Today, more
than ever, you have to be able to insure and measure the ROI of your activities.
Budgets are thinner than ever but it is important to make sure that the
operational implementation of your strategy is going in the direction you
expect. Most of the companies has now a CRM, but there is so much more opportunities
when you correctly manage your data:
- Boost the
efficiency by optimizing your processes
- Handle in a
relevant way your data and make sure you share it with the peoples who need it
- Estimate
and develop the knowledge and skills of your collaborators
- Oversee the
performance of your organization by individual, group or the entire company
- Improve
collaboration
- Know in
details what kind of relation you have with your partners, suppliers or
customers
…
I recently
had a discussion with a commercial director in an international company. I was
wondering why most of the expenses in the commercial field were about having a
better understanding of their customers. He told me a simple answer: “It is
cheaper to develop loyalty of a customers than convince new one to buy your
products. We bought this CRM to have a better understanding of the relation we
have with our customers.”
But when it
comes to measure of the ROI, the answer is a little bit more complicated. Are
you able to tell precisely the benefits for your business? Depending of the
organization, you will have a more or less precise answer. I won’t say that CRM
are bad because they are not. But why limit yourself to the tip of the iceberg?
A lot of information can be collected in an automatic way that reduce
significantly the time spend on entering data in CRM.
Most of the
activities, especially in the commercial area, are based on computerized tools.
That gives companies a powerful insight on their activities. Companies can now
capture meetings, phone conversation, mails, computerized activities… and so
much more! In fact, the question is not about the needs of those information
because every manager or employee is interested about it. The real question is:
Do I want to do something new? Take risks?
The problem
with a CRM is in the quality of the information. A strategy around a CRM will
only depend of the user and the information they put inside. Indeed, it
definitely help to manage the relation of an individual with the peoples he is
in contact with. But there is a huge amount of the information you are missing.
You know when the last contact was and what has been said… but you don’t know
more. A lot more information are available:
What is the
quality of the relation I have with this customer?
What is, in
details, my sale process?
How many
chances do I have to sell to this specific contact?
How much
contacts, answered or not, do you need to sell something
So much
information that you can get by an automatic way. And that’s the best ROI you
can have: Be sure that your employee’s activities are focus on things that
matters.
Have a good weekend!