Tradisional vs Modern CRM

CRM is such an overplayed word these days, yet so many people still do not understand what it actually is. CRM is more than just an online Rolodex. It is more than a place to organize and manage your contacts. It is a place to develop and build relationships with both existing and potential clients/ customers.

The relationship between a brand and its customers is a two-way street, and since customers are savvier than ever, they often control the flow of traffic. The buying landscape has evolved so much over the past 20 years that the rules that once applied no longer exist. Leads enter into our sales funnel from a multitude of different directions. There are countless ways they engage with your brand and it’s harder than ever to keep up. This is one of the BIG reasons why traditional CRM is incomplete and no no longer able to accomplish your business objectives. 

It’s is more complicated than a situation when you’re just looking at ‘this software over that software’. It is more about the underlying culture of your company. As consumer behaviors change, doesn’t your company need to evolve as well? We live in an ever-changing world, where in order to compete, you’ve got to shape-up or ship-out.

Just like our highways and power lines have increasingly become connected to one another, so does our information. If you want to drive across the country, there are highways that will take you there. The same goes for what we refer to as the “Network Economy.” Much like the Industrial Revolution, we are in an Information Revolution that is changing the nature of business and its structure as a whole.

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Information is now shared so freely and inexpensively on such a universal scale that the days of centralized bureaucracy and the pyramid structure of control and power are gone. Technology moves quickly and this sudden transition shocks and even scares some people, as the need for change is now.

So, what does this mean for businesses and how they are structured? According to a theory prepared by Joseph and Jimmie Boyett, in ‘The Guru Guide to the Knowledge Economy’, an interactive or open network is far more beneficial than a closed or compartmentalized system, because value stems from connectivity. As the lines between your brand the consumer blur, the more information you share the more powerful you become vs. keeping the information in alienated, disjointed nodes.

This is where the idea of a ‘complete’ CRM comes into play. Traditionally, CRM tracks your activities and workflows associated with each contact. This, however, is only a single part of your relationship. Just like dating, you want to know more than just what you guys do together, and what you talk about. You want to know what they enjoy doing outside of when you two are together. Did they go for a hike? Perhaps, they participated in an event that you would like to know more about.

A ‘complete’ CRM allows you to track more than just your phone calls, emails, and meetings. It enables the business to see what website pages they visited, what webinars they attended, the emails they opened, and links they clicked on. You can view if they had any issues and submitted a support ticket or inquiry in another department. All of this information and more makes you a pretty informed business, doesn’t it? Won’t that lead or customer appreciate the fact you know and, most importantly, understand what they are going through or interested in? I think so.

It is great to have the software, and the software definitely facilitates this type of open communication; however, it is crucial to note that this belief must be embedded into your culture. Software alone cannot completely change the way you do business.

When a business adopts a networked structure, they become more informed, closer to their customers, and therefore provide more value and an overall better customer experience. A better customer experience = loyal customers = more revenue. It’s a win-win, as we see it.

Author:Alessandra Ceresa     

Alessandra Ceresa, Marketing consultant, writer, content creator, and overall digital marketing strategist. With an iPhone, MacBook and iPad on hand at all times, Alessandra’s enthusiasm for marketing and social media landed her the position as the Director of Marketing for a leading software company. After graduating from the University of Southern...View full profile

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/strategy/redefining-crm-traditional-vs-complete-0982472#4Zf4eRiD8wDTIRiL.99

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5 Cara agar tim sales Anda gunakan CRM

If you’ve got a sales team that you’ve tried to get to use Customer Relationship Management software, you can probably attest to the fact that it’s often a difficult chore. No one likes change, especially when it comes to technology (unless, of course, it’s the iPhone 6. That’s another matter entirely.)

But you as the business owner know that implementing this CRM system will help you capture more opportunities and stay in better touch with your leads, so you really, really want your team to use it. Rather than forcing them to use it, these five tactics are better strategies for encouraging adoption of your new CRM.

1. Get them involved early and often

If you didn’t include your sales team — the people who will actually use the CRM — in the selection process, they may not feel vested in it. So it’ll be hard to get them excited about it. On the other hand, if you include your team in the selection of the CRM platform and its implementation, they’ll want to get involved. Give your team a voice, and they’ll feel like they were part of the decision to adopt this software.

2. Fit the CRM to your processes

Your business is unique, and the way you use CRM will be unlike how any other company uses it. And that’s a good thing.  Taking the time to configure and fit the CRM to your business processes will make it more intuitive to your staff, and encourage them to use it to make their work easier.

3. Incentivize usage

Everyone loves a little fun in the office, so try giving your team more reasons to try out the CRM. For example, at the end of the month offer an extra vacation day for the user that enters in the most call notes. Some CRMs use gamification to encourage usage, and you’d be surprised how quickly people will cotton to the software when there’s a healthy competitive reason to do so.

