To keep, or to improve, your share of the market you need the best tools available to help your business to find, win and keep profitable customers. This is where a customer relationship management strategy becomes essential.
It is a process by which organisations become customer-centric. Everyone must buy into CRM and re-examine all processes and technology in terms of customer satisfaction.
All contact information should be available to everyone within the organisation. Customer information becomes customer intelligence.
Finding new customers
CAMPAIGN management helps you to proactively target new customers based on profile information, such as geographic area or products of interest, with new offers, products and services. This information is key to enable you to select the right people to target with the right offers.
Your CRM system should promote the campaign internally, ensuring everyone is aware of the aims and the target market, and to manage the results so that they can be analysed.
Create a campaign record so everyone knows what marketing activity is going on;
Identify your target audience based on information in your database: for example, by industry, size, employees, the number of days since you last contacted them, bought-in data;
Use the most effective medium. Sending an email or mail shot enables you to contact hundreds or thousands of people at the same time;
Track responses and generate appropriate follow-ups.
Winning new customers
OBTAIN more new customers by refining the sales process, enabling more effective use of sales resources, reducing lead times between enquiry and order and improving conversion rates.
A CRM system can make more information more easily available. It enables you to:
Improve lead qualification;Never miss a follow-up or activity;
Forecast sales more accurately;
Minimise administration so salespeople can concentrate on selling;
Produce proposals or quotations.
A CRM system will also allow you to monitor whether you are winning more customers and to analyse the Key Performance Indicators that show the return on your investment. These KPIs can include the number of new customers per quarter, the average time it has taken to gain a new customer or which key clients have not been contacted in the previous 90 days.
Keeping customers
MOST businesses always have the opportunity to continue selling to existing customers – more services, different products, upgrades. Minimise the levels of customer attrition by implementing strategies to keep in regular contact with customers.
More than 50 per cent of customers switch suppliers because of perceived indifference and remember that it costs ten times more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one.
A CRM system can prompt salespeople to keep in touch with their clients. It is surprising how many times you make a quick call and the response is “I’m glad you called because…” and you start a new sales process or take an order from that one call. Even if they don’t need anything at the time, they are more likely to remember you next time. Make it easier for them to do business with you than with anyone else.
Having key information at their fingertips will increase staff confidence and build a more professional image to your clients.
For further information contact
Pam Mannell or Richard Dodds,
RD Associates (MK) Ltd,
Cranfield Innovation Centre,
University Way, Cranfield MK43 0BT. Tel: 01234 756011
e-mail: enquiries@rdassociates.co.uk
For more information, visit www.rdassociates.co.uk“
