What is CRM?
(Customer Relationship Management)

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CRM DEFINED

The business strategy, process, culture and technology that enables organizations to optimize revenue and increase value through a more complete understanding and fulfillment of customer needs. CRM involves all of your organizations "Customer Touch Points" and includes every part of your company that has direct or indirect interaction with your customers and prospects. CRM systems accumulate customer knowledge into one central place for access by management, and all other relevant customer touch points with the goal of improving productivity in four ways:

What is a CRM system? (click on diagram to enlarge)

Communication - by and between your various internal organizations and by and between you and your customers and prospects.

Efficiency - Improving productivity while not in front of the customer. Things like auto letter generation, literature fulfillment, report generation.

Effectiveness - Improving productivity while in front of the customer. Things like real time access to price and availability, automatic order generation, visual presentation support.

Decision-making - better accumulation of information aids in corporate decision-making. Management will have a more accurate and global view of customer and market focus, as well as respond more quickly to market movement. Decisions will be based more on facts rather than "gut feel".

CRM Systems typically involve one or more of these four software elements:

I. Marketing Automation - allows the company to capture and analyze specific information related to accurately targeting prospects. A company may then create automated marketing campaigns, which automatically assign leads to specific sales reps and automatically schedule all desired follow-up activity. Once conducted, campaign responses may be captured so that the lead can be followed all the way through the sales process for accurate calculation of ROI.

II. Sales Automation - allows sales reps to capture all information necessary to close a sale.

• Capture many different contacts at one account.
  
  
• Manage many opportunities at one account.
  
  
• Manage daily tasks with a sophisticated contact and calendar management system.
  
  
• Simplify reports by automating the reporting process.
  
  
• Capture competitive information in the field, when it is fresh and meaningful.
  
  
• Generate quotes and proposals from within the system.
  
  
• Configure complex sales.
  
  
• Generate accurate forecasts automatically.

III. Support Automation - gives your service and support teams access to all relevant customer data for purposes of tracking and responding to all incidents, defects, returns and inquiries. The Support representatives can quickly access common problems and the associated resolution or product procedures. For those difficult issues, support automation gives the representative the ability to quickly search the cumulative company support knowledgebase. In addition, Support Automation enables your company to have a virtual service center open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days per year by providing internet access to a published knowledgebase of information as well as On-line Ticket, or incident generation.

IV. Internet Access - The Internet has brought a whole new realm of possibilities to the CRM market space. Within CRM, the Internet provides 24 hours access and functionality for many different audiences (with appropriate access). ·

• Customers - Place orders, capture leads, access knowledge and Generate incidents (Tickets).
  
  
• Channel Partners - Distribute leads, update leads, forecast volume.
  
  
• Sales Reps - Virtual access from almost anywhere.

All companies must have customers to generate revenue. A CRM system provides Customers and Prospects with a seamless and cohesive experience throughout the entire purchasing life cycle. Typically, there are two types of activities that result in revenue:

• Acquiring New Customers - this begins with your marketing effort and ends with a closed sale. When automating the process of acquiring new customers, the emphasis is on ROI for marketing and revenue per rep for the sales department. This is measured through calculation of "Cost of Sales".
  
  
• Generating Repeat Purchases - by definition, this process begins and ends with existing customers, it involves up-selling and cross-selling. The Sales and Support teams work in conjunction to Maximize revenue per customer, which becomes the measuring stick for performance in this area.

In summary.

CRM attempts to close the revenue gap that exists in most companies today. The Revenue Gap is the difference in Revenue between your current state and that which could be generated if all of your "customer touch points" or PEOPLE were perfectly informed about each Customer and perfectly automated to operate at maximum efficiency.

Your company can start closing the Revenue Gap by creating deeper and more meaningful business relationships with your customers and prospects. This is accomplished through the accumulation of information and data about each and every customer or prospect, and acting on that data to provide the customer with a seamless, customized experience which leaves the customer feeling well served.

Where should I begin?

Start by completing our "Learn More Form" (click here). Tell us a bit about your particular situation and one of our experts will point you in the right direction.

 

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