10 Questions to Guide Your Customer Relationship Management Strategy by Geoff Ables 1 Am I trying to communicate with a large audience of perhaps 500 or more individuals, on a consiste
Trang 1Do You Need CRM?
10 Questions to Guide Your Customer
Relationship Management Strategy
by Geoff Ables
(1) Am I trying to communicate with a large audience
of perhaps 500 or more individuals, on a consistent basis (4 times per year or more)?
A few years ago, I was speaking with a friend who is a
senior executive at a large restaurant franchise The
conversation went something like this:
(2) Will I be able to benefit (lower my costs or increase
my revenues) by addressing that audience through direct channels such as snail mail, email, web, telephone, salesperson or point-of-sale?
Executive, "We're thinking about investing in a CRM
program, what do you think about that?"
Me, "Sounds great," but I knew that they had very slim
margins, low revenue per transaction and many
transactions "How do you expect to justify the
marketing and technology costs?"
(3) Will customers or prospects gain additional value if I personalize how I communicate with them and provide my products/services to them?
Two years later we're still not sure if there is a good
on direct mail, but should eventually include customizing how you serve customers throughout their relationship with you The benefit to the customer is that they receive more value out of the relationship The benefit to you is that customers become more loyal and less likely to leave
Be careful about taking the advice of that over-zealous
salesperson, consultant, marketer or
systems-integrator CRM is not for everybody
The issues that my friend has been dealing with,
coupled with all the stories of "CRM gone bad" has led
can I learn things that will help me become more efficient and effective?
Is CRM Right for My Company?
This is not survey or focus group data, but detailed data such as transactions, sales stage, segments and demographics Your goal is to leverage this data in a way that makes your sales more targeted, relevant and personalized allowing you to get customers faster and keep customers longer
It's a fair question But because of all the
misinformation still in the marketplace, the answer can
be elusive
At the most fundamental level, every company has
customers And every company should maintain some
basic information about those customers (names,
addresses, purchases, contracts, invoices, etc)
Therefore every company should have at least some
basic "CRM Technology" to track and serve their
customers Even small businesses use Outlook,
Quicken or other applications for this purpose
(5) Is the data used to analyze, segment, personalize and target customers available?
This last one can sometimes be difficult to answer Ask yourself three more questions to bring clarity: (i) Do I already have data about customers and/or prospects on one or more
systems? (ii) Is this data spread across different systems (i.e sales, accounting, service, marketing,
But for purposes of this discussion, we are going to
define CRM as "targeted mass marketing." That is,
having a large number of customers and/or prospects
whom you want to selectively communicate with
depending upon their preferences, past buying patterns,
demographics or other information
Given that simple definition, companies that are not
trying to communicate in a way that is both large scale
and targeted can walk away from CRM
For the rest of the world, there are 5 key questions you
should ask yourself:
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Trang 2Internet) that would be more valuable if it were in
one place? (iii) Can I cost-effectively either bring
this data together or start to collect it? Look for patterns in how you answered questions 1 through 4 If you see a lot of opportunity in your sales
group, then make it a priority to streamline the sales pipeline process If direct mail is critical to your lead generation or customer communications processes, then focus on database marketing If the Internet is a popular channel with your customers, then consider personalizing it for each customer, tracking it, and collecting click stream data
The more of those questions you answered with a firm
"yes," the more likely you are to benefit from CRM If
you comfortably answered "no" to all of those
questions, then focus on fine tuning other ways of
getting new customers and serving existing customers -
you're not likely to get much value out of CRM
If more than one or two of your answers are "maybe,"
then sit down with someone you trust to be objective
and experienced and try to firm up your answers
There is one more question you should ask yourself It
is usually for companies that have become more sophisticated in managing and using customer data But it is important in that it can lead to a significant competitive edge So I include it here for your long-term thinking:
Once you've made the decision that CRM is for you, it's
not a matter of deciding to do it You need to
understand
(5) Will custom tailoring your products, services, prices
or other areas of your business operations to meet the personalized needs of each customer result in greater customer loyalty / profitability?
Which Flavor is Right for You?
It can actually be tougher to decide where to start your
CRM project than it is to decide if you should do it at all
Those two sequences of 5 questions are a starting point for making rational decisions about CRM investments Although the answers do not always come easily, spending time on them will lead to customer relationships that are longer lasting and more profitable
Should you organize all of that data that is in different
systems? Should you streamline your sales pipeline
with better processes and technology? What about
personalizing your web site, measuring your direct mail
efforts and segmenting your customers?
The one answer that is certain to be wrong: "All of the
above."
While all of these areas may seem to have some value
to offer, attempting to go after all of them at once is
one of the key reasons for those "CRM gone bad"
stories I mentioned earlier Your job will be to prioritize
and arrange those projects in a meaningful sequence
Here again there are a few key questions you can ask
yourself that will point you in the right direction
Answer each of these questions with a list of one or
more communication channels (i.e sales force, direct
mail, email, web site, call center, telemarketing, etc):
(1) Where are you having the greatest volume of
customer interactions?
Summary and Helpful Hints
• Don't jump in too quickly Just because a competitor
is "doing CRM" or a salesperson is selling cool technology is no reason to leap in Decide if it is a good match for your business before investing
• Go for the "low hanging fruit." Discover which area of CRM can deliver value the fastest and focus on that - don't try to do too many things at once
• Get help If you think CRM is for you, but you have little expertise, then find an objective outside expert
that can help
• Take it slowly CRM can be thought of as an evolution There is no final destination, and you will continue to fine-tune even your best processes and technologies Break projects into affordable pieces can be delivered within 2-5 months that
This article written by Customer Connect president Geoff Ables, was originally published by the American Marketing Association in “The Source.” Article is ©
2003, Customer Connect Associates, Inc If you have any questions regarding your CRM goals or would like
to partner with Customer Connect, e-mail Geoff at
,
ables@cust-connect.com, or call us at (704) 947-5653
(2) Which channel is most important in driving revenue
into your organization?
(3) What data do you have readily available, and
through which channel could you apply it in order to
influence customer behavior in the near-term?
(4) Which channel can you most easily influence (i.e in
many organizations it can be tough to get past
gatekeepers for certain communication channels)
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