2. Keep the ball up: Active customer engagement is key to building and keeping customer relationships. This means keeping the dialogue going, and realizing that sometimes you need to dive to try and save it.

3. Too many touches and you are out: A one way dialogue without customer response will end up losing the customer. Avoid over contacting by striving to get customers to respond and progress.

4. Know who sets and who spikes: CRM marketing sets the opportunity, sales scores the points. 'nuff said.

5. Teamwork is everything: players constantly shift positions and fill in gaps as the game progresses. In the same way, CRM must integrate cross channel engagements based on how the customer behaves,

The fluid teamwork of a pro volleyball team is an impressive lesson on how a CRM team can unite towards a common goal. Reading the moves of the other team, they rearrange, engage, and score.

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