Member Article

3 tenets that make CRM work

There are three simple principles behind profitable CRM – customers, relationships and management.

CRM – it’s as easy as 123. The clue is in the name.Customer Relationship Management – is built on three principles:

1. Customers.

2. Relationships.

3. Management.

CRM is not so much a tool, as it is an ethos that uses software to help fulfil its goals.

1. Customers

The lifeblood of your business is not just sales, but the customers themselves. All of your activities should be focused on delivering a better service to customers, new and old. CRM provides a central repository for all customer data, becoming the one comprehensive view of all things customer related – it also helps you to retain the customers you already have. Increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase profits between 25% and 95%. – Bain & Company.

2. Relationships

People buy from people. That’s why it’s important that relationships form the core of all your interactions. Marketing establishes relationships and sales cultivate them. Your service team can then learn and grow new opportunities based on those relationships.CRM gives you a tool to capture relationship data, analyse trends and identify new opportunities.

“CRM almost makes everyone in your organisation a sales person, since they are selling your business in one way or another. For instance, customers often say things to support staff which could be used as a sales opportunity. The support person might not know it but because the information is recorded, a salesperson can see it and use it to follow up. Just the recording of the information has many benefits for other departments.“ - IDC.

3. Management

Establishing relationships with customers is one thing, but those interactions need to be managed if they are to be profitable. You also need tools to capture and analyse relationship data to help keep sales, marketing and services on track. CRM can also be used to automate many of the common account management tasks to improve customer service, such as smoothing the transfer of leads between marketing and sales and giving your company a complete understanding of the customer’s needs and preferences.

“On average, sales and marketing costs average from 15%-35% of total corporate costs. So the effort to automate for more sales efficiency is absolutely essential. In cases reviewed, sales increases due to advanced CRM technology have ranged from 10% to more than 30%.“ – Harvard Business Review

“The average time a sales representative spends on sales: 47%; on administrative tasks; 39%.“ - Selling Power Magazine.

Remember

1. Customers.
2. Relationships.
3. Management.

See obstacles to your CRM implementation? For more information, download the eGuide The ultimate guide to: security in the cloud.

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This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Rick Lyle .