This is the non-business jargon explanation of CRM in one page. It’s a tall order but we’re going to give it a go. If you want more in-depth information on what CRM can do for the different parts of your business then please see the links at the bottom of this page. 

Every company that we see has, to a greater or lesser extent, the same problem. Dispersed information relating to one or more parts of their business. It is the need to become more effective in creating and using this information that drives the investigation into how a CRM system can help speed up a particular process or help the business get visibility of it’s sales pipeline or indeed current customer issues. 

Of course just creating information doesn’t help a business to become more competitive, it is only when businesses use the CRM system to improve processes, based on the information and working process they support that drives increased personal and team performances. We often start with business drivers and work backwards from there. I’ll use one of the most common information requirements in business relating to the sales cycle to illustrate what I mean. 

The monthly Sales Forecast. How to get an instant view of monthly forecasted sales. From my experience I would say that the most frequently used tool in creating a monthly forecast by UK businesses is a spreadsheet. This is usually a manually updated or static list filled in by each account manager which is then sanitised and compiled into a department of company wide report by the Sales Manager, a truly unproductive repetitive task. The major problem that exists with this process is that the information to update each business opportunity is currently stored in many different places, the customer or prospect information may be on the accounting system or maybe just a note on a scrap of paper at this stage. Any notes on phone calls made or next actions agreed could reside in a PDA or in an account managers’ head, they are certainly not easily accessible to any single person, most importantly the person responsible for winning the business. 

By using CRM software each account manager will be able to clearly see their business opportunities, what they have done to get them to the stage they are at and what they need to do to progress them to the point of closure. Ideally each opportunity will have some key measures applied to it, most commonly the value, the date it is expected to be won and the probability of winning it. As you can hopefully see if each account manage is dynamically updating this information as they work to close opportunities and win business then the monthly forecast is always available and visible to all users of the CRM system. This not only allows Sales people to be relieved of the monthly updating of the forecast spreadsheet but also allows them more time to work on closing the opportunities the are working on. Using the Sales Forecast as an example you should be able to imagine how the CRM system will hold information about future business opportunities and how sales people are able to schedule activities into a daily diary of things to do to close those opportunities. 

A CRM system is also very much about managing your customers from the sending of appropriate Marketing information through to the identification and resolution of their service and support issues. One of the classic but seemingly trivial benefits of having all you customer and prospect data in one place is that it becomes much easier to send out the annual Christmas card, or any regular communication for that matter. 

To get a more detailed view of how a CRM system can benefit each aspect of a business have a look at the following relevant pages, each page has a Basic, Intermediate and Advanced section. 

How Can CRM help my business?

Customer Relationship Management activities are vital to ensuring existing customers are retained and new prospects are converted to customers. The CRM system has been developed to enable businesses to plan and keep track of all these various types of activity from Marketing to Sales through to Customer Service and Support. 

Our experience shows us that companies buy a CRM system when they have a specific need or driver, it is this driver that initiates the CRM project and allows all the other benefits that a CRM system brings to be taken into consideration and applied to the business. 
Common examples of initial drivers are listed below;

Marketing
Send an email to all my customers communicating a new product launch.
Write a letter to all dormant customers requesting a meeting. 
Create more leads through targeted prospect mailings. 
Have a database of companies for telemarketing, record results of phone calls and schedule meetings for sales people. 
Record the cost of marketing activities and understand the revenue return from each type of marketing campaign. 

Sales 
Increase the number of active leads each sales person can manage. 
Increase the speed and reduce complexity of sales forecasting and pipeline management. Prioritise sales people’s time and effort in winning critical deals. 
Lack of consistent approach to selling key products. 
Reduce the amount of administration time for sales people. 

Customer Service 
Increase the visibility of customer service issues throughout the business. 
Resolve customer issues faster by searching for frequent questions and resolutions. 
Record customer service level agreements. 
Identify the most profitable support customers. 
Allow customers to record their customer service issues on your website. 
Prioritise customer support issues depending on issue type. 

If your business is considering how a CRM system can address your issues you’ll find lots of relevant information in this website. If you would like us to come and discuss the subject with you then just give us a call.

To get a more detailed view of how a CRM system can benefit each aspect of a business have a look at the following relevant pages, each page has a Basic, Intermediate and Advanced section. 

Account Managers CRM | Managing Directors CRM | Sales Manager CRM 
Marketing Managers CRM | Customer Service Managers CRM