While you might have heard of people trying to use a CRM for their stakeholder management, did you know there's software made specifically for stakeholder management? It's called Stakeholder Relationship Management (SRM) software!
What's the difference between a CRM and an SRM?
While both systems can help you store and organize basic data like contact information, they ultimately help users accomplish very different goals.
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and is designed to help users manage their customers and sales.
SRM stands for Stakeholder Relationship Management, and an SRM is designed to help users manage their stakeholder information and relationships.
What is Stakeholder Relationship Management Software (SRM)?
Stakeholder Relationship Management (SRM) software helps you manage all your stakeholder relationships and communications.
SRM software is a centralized repository for all stakeholder-related information. This information can include stakeholder contact information, engagement records, stakeholder issues, commitments, reports and other stakeholder-related notes.
With a high-quality SRM, you can ensure your stakeholder information is organized, accessible, searchable, and easy to understand, so you can focus on building meaningful, trusting stakeholder relationships that lead to better project outcomes.
4 reasons teams across industries choose an SRM over a CRM for stakeholder management
1. No costly customizations or hidden fees
Trying to make a CRM work for your stakeholder management might seem like a cost-effective option if you're already using a CRM for another purpose. However, CRMs are designed to manage customers and sales, not stakeholders. You're not selling to your stakeholders; you're engaging with them, so it doesn't make sense to use a sales software for stakeholder management.
Since a CRM isn't designed for stakeholder management, you'll likely have to spend more money to customize the software to meet your needs, which can get expensive quickly.
Alternatively, choosing an SRM will help ensure you have the right software designed to meet your needs and adapt with your organization, especially if you select an SRM committed to regularly updating the software with new features focused on improving stakeholder management. Plus, using an SRM with a customer success team knowledgeable in stakeholder management will help ensure the software is set up to meet your needs without the hidden fees or clunky customizations often seen in CRMs.
2. Higher user adoption rates for better data
By using a CRM for stakeholder management, you'll likely see lower user adoption rates due to feature bloat focused on customers and sales rather than stakeholder management. Complicated user interfaces will also unnecessarily complicate your processes and your team's understanding of how the software works. Ultimately, when software is complicated to use or confusing to understand, teams avoid it, resulting in lower user adoption rates. When your team avoids software, you're likely to have gaps in your data because stakeholder information isn't consistently entered into a centralized, accessible system, leaving your project open to even more risks.
Choosing an SRM with streamlined workflows tailored to your organization's stakeholder management needs will ensure a better, more enjoyable user experience for your team, increasing the likelihood they'll use the software consistently. With your team inputting data into an organized SRM, you can be sure you'll have access to all your crucial data, enabling you and your team to gather quick, valuable updates on your stakeholder relationships and projects.
3. Understand your stakeholders for better project outcomes
To build those crucial stakeholder relationships, you need to understand your stakeholders and learn about their perspectives on your projects and organization.
Because a CRM lacks stakeholder-focused modules that organize all your stakeholder data (such as communications, issues, or commitments), it's hard to make sense of your stakeholder information and learn what your stakeholders care about, which is counterproductive, as understanding your stakeholders is vital to stakeholder management. Unlike CRM, some SRMs also have options to view stakeholder data with a project focus, which aligns far better with many stakeholder engagement projects and programs and makes tracking and reporting much easier for your teams.
An SRM is designed to easily organize all your stakeholder information. Whether you dive into a stakeholder profile before your next meeting to learn essential information about the stakeholder you're meeting with or run a comprehensive report on all logged data on one (or several) stakeholders, you're quickly updated and can pull insights on what they care about based on what they've previously shared with you or your team. Having access to this information can help you fill knowledge gaps and focus your messaging, so you can engage in a respectful and relevant way, showing you're listening to their perspectives to build more vital stakeholder trust and better relationships.
Discover how an SRM can help you understand your stakeholders→
4. Stay on top of issues and lower your project's risks
With stakeholder issues, it's not uncommon for them to remain open for months or even years, as some can take considerable time to resolve. Without easy-to-use software to organize all your stakeholder information, an issue can easily be forgotten, destroying that stakeholder's trust and increasing your project's risks.
By choosing an SRM with a materiality matrix and an issues timeline, which shows specific interactions around how you're working towards a resolution (both available in our SRM, Jambo), you can keep all your issues organized and accessible, regardless of how long they've been open while prioritizing the highest risk issues to protect your projects better and work more effectively with your stakeholders.
Explore our in-depth guide on how SRM and CRM are different→
Why choosing the right stakeholder relationship management software is important
While an SRM is the right tool for stakeholder management, different SRM options on the market offer different features, support options, and unique user experiences. To make the most of SRM software for your stakeholder management efforts, choose the option that best aligns with your goals and teams to help ensure success.
How to choose the best SRM
To choose the best SRM, start by making a list with your team. Jot down everything you'd want your SRM experience to offer, and then use this list as you begin researching options on the market. Once you have a few potential options, we recommend seeing a software demo to evaluate how well it fits your team's needs or project(s).
If you're looking to get started on your SRM journey, download our free checklist on tips for what to look for in an SRM. This list outlines various features and options to consider, helping your team understand what an SRM could offer your organization.
Next steps
If you want to simplify and organize your stakeholder management efforts in the fastest, easiest way, choosing an SRM rather than a CRM makes sense. To learn how to say goodbye to spreadsheets, check out our free eBook!
