Customer Relationship Management gives a competitive edge |
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THERE has been an increasing awareness of the need for customer
relationship management (CRM) over the past six to nine months, but
there is still a lack of understanding in the market of what CRM
software solutions can do for a company, says Marcus Potts, MD of
Maximizer Software Europe, Middle East and Africa. He says companies often overlook the time and resources needed to make CRM work. “A common mistake is in thinking that one can buy a CRM software package and get an immediate solution.” He says that however good a CRM software solution is, it is not going to work if a company does not get its internal processes right before implementing it. CRM was born out of contact management systems, but today it is about managing customer-related business processes, including sales, marketing and customer service and support functions. Typically, the overriding issue companies want to address with CRM is managing their sales force and analysing sales activity. They want to achieve a management view of customer contact history, establish who is selling what to which customers and opportunities to sell more to them in future. They want to do sales forecasting, analyse what sales they are losing and why, solve problems and create opportunities. But while it is important to provide a solution to this management pain point, addressing sales activity in isolation is not the answer because each element of the bigger picture is intrinsically linked, says Potts. He says forward-thinking companies realise that good CRM can provide competitive advantage. They understand that it is 10 times more expensive to get new customers than to sell more to existing customers, and that it is no longer a case of keeping a customer for life, says Potts. “CRM enables companies to turn prospects into customers and then into evangelists for the company and its products.” He says it is a sad reality that if a customer gets bad service they are likely to tell 10 people, but if they good service they might tell one person at best. Companies will need to look at the expectations sales and marketing people have of CRM, because without their buy-in it will not work. “The only way to do this is first to get senior management to understand and believe in, and evangelise, CRM to the rest of the company,” says Potts. A golden rule is never to abdicate responsibility of CRM to IT staff, a supplier, the sales staff or anyone else, otherwise it will fail. |
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