What is CRM software?What it can do for your businessCustomer relationship management is for big companies who want to pop irritating mail through your door, right? Wrong: it’s for companies of all sizes who want to sell the right product at the right time to the right customer. Marc Beishon explains how to do it. The term “customer relationship management” (CRM) has been part of the IT landscape for so long that it’s easy to forget it is really not a computing term; rather, it is simply the practice of how well - or badly - you interact with your customers and learn from the experience. Received wisdom says that your most profitable business is likely to come from existing accounts rather than continually finding new business. Most CRM ‘gurus’ now say that it is all about empowering your customers to do business with you - to become partners - and not about one-way selling traffic. The 'management' part of the term has come into widespread use as software tools to automate relationship marketing have appeared. At the heart of things is a customer database, driving the activities that make CRM such a valuable tool: Keep in touch: so much depends these days on regular, high quality customer contact, be it face to face or by phone or email. Good contact management is a fundamental practice that can be greatly improved by CRM. Discover your key customers - by segmenting your customers by factors such as average value order or frequency of purchasing, you can target ‘key accounts’ for special treatment. You may also find that those you thought were ‘key’ are actually not as profitable as you thought. It may even change your view on who you take on as a customer. Empower your customer-facing staff - so your salespeople can talk to prospects and clients with more confidence. Customers respond best to people who have their details to hand and can anticipate their needs. Cleaning up with CRMTo see what you can achieve, consider Sanity Group, a UK provider of washroom services. Their CRM system is driving extra sales revenue of around £25,000 a year per salesperson and helping to schedule service personnel more efficiently. They report:
Start small with a quick-winGreat customer databases are not built overnight. The earlier CRM suppliers encouraged a ‘big bang’ approach, building every last detail into a database. That’s all changed now - even large companies now choose to roll out one “quick win” first, while today’s CRM packages are much more flexible to use. You could start by:
A CRM system also gives you tools to analyse data in new ways so you can decide on the next steps with better knowledge. Is CRM really for you?While up-front software costs may be quite low, a CRM project requires substantial investment in planning and implementation and it is important to be sure that the nature of your organisation’s work warrants the expenditure in money and time.
Look for characteristics in your business such as multiple methods of contact, a varied product portfolio, varying customers types, and regular repeat, cross- and up-selling as indicators that CRM can add value. Planning and implementationThe keys to successfully implementing a CRM system are planning, design and training:
Tools for the jobTo run most of these systems, you need a server. You can also opt to have your new system hosted for you by a partner. The next step is to customise the system to your needs, with bespoke forms, for example. Some companies will opt for producing tailored add-ons for their particular work processes. Helpfully, Microsoft CRM runs within Outlook and all your existing contacts and emails can be linked at the touch of a button. What’s the return on investment?CRM is one of the more straightforward IT systems to prove their worth:
Consider using formal review points - say every three months - to check progress, and in any case never consider that the CRM project is ‘finished’ - it is a live and changing system that requires constant nurturing. Taking the leapSanity, the washroom facilities company, was already a customer-focused company. They saw real value in their CRM system, because as well as selling more effectively, they improved their service; avoiding refunds and complaints- whilst their competitors were still using paper job forms. A CRM installation isn’t to be taken lightly: it’s a technology project which will affect everyone in your business. But it can mean doubling the efficiency of your most expensive asset- your people- and that’s a big win for any growing company. Lots of choiceSearch the internet for hosting services and you'll find thousands. So how do you find the right one? Try and get a personal recommendation first. Failing that, you’ll need to do some research. Don Cooke, Technical Director of Computer Assets Ltd knew exactly what he required from a hosting company: "Choosing the right provider comes down for us to reliability of service and the relationship and support the supplier gives us. Although all the hosting providers we have looked at do provide more or less the same service, we opted to pay a little more to a local hosting company we had a prior relationship with and that choice has, for us, paid dividends in effective response to issues which have arisen during our contract." Although he is pleased with the service, Don does have regrets: "In retrospect we did not do enough research and therefore did not get the cheapest deal going, but overall we have been satisfied with the service we receive." Wrong choiceAndrew Michael, CEO of hosting company Fasthosts says that the implications of choosing the wrong hosting company can be very serious: "Making the wrong choice could end in thousands of customers either being shown unwanted advertising, being shown a page error due to server downtime, or worse still, never actually finding your site in the first place. Some hosts will advertise on your site and email and some have recently been known to link farm too. Link Farming is where less scrupulous hosting companies link all their customers' sites back to their own to boost their search engine rankings. This can result in their site, and their customers' sites, being banned from search engines altogether. Andrew suggests going with a known, reputable provider: "after all, your site may well become the main customer-facing part of your business. The power of the web is that it's up and running 24/7 – make sure your site is too." Get it in writingWhen choosing a host, insist on a Service Level Agreement (SLA). This is where your hosting company sticks its neck out and tells you what percentage of the time you can expect your site to be up and running and how quickly they will react if something goes wrong. Don says, "I would recommend a formal SLA from the outset. I would also make a point of asking for reference customers who can vouch for the quality of their support when things don't go according to plan." Both Don and Andrew recommend choosing a provider who can grow with the business. Don says: "So far we have grown our website within the technologies provided by our hosting company. Whereas it seemed initially that some of the features we signed up for were overkill, during the relationship our requirements have grown to exploit the features that came as part of the package." Andrew says: "Your needs might start simple, but they could soon grow to include a fully scripted application driven by a database back-end that has thousands of hits a day. Furthermore make sure the host has a breadth of offerings – the last thing you want is to outsource your email to one provider, get your broadband from another and need to go elsewhere for dedicated server hosting." |
