CRM
Category Archives:CRM
CRM to Create Crowdsourced Process Improvements
A well planned customer relationship management or CRM system can be a great differentiator for your growing business. If you have the ability early on to capture important information about the type of customers you have, their buying habits and interests and the ability to analyze and synthesize this information to your benefit, you have the ability to not only maintain powerful, long-lasting customer relationships, you also have the ability to grow your business exponentially through referrals and repeat business.
According to a study published in Forbes magazine, a fully implemented CRM in a business such as yours has the potential to grow sales by 29%. The CRM can be a powerful tool to help you reach the pinnacle success in the type of business you are engaged. One of the ways your CRM provides a tremendous value to you, particularly as you start out, is through crowdsourcing your customers for feedback on your business processes. Soliciting customer feedback and participation in evaluating how you do business allows you to improve your business and strengthen their loyalty and commitment to the products and services you offer.
The Importance of Crowdsourced Process Improvements
Your CRM is a hub for managing customer information and interaction. If you think beyond a myopic use of the CRM as a data gathering tool and broaden its reach to include email, social media and other forms of dialogue and communication, you have in hand a powerful tool for developing a better customer profile and managing expectations. Information that is gathered through the CRM is captured in real time and represents a way to capture instant feedback relative to the way you do business and how your employees meet and manage the needs of your vital asset.
Crowdsourcing involves the inclusion of all aspects of your business and the sales cycles, from customer service representatives to management to the sales team to the very customers themselves. Feedback elicited from the feedback can be fed to the different functions within your business to better understand:
- What went right with the sale/transaction?
- What areas of improvement are present?
- Is this customer more likely or less likely to continue a business relationship with us?
Harnessing the power of the CRM to engage the customer is an important way to derive tremendous value from your system, we help many businesses do just that. For a no obligation conversation then please call us on 01392 241653 or contact us through the website here.
Should I Consider a Cloud Based CRM?
A customer relationship management system (CRM) can be the heart of your business. CRMs drive your interactions with customers, manage contacts and provide you with a way to increase sales and expand your customer base. You should consider as an emerging business how the inclusion of a CRM benefits your organization.
What are some of the reasons for considering a move to the cloud as a storage option for your CRM system? Do you lose control or access to the functionality of your CRM when hosted in the cloud? What do you give up moving to the cloud or, what do you gain from a cloud-based solution for managing your valuable customer information?
Here is a look at these questions and why a cloud-based CRM makes sense for you.
The Perception of Cloud-Based CRMs
Cloud-based computing is the buzzword for our time as it relates to all businesses, large and small. The simplest way to think about the way cloud computing works is by considering placing your files online as oppose to maintaining them remotely, through storage servers you own and control. Moving data, particular that containing proprietary customer information essential to building your business and managing customer relationships automatically invokes thoughts and fears about:
- Security and safety – is my information protected in the cloud and subject to loss or hackers?
- Accessibility – what type of access issues are present if I move my valuable business information into the cloud?
- Portability – Can I easily move my cloud-based information between sites, users or strategic partners with little to know disruption to my business and efforts to grow and become profitable?
These concerns are real; however the advantages of a cloud-based solution may more than outweigh the concerns you may have.
The Reality of Cloud-Based CRMs
The perceptions about a cloud-based solution for your CRM should be weighed against these advantages:
- Cost – use of a cloud solution saves you on the hardware and personnel costs associated with maintaining your own servers.
- Scalability – the unlimited potential of the cloud as a storage option means it grows as you grow, again lowering your costs associated with investing in hardware and people power.
- Accessibility – data can be access from any device connected to your business, allowing you to grant remote access to your field associates when interacting with customers.
If you are in the process of considering the power of CRMs to harness your business outreach and improve customer outreach and contact, you should also consider how a move to the cloud not only compliments your system but allows you to scale up quickly, lower your costs, and give you a business advantage that allows you to be competitive at a time as an emerging business such advantages are necessary for survival. This is how we’ve grown our business and how we can help grow yours.
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The Importance of Small Business sales automation
A customer relationship management (CRM) system is a powerful business tool. It is as important an investment for small businesses as it is for larger business organizations. As you become more dependent on data and its use in your business through changing technology, you find yourself at a competitive disadvantage when you choose not to integrate a small business sales automation system or CRM into your everyday business.
CRMs systems have advanced beyond appointment scheduling tools into providing your business with total small business sales automation to be able to generate opportunities for new and additional leads for your business. If you have not considered the purchase of a CRM system, here is some information further defining CRMs and their role in transforming your business.
