Automate all the things?

Something we all love about the potential of a good CRM is that it can automate or streamline the tasks that we might otherwise have to undertake manually.

Who doesn’t want that?

But while it's tempting to look for an elegant automated solution for every task that could be automated, it's not always worthwhile.

Case 1: Responsive tech support

I bought a customizable keyboard last week, and was excited to configure it just as I needed.

But no matter how I tried, I couldn't get my keyboard configurations to save properly.

The "help" link in the configurator tool was quite prominent, so I chatted with tech support, and within minutes they helped me get it done.

Turns out I had mistakenly used the configurator for a different keyboard model, and once they pointed me to the right steps, I was good to go.

What if ... they improved their tool so it would detect my mistake and then point me in the right direction? Then I wouldn't need to ask for help, and they'd reduce their tech support staffing requirements.

But then again, maybe ... they've already thought of that, and decided that it was more efficient to stick in a big "help" button and make sure they actually help people via tech support?

As a customer, it makes little difference to me. I got what I wanted, quickly. And they got a happy customer, which is presumably what they wanted.

Assuming my mistake is not very common, there's not much of a business case for developing features that would automatically detect and resolve it.

Case 2: Small-scale reporting

I spoke with a client this week who has some fairly unique reporting needs to segment her end-of-year fundraising contacts into two separate groups. The data she needs is clearly in the CRM, but there's no easy way to get it with CiviCRM's current features for searches and reports.

We puzzled through a variety of solutions for a while, and then I asked, "Wait, how many contacts are we talking about here?" Turns out there are just around 80 contacts.

With that, she realized she could do this -- without too much anguish -- by manually examining those contacts.

What if ... we developed a custom reporting solution, or other more complex features, to make this possible with the push of a few buttons? I probably could have talked her into that, and I probably would have had fun building it.

But then again, maybe ... there's not a sound business case for that level of custom development for a fairly unique need that's not expected to come up again any time soon.

Here’s the thing:

Just because you could automate something, doesn’t mean you should. You certainly don’t have to.

What you have to do is get your data into a useful form, while expending an appropriate level of time and money to do it.

And sometimes, the appropriate thing is to do it by hand.

All the best,
A.