Client relationship management for success CRM Databases

Is Client Relationship Management or the narrower Customer Relationship Management (CRM) anything new?

Or simply common sense business principles and sound sales and marketing under a fancy name?

Companies which adopt CRM report sales growing faster than their none CRM focused competitors.

Why is CRM such big news?

- Because new technology makes it much more practical and realistic to store and access data than ever before.

Cheap powerful computers falling data storage costs and sophisticated software have changed the world.

Now even a one man business can deal with thousands of customers quickly and efficiently...

Typically 20% of customers produce 80% of the profits.
But all of the profitable customers were once in the unprofitable segment!
A dissatisfied customer may tell up to 11 people, or worse still, tell the whole world by launching their own website.
Happy customers tend to tell far fewer - the research says four.

How data used to be stored. For some companies how it still is!
Please do not feel "bad" if this is how your company database looks. You are far from being alone, well over half the companies in the UK are in a similar position.

Even those with a database are seldom much better organised.

Entire books describe CRM, what it is, and how to reap the benefits, but for a brief overview...

1. Client Relationship Management (CRM) is a philosophy, an attitude, a way of thinking.
- It is not a not something which comes out of a box. Sometimes people refer to CRM as being Customer Relationship Management - which is fine but businesses need to manage far more than their customers:-

Prospects
Suppliers
Employees
Associates...

and so forth need to be communicated with and details retained.

To reflect the wider business requirements Miraquel defines Client Relationship Management " as all the contacts which you need to manage and record".

2. Employees are more computer-literate and networks exist which allow information to be shared (or synchronised) across departments and different sites.

3. Where do you start with adopting CRM within your company or organisation - A key element is getting employees to "buy in" if they do not then all the software, computers and new strategies will go nowhere fast.
This needs to start at board level and move down through everyone everyone especially those on the front line such as sales, account handlers, and reception staff.
In reality there are very few if any staff who do not play a part in delivering a customer-focused business.

4. Elements of the plan may need to be kept confidential such as a new product launch or Loyalty Scheme, but broad objectives need to be shared.

5. The business must be prepared for some hard decisions. It may well be that once you have identified the most profitable customer segments, it will almost certainly be the case that you wish to "lose" some of your client base, whilst recruiting more of those who ones which are a better to fit to your business goals. This needs to be carefully thought through.

- Some not so great customers today might be acorns waiting to grow into mighty oaks.

- It could be that you can keep your less profitable customers and make them profitable by creating different products with differing service levels.

- Crass actions here can be very expensive or even fatal for a business.

6. Marketing was teaching the need to segment your customers 20-30 years ago. What was missing was the physical ability to do that! Today the hardware is readily available for those who wish to get an edge over their competitors.

7. Software is available which allows even SME's to deliver powerful CRM programmes.

8. But without objectives and strategies agreed by all the managers and employees in a cascading effect, CRM will not happen at any level.

9. Training is critical - if staff are not competent they will never be able to deliver a customer-focused service.

CRM is a long term investment. It is not a quick fix which can be applied and the benefits reaped in the following quarter.

Thoughts to consider...

It typically costs up to seven times more to recruit a new customer as to keep an existing one.
Most businesses spend at least 80% of their sales and marketing budget on customer recruitment.
Swapping the bulk of the marketing budget to focus on retention instead of recruitment is for most companies the surest and fastest way to put profits on the bottom line.

If you have read sufficient and you would like a demonstration and discussion of your needs please do not hesitate to contact us but if you would like more information.

Where Now? Return On Investment

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