Customer Satisfaction Is Key
By
Jay Bauer, President and Chief Process Consultant, STI Systems,
Inc.
In these lean times the ability to attract and retain customers can
prove a real competitive advantage over the competition. An
effective CRM strategy helps companies attract and retain customers
in today's economic climate?
Integrated CRM systems provide quality service
and build relationships by insuring the right people get the right
information at the right time. Delays due to credit holds or
incomplete approvals are avoided with integration into back-office
systems, eliminating conflicting information. Sales solutions are
based on an improved familiarity with the customer's information.
Support staff contributes to these solutions and advocates for
them.
However, if your CRM system only does those things, it is
underachieving. In difficult economic times, people mostly buy
things of strategic value and postpone items of tactical
importance. Our proprietary positioning methodology is used to
identify tactically positioned products, reposition them to
demonstrate strategic value to the target buyer, and formulate the
best process to employ within the CRM system to energize sales
during a sluggish economy.
CRM
technology empowers small to medium-sized businesses
with the ability to deliver quality customer experiences without
the overhead of capital-intensive IT solutions that large
corporations have. Today's CRM solutions link all of the
customer-facing parts of the organization so that all team members
have the information they need to deliver exceptional service and
strengthen relationships with customers, while maintaining
efficient business processes.
CRM automates business processes, including lead routing, quote and
proposal management, opportunity and pipeline management. All
levels benefit from the automation of workflow processes, which are
otherwise time-consuming and prone to error. CRM enforces proper
qualification of prospects, allowing the team to focus on the
highest value opportunities.
To select the right CRM technology for your organization, here are
some of the most important considerations:
A CRM system must conform to the current sales and account
management methodology to minimize disruption to the sales force
and other support organizations. The system must also have the
ability to adapt and grow as processes are refined and product
offerings change.
CRM
systems must have the ability to integrate seamlessly
with customer's applications, such as back office systems, proposal
generation, the web and customer-facing tools. Finally, it is
critical that the system be able to integrate to handheld devices
such as Blackberries. These tools provide sales and support with
instant access to customer information to insure quality.
To ensure that the system is tailored to the customer's needs, STI
begins with a thorough analysis of the customer's internal sales
and marketing processes. Success is insured by obtaining
concurrence at all levels of management and staff on the goals,
objectives and requirements of the solution. We frequently find
disparities in the expectations of these groups.
Because many implementers utilize a top-down design methodology,
these disconnects are rarely discovered or taken into account. STI
obtains concurrence on the process at all levels to ensure a
broad-based commitment to the system. STI also creates tools that
help sales reps execute the sales process in a manner designed to
answer the concerns of buyers and influencers within the buying
hierarchy. These step-by-step tools are in a sales playbook, which
is used to improve selling effectiveness. With this methodology, we
have achieved a success rate for CRM implementations well in excess
of the industry average.
In
the future,
as CRM systems move to web-based implementations, we will see more
integration with other web-based services especially social
networking systems which are currently under development.
Functionality of CRM modules will expand. CRM systems today are
fairly mature and I do not expect major changes over the next few
years. The emphasis will be to back office integration, improved
conversion tools allowing more efficient and cost-effective
upgrades, and reducing the total cost of CRM system
ownership.
About
The Author:
Prior to founding STI systems, President and Consultant Jay Bauer
had 25 years' experience in sales and marketing management with
such companies as Computer Sciences Corporation, Boeing Computer
Services, and Motorola. From 1991 until present Bauer has been the
Senior Process Consultant on more than 300 projects. Clients
include Wells Fargo Bank, CCH Tax Compliance, Blue Cross of
California, Pacific Care, Pacific Bell, and others.