4. Keep data clean

Nothing demoralizes a user more than when he looks up “ABC Inc.” and there are five duplicate records in the database. Data stewardship — the act of ensuring there are no duplicates and that data is clean — provides confidence and builds trust with users. If your team knows the data in your CRM is up to date and scrubbed clean, they’ll opt to use it over your legacy system.

5. Integrate the CRM with other systems

On a typical day, your sales team uses a number of applications to get their work done. If your CRM is connected with the other core system(s) your team uses, then your staff will quickly realize the benefit of avoiding double entry or looking up the same info in two different systems. Integration between these systems will prove to be a real time-saver, and who can’t get on board with that?

Be patient but firm when implementing the CRM system. Make it clear that it provides real benefits to not only the company but also each salesperson, and that you’re willing to provide the training necessary to really dig into maximizing the effectiveness of this as a sales tool.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/sales-management/5-ways-get-sales-team-actually-use-crm-0976770#YXQ7fIkdPXHeokjE.99

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CRM masa kini

The Modern CRM

Its Not Your Mother's CRM Anymore

Published 10:01, 05 August 14

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CRM technologies are over two decades old. Companies first used them to provide “inside-out” efficiencies;operational efficiencies for sales, marketing and customer service organizations when interacting with customers.

They aggregated customer data, analyzed that data, and automated workflows to optimize customer engagement processes. Companies could easily argue business benefits by measuring operational metrics like reducing marketing costs, increasing revenues from sales people, decreasing sale cycle times, better pipeline visibility, decreasing service resolution times and more.

Because of this quantifiable ROI, CRM became a must-have in large organizations. This strong demand prompted CRM vendors to tackle huge swaths of business problems, and fueled ongoing innovation and consolidation in the marketplace. Today, much of CRM technology is commoditized, and leading vendors offer competitive solutions, choke-full of features and functions, including deeply verticalized solutions.

Being successful at CRM today builds upon yesterday’s internal operational efficiencies and extends the power of these solutions to better support customers through their end-to-end engagement journey to garner their satisfaction and long term loyalty - an “outside-in” perspective. Modern CRM strategies enable good customer experiences. They support customer interactions with one another over a range of social, digital and mobile channels. How? By leveraging the vast amounts of interaction and transaction data to deliver contextual experiences that add value to the customer, and preserve the value of the company brand.

How do you modernize your CRM?

1. Align your CRM strategy with your customer experience strategy. Uber does this right. Their customer experience is journey is streamlined for minimum friction. For example, when you sign up, your payment information is accepted by a quick scan of a credit card. When you requests car service, the driver and car details are displayed, and progress can be tracked via GPS. Transactions are effortless as no money change hands. And when you need customer service, its effective and personalized.
2. Focus CRM outcomes on revenue uplift, not operational efficiencies. Don't focus on intricate cost-based justifications for CRM - focus on business outcomes which quantify the value of driving higher levels of revenue and company profitability through winning, serving, and retaining customers and enabling the workforce to be more productive and aligned to customer strategies.
3. Leverage CRM to support the end-to-end customer journey. Customers are increasingly impatient as they engage with companies. They want to use multiple communication channels and touchpoints in the course of a single interaction, and not have to repeat their situation every time they switch channels. For example, they want to start a return process online, and drop the merchandise off in a store; or they want to purchase merchandise online, and pick it up in a store. You must elimitate points of friction in your customer journeys.
4. Deeply personalize engagement. Customer experiences must be deeply personalized, based on explicit and implicit feedback about customer needs and preferences, and must be delivered in the moment, taking into account a person’s current state and location. Weight Watchers does this well, tracking member online and offline behavior to tailor plans that can transform their health.
5. Extend CRM by leveraging integrations. Welcome to the Internet of Things. With modern services and standardized APIs, it's easy to use lighter-weight CRM solutions, or best-in-breed applications, allowing organizations to purchase just what they need and integrate it into a larger technology ecosystem, rather than trying to purchase a massive application that covers every eventuality. A great example is New England Biolabs, a supplier of specialized enzymes and reagents for DNA research, who connects freezers in scientist labs to the internet to track inventory, and product usage. They use this information to better tailor formulas to scientists specific needs.
6. Engage users simply. Face it, most people hate using CRM, as data entry and retrieval is hard to do. CRM success demands role-based, simplified user interfaces. User experiences should be task-based and map to common processes, which proactively display relevant information such as the products that the customer owns, the services they subscribe to, and what customer tier they’re in.

Read my report on the Modern CRM for some great case studies.

Posted by Kate Leggett

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