My CRM Gift to You

When John first asked Technology Advisors to join the Duct Tape Marketing Blog Channel he cited our whitepaper, "How to Select a CRM System", as one of the reasons for the invite. This document is packed with good information about what you need to look at when first considering getting involved with Customer Relationship Management.

"How to Select a CRM System" offers suggestions on what features to look at, cost considerations, deployment methods and much more. We've gotten good feedback from people saying it was a great start to beginning their CRM project.

Over the next week I'll be canoeing and hiking in the wilds of Canada, where the only technology I'll have access to will be my trusty compass and the miracle of freeze dried mac & cheese. With the Nailing Customers (with CRM) Blog on hiatus, I wanted to offer our most requested whitepaper to fill the knowledge gap.

For the next week, the whitepaper is available for download on our website at www.techadv.com/knowledge/hts_crm.asp You have complete access to the information, no questions asked, no forms to fill out. Just download it and read through it. If you want the whitepaper mailed to you of course we'll need your address, but that's it.

Provided I survive in one piece, we'll be back blogging the following week.

Web Lead Follow-up

Great post by fellow Duct Tape Bloggers, Norton and Ferguson, on the purpose and cost of a website.

"Sadly, the initial aim of a web designer was to create flashy, graphic laden works of art. The purpose of these was to look incredible at first glance and be admired for their artistic qualities... not much thought was put into how this was actually going to help a business make money."

This is sad, because some large companies are still using fancy flash home pages. Customers are forced to skip these to access the real information they’re looking for. People want information when they go to your site, not a three minute movie.

Certainly you’ll want to post your phone number in a prominent place, but even more effective are places where people can request information right there on your site. Many companies already have a “Contact Us” form page that people can use to request a call back, but it’s the savviest of marketers who use an offer on their site to capture casual browsers. These free whitepaper, cost-estimates, competitive info, etc… offers turn website stumblers into qualified prospects.

That’s where Customer Relationship Management can really help you.

Here’s one of our best performing web campaigns on our website called the Best Fit CRM Analysis. You answer twelve questions about your CRM needs and we put together an analysis for you. This gives someone who might otherwise just browse our site a chance to get something for free by telling us who they are.

If your prospects fill out a form on your website with a similar offer, you should call them back within 24 hours, 48 hours max. With special tools you can integrate that web form directly into your CRM system. It will import all the completed information and create a calendar reminder for a salesman to follow up with this lead immediately.

Now instead of waiting five to ten days (if at all) before calling your prospect , you can have a conversation before he or she has already forgotten about receiving this information.

“Hi, prospect Jane, I see you just downloaded our whitepaper. What needs are you looking to address?” And off you go.

Following up with leads quickly is the one of the most important strategies to keep your business moving forward.  How are you following up with the leads that come to your website? Is it done as quickly as it should be?

My CRM Conversion

I admit it. At first I thought CRM was a total waste of time. I didn't get what this new software program did and why any one would ever want to use it. Being a newly hired marketing intern at a company focused entirely on CRM presented a problem.

More than three years later as the head of marketing at Technology Advisors, I'm completely converted. I can't live without our CRM system. In my list of things I must use everyday, it comes up third most important:

1. Outlook
2. Internet Explorer
3. CRM
4. Phone
5. Paper and Pen

Yes, more important than the phone.

Our internal system is Sage CRM SalesLogix, and admittedly it took about three months before I realized what it could do to make my job easier. "Look I can find all the information I want on this person I have to call... Cool, I can group these people and send a mailing to all of them... Wow, look at me manage all my activities... You mean I can forecast?...  Did you see how I tied those sales back to my campaign?..." Every day I got a firmer grasp on how CRM could help me do my job better.

 

So what does this have to do with you?

I've had a range of opinions on CRM, from worthless junk to heaven sent salvation. In between I've learned how to use the stuff in a day to day fashion that will actually help you. As I continue to use SalesLogix CRM, I'll give you the candid details of how I'm using it right now.

For everyone already using CRM, maybe you'll get some ideas of how to build some new processes or shift some pre-conceived notions. And for those not yet using CRM, hopefully I'll start you down the same path I took. You'll realize how easier CRM can make your day. You'll have your own CRM conversion.

What is CRM? Why am I here?

Most companies think of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as a software package they purchase, but the concept of CRM is much older and broader than that. People have been practicing CRM for centuries, they just didn't call it that.

Take a general store owner in the old west named Joe. He has a customer named Bob who will weekly buy a pound of flour and a half pound of bacon. One week Bob skips purchasing the bacon from Joe because he knows a store down the street will sell it for less. Joe, because he has recognized Bob's buying pattern, realizes this and is able to explain the value of his bacon. Joe's bacon is leaner, more delicious, and comes from the best animals in the area.

Bob realizes his error and makes his usual purchase. In fact, he is so impressed with Joe's consideration that he begins buying gallons of milk from him as well.

These days, it's much harder to keep that personal touch with our customers. We have hundreds and thousands of customers that we rarely have time to speak with face to face. Once their purchase is done we hurry on to the next sale, often times forgetting the value of that customer. Many people have virtual companies on the internet where they will never even speak to their customers. We lose that personal touch.

But your customers still demand that level of service that led Bob to continue to buy from Joe. Customer Relationship Management helps you do that.

In my time in the CRM industry, I have written many articles trying to answer the question of, "What is CRM?" Here is my most thorough and succinct answer to that gigantic question:

"Customer Relationship Management is a business strategy, combined with the right technology, to consistently provide critical information on prospects and customers to your sales, marketing, and customer services team."

Believe it or not, you are already practicing CRM whether you have a complex technology system or keep track of your customers and prospects on paper. We have seen people organizing their customer information in all kinds of formats. Excel, Outlook. We even saw one company using Post-It notes. "Call John Abbot, 555-3467."

CRM software pulls all this information together in one place, giving you a full view of your customer. The Post-It company now knows why it is calling John Abbot. He wants to order five of our machines, but he's had two break in the past month. You know your customer, just like the general store owner did.

Throughout the course of our CRM blog, I'll try and paint the full picture of how CRM can work for you. I'll give you insider information on the industry and discuss the coming trends in Customer Relationship Management. Along the way, I'll interject my own experiences with our internal CRM system, SalesLogix. Hopefully you'll find my experiences interesting and useful!