Delivering Superior Customer Service Seen as Key Challenge to Business
Delivering the highest quality customer service is the highest priority for any business. It is a differentiator that separates those businesses on the fast track to growth and profitability and those struggling to survive or in decline. Chief Information Officers are increasingly investing in CRMs as a way to delivery on their customer service promise. A 2012 Forrester’s fourth quarter survey found that although less than half (47%) of companies in North America and Europe have implemented a CRM solution, spending increased 12.5% between 2011 and 2012 ($18 billion versus $16 billion).
Download your free brochure hereHow CRMs Become Important to Your Business
The use of CRMs become an important tool needed by small business to best deliver top service to customers. The essential elements of a CRM system include the ability to direct online marketing campaigns to existing customers, process online orders, complete order fulfilment and provide ongoing customer support. Ancillary functions include procuring sales leads through an online referral program, administration of customer satisfaction surveys and similar data driven processes.
Your CRM system does not remove the human element from the sales cycle and customer retention process. It gives you a powerful tool to harness data and become more efficient at maintaining these important customer relationships, making sales and making more sales.
We operate a small business sales automation for aspirational businesses click here to download the free brochure or contact us through the website here to arrange a free trial.
Why your business needs a Digital Plan
If your business does not have a digital strategy then how do you know where you’re heading and what you’re trying to achieve?
In this post we identify 5 problems that in our experience will effect the operation of your business if you do not have a clear Digital Plan.
Your business has no focus
We find that businesses with a digital plan do not also have a set of business goals for what they want to achieve in terms of customer development or business growth and if you do not have these business have goals you likely do not have enough resources to reach the goals and you then do not evaluate whether you’re achieving those goals.
Do you really know your customers at all?
There can be no doubt that digital is one of the most measurable marketing tools ever. However alot of the common statistical programs in use today will only tell you volume, not demographics and touchpoints – so how do you identify areas you can improve unless you know them?
Your business is not integrated
We often find if a business does have some kind of digital activity this is not focused on the business its run by ‘John who knows facebook’ at the same time as being a salesperson or the managers PA as she has a few spare hours a week. This should be integrated with your business so everyone buys into the digital plan and can play their part in identifying opportunities for the business to grow online.
You are loosing out to competitors who do have a clear digital plan
Pretty much every business we work with has some form of statistical monitoring of enquiry traffic and even just traffic – Facebook insights??. Unfortunately for alot of business this is as far as they go, they do not review and then act on the results of that review so they can decide where to implement the key aspects of the business marketing like email marketing and social media marketing.
Your marketing is not cost effective
Digital in 2016 has to be one of the most cost effective ways for any business to reach its target market, the only issue the growing business we work with come across is the lack of specific specialist digital skills which make it difficult for the business to respond effectively and this is where we come in as your outsourced digital partner.
So there you have it, five clear issued that will be effecting your business if you do not have a clear Digital Plan – if you are one of those businesses why not get in touch now, through the website here OR call us on 01392 241653 for a no obligation chat…
The five clear benefits of CRM Software for small business
We work with numerous growing business and help them engage and manage their customer relationships, we know that companies that manage those customer relationships the best are more likely to win than those that do nothing.
This management of customer relationships is the reason why the use of modern web based CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems has massively grown in recent years as small and growing businesses are able to adopt those technologies traditionally only open to large business thus making use of CRM Software for small business.
If you are still unsure about how CRM Software for small business could make a change to your business, here are five of the biggest benefits of a well managed and augmented CRM system.
Improved efficiency
A CRM system that can integrate with marketing and sales tools does offer significant efficiencies in replacing none joined up systems. They allow the business to move away from having multiple spreadsheets or checklists by joining all this process into one cloud based efficient system that allows you to track, monitor and engage at every stage of the customer journey.
Better Collaboration
With having one CRM system run your sales and marketing functions you can manage the job functions in your business that allow different employees (departments) to be able to input and increase the value of the customer engagement journey through good training and better data management.
Centralising your data
We’ve written previously about how data is any growing businesses greatest asset and having that data in one place THEM being able to manage run data analysis on this allows you to learn things about and from your customer that simply wouldnt be possible.
Increased accountability
By having a central CRM system for your business you can manage every aspect of that customer relationship thereby ensuring that prospects don’t get lost on bits of paper and they of course add a layer of accountability as you will know who has done what and when thereby managing this customer lifecycle.
Better customer experience
Ultimately, for all of the benefits CRM systems provide to the businesses that use them, the biggest benefit of CRM software for small business is that their use leads to a better overall customer experience.
Customers are more easily and accurately segmented, their needs identified, and because the status of a businesses relationship with them is accurately tracked, then they can interact with them meaningfully at the right times, leading to more sales, faster sales and higher customer retention and satisfaction.
If you would like a non obligation chat with the team at GleaveMedia to understand more about our CRM offering then please get in touch through the website here.
