10 Direct Ways Customer
Relations Management Will Grow Your Company's Sales Part 2
6. Build
a database against you competitors and share across your organization!
Every salesperson
accumulates important competitive
information on just about every sales opportunity. Most of the
time, this information could be of value to other sales and marketing
representatives in the organization also if it was shared. Typically
however, this competitive
insight is not shared except perhaps within the team and even
then in a poorly organized manner. CRM can provide the ability to
capture this competitive insight and make it generally available
to all business development members. Information such as competitive
strategies, SWOT analysis, win/loss history, pricing, and product
information can help give your company the competitive edge.
7. Identify product sales
and competitive trends
CRM can make
it easy to compare
historical sales results with current results and empower business
managers with the information needed to make changes based on marketplace
trends and the competitive
environment. Declining win/loss ratios for a specific product
line, for example, may suggest new entrants to the marketplace,
lower pricing, or poor
quality. The ability to capture why a sales opportunity was
won or lost can provide key insight into company strengths and weaknesses.
8. Effectively nurture
prospective and existing customers!
Without CRM, nurturing prospective
customers is typically quite difficult because it requires the management
and analysis of a wealth of information such as product line interests,
purchase history, business/decision roll, etc. CRM can allow salespeople
to easily capture this information and execute automated campaigns
that keep you in front of a prospect so that when they are ready
to buy they think of you first.
9. Analyze marketing
and lead generation results!
Marketing
dollars are limited and we want to spend them effectively so
that we can create the most value for our company. CRM makes it
easy to associate sales leads with the marketing activities that
generated them making it easy to identify what marketing
activities are most effective in helping your business
grow.
10. Share account and
opportunity information throughout your sales organization.
Dispersed multi-region sales
teams often work (or would like to work) on the same customer account
but perhaps for a different division or section of that account.
The ability to easily share historical
sales and activity history with other sales account representatives
can give your business the ability leverage these relationships
to open new doors and create new sales opportunities.
Consider the value!
Consider the
value of acquiring just a few of these capabilities within your
organization. Would these capabilities increase
your sales and marketing
success by 10%, 20%, or even more? For most businesses, even
a modest 5% increase in revenue generation will return the investment
in a well planned CRM solution in 3 to 4 months. A 10% increase
typically results in a payback period of around 2 months. The point
is, the value in CRM is there. However, it is worth investing
the resources to roll out a CRM initiative strategically so
this value
can be realized. This means planning and training. If rolled
out correctly, a good CRM system can help your business achieve
new levels of revenue growth.
William Moseley
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