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Customer relationship management
(CRM) provides organizations with technologies, business
applications, and best practices that help them sell,
market, and service their products and services.
Global
Expert CRM provides a unified view of customer information
and interactions through integrated sales, marketing, and
customer service features. This approach enables
organizations to share information, accelerate sales,
identify new revenue opportunities, and deliver more
consistent customer service.
The right CRM technology investments help small businesses
to sell more to existing customers, acquire new customers
faster, and better manage the business. CRM solutions pay
for themselves by capturing the business that would have
otherwise been lost.
Three areas
critical to sales success
The
solution each of the companies turned to helps users succeed
in three areas that are critical to sales success:
1. Monitoring and
management of entire sales process.
Account
management:
View past and current account activity, including contact
information, communications, open quotes, pending orders,
invoices, credit limits, and payment history.
Lead tracking and routing:
Track prospective customers and then convert them into
qualified leads, which are automatically routed to the
correct salespeople or teams for follow-up.
Opportunity management: Capture important sales
information to uncover new business opportunity. Use
Microsoft CRM sales pipeline analysis reports to create
precise sales forecasts.
Customer communications:
Use e-mail templates to communicate with targeted prospects
and customers. Create print materials and then send to
prospects via Microsoft Office Word Mail Merge.
Quote generation: Create quotes and track their
conversion to orders; modify and save orders until they are
ready for submission.
2. Sales
team management.
Sales
quotas:
Measure employee sales performance against goals. As
opportunities are closed in Microsoft CRM, they are credited
against the assigned quota.
Lead Management
3.
Accessing decision-driving information.
Reports:
View, sort, and filter a wide range of reports to identify
trends, measure and forecast sales activity, track sales
processes, and evaluate business performance.
What Is the Cost of Leads Lost?
If you think CRM is expensive
then think again.
Every lead is precious, yet interviews with
small businesses conducted by AMR Research reveal that small
businesses do not follow up on up to 70 percent of all
leads, representing as much as 14–22 percent of annual
revenue. This is because there is often no centralized place
to track customer, account, and contact information.
Technology can help solve
these issues. In fact, the revenue gained from following up
on three of those previously lost leads often covers
the cost of a contact, lead, account, and case management
system.
The
Benefits of CRM Technology
The functionality required to address lead
leakage falls into the category of Customer Relationship
Management, or CRM. Unfortunately, CRM has developed a
reputation as making for large, often unwieldy software
solutions for large companies that often do not deliver real
business benefits.
The truth is that CRM technology has been specifically
designed for small businesses. There are elements of CRM
systems, such as contact, lead, account, order, and case
management, that are fundamental to small businesses and
deliver tangible business value.
The benefits of CRM technology stem from increased revenue
and decreased costs. Increased revenue primarily comes from
more satisfied customers, the ability to upsell and
cross-sell, and higher acceptance rates on marketing
campaigns. Reduced costs are attained through a reduction in
administrative time used to track down information, improved
reporting, and quicker issue resolution.
Choosing
the Right Functionality
Successful CRM projects
address an acute pain felt by salespeople, customer service
agents, or marketers. Functionality should be purchased in
priority order to address the highest pain points. Small
successes are then built on to keep momentum going.
The top 10 small business pain points are:
# |
Pain Points |
Functionality |
1. |
Leads are lost or are not followed up on by
sales |
Lead management with follow-up workflow |
2. |
Marketers do not know what products and services
to sell to prospects |
Campaign management |
3. |
Salespeople and sales managers do not know the
status or next steps required for an opportunity
or case |
Opportunity management, workflow, and case
management |
4. |
Customer information is not available in one
centralized place |
Case management and contact management |
5. |
Employees do not know what products or services
customers have purchased |
Account management |
6. |
Employees do not know who to contact when a
customer issue arises |
Contact management |
7. |
Customer issues are not resolved in a timely
manner |
Case management with follow-up workflow |
8. |
Reports are not available that tell employees
how the business is performing
|
Analytics and forecasting |
9. |
Orders are often taken on paper or by fax |
Order management |
10.
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Lack of inter-department coordination |
Work flow management |
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