The CRM Concept
CRM (Customer Relationship Management): Managing customer relations. Terminology confusion often occurs between "the CRM concept" and "CRM systems on a computer".
The CRM concept: Is a set of internal standards and business protocols related to customer service (the type of service you want or would want to provide for buyers). Quite often, to increase corporate profitability, we segment customers into several categories (for example, with the aid of ABC analysis) and develop various methods to serve buyers depending on which group the customer belongs to.
The CRM system: Is software that helps to implement, measure and control internal standards and work methods related to serving customers. When implementing the CRM concept and/or a CRM system, it's very important to understand how and why you'll refine your customer service protocols, and how the CRM system will help managers and directors save time spent on managing and measuring consumer service parameters.
It's astonishing, but still today many companies neglect to call back and invoice customers promptly! Management and accounting of even the simplest operations increases the efficiency of the sales department's work considerably, and nearly without expense.
The most common causes of inefficiency in the sales department:
The problem | Possible causes | Solutions | Role of the CRM system |
Losing incoming calls | Managers are not requesting contact information | Taking notes about incoming calls, comparing them with the managers' report | Managing newly created contacts and comparing them with company records |
Managers forget to call clients | Laziness, excessive quantity of work, an awkward procedure to organize work | Controlling the workload scheduling of managers' contacts | Reducing managers' time spent on planning and directors' on administration of unfinished business |
Good managers stop selling | It's impossible to manage more than 100 to 150 contacts concurrently | Properly managing a surge of new contacts (removing old ones, adding new ones) | Reducing directors' time spent on evaluation/removal of "useless" contacts |
Low effectiveness of telemarketing | Low quality database, unqualified salespersons, a bad product | Administering a contact database, requesting reports on the reason(s) behind each refusal, clarifying the terms of sale in the contract | Reducing managers' time spent on producing reports and facilitating directors' error analysis |
Installing a free personal Galloper CRM system for each manager, and supervising his/her work at least weekly, will already produce a fairly good result. The most important concept to keep in mind: you must know how to manage customer relations. A CRM system is only a tool, not a panacea to all problems. Consultants won't be able to help you with this. You'll need to do the work yourself.
ADDITIONALLY:
Training video: Galloper CRM for managers and director.
Free course: «How to increase sales by 20%» for directors
Free training course: «How to implement CRM within 3 days»