CRM Overview: 5 Minute CRM

For the 5 Minute CRM, we shall present an executive overview of Customer Relationship Management. Upon completion of this page we strongly recommend further reading in What is CRM? (a more in-depth overview of CRM) and Why use CRM?. Of course we would like to hear from you, and talk in person regarding CRM and your business. Please do not hesitate to Contact Us and see how CRM Systems can benefit you
Minutes One to Three:

What is CRM?
CRM, or Customer Relationship Management can be seen as follows:
CRM is an enterprise wide business strategy designed to learn about customer’s needs and behaviors to organize and manage Customer relationships to maximize profitability and minimize expenses. A well planned CRM can be viewed as a strategic process merging strategy and system to amalgamate information from across the company (sales, marketing, finance, accounting, etc.) to offer a complete view of the customer and develop stronger relationships with them. Information gained from all internal and in some cases, external, sources allows the company to complete a full 360 degree view of their customer in real time.
In effect, CRM allows your organization to develop a relationship with your clients and make your operations more efficient.

How does it do this?
CRM amalgamates information accross your departments into one central system. CRM is NOT just technology and software, it is a process and way of doing business that goes beyond the tools you use. CRM is a new way of doing business.
A CRM system begins with a thorough process review of how your company presently does business and how it would like to do business. Which service levels it would like to reach, which information it would like to collect on it's clients, and where the business wants to