Exceptional CRM systems offer organisations and their sales teams the latest customer and client information in real time. They can easily view customer details and create personalised experiences in a number of ways:
• Get up-to-date data and analytics that help the sales team identify and prioritise opportunities.
• Gain insights into customers and their needs so staff can tailor marketing communications, sales offers, and service.
• Centralise customer information, reducing search and follow-up time for the team.
What is a well executed CRM solution going to do for me, my staff and my customer?
When set up correctly, a well managed CRM solution can provide the tools to help them interact directly with your team, promoting loyalty to your brand.
• Allow customers and partners the ability to communicate through any channel and on any device.
• Provide access to more data, inform and empower purchasing and other engagement decisions.
• Offer customers the tools to schedule services that accommodate preferences and availability.
A well maintained and implemented CRM also provides feature rich marketing tools and capabilities:
• Determine the type of customer messaging required and the right time to send it.
• Seamlessly integrate with sales and analytics to find, nurture, and convert leads.
• Help create and send messages using your customer’s preferred channel.
Give your sales team an overview of your customer, while helping to identify new business opportunities:
• Share sales performance and key metrics with your staff.
• Identify and engage with the right partners to grow sales relationships.
• Use artificial intelligence (AI) to identify steps you should take during every stage of the sales process.
But, how do I select the right CRM system for my organisation?
This is a decision that can be overwhelming but can also be simplified by following a few simple processes.
1. What works for me?
Make a list of systems and activities you are already doing (even the very basic ones) that support your sales, marketing and customer engagement efforts. What are the features that are working for you and what is not. What are the things you would like to include in your CRM system going forward.
2. What is your budget?
Start to think about how much you want (or can afford) to spend. Are you going to look for a complete solution up front or do you want to implement a foundation that you can build on over time. What are the features (that you have already identified) that you must have up front and what can be put off until later. In other words… build yourself a road map.
3. What does your team want and need?
Get your end users on board, perhaps even some of your customers and partners. This ensures they are part of the decision making process and reduces push back and resistance to change. They are the ones that will be using the system after all.
Finally…
One last piece of advice… it is all about the data, data, data. Garbage in means that you will get Garbage out. To get the most out of your CRM, make sure your team is incentivised to be as verbose as the situation allows when updating information in the system and take steps to maintain the currency of your information. The last thing you want is one of your team discussing an opportunity with a client based on data that is twelve months out of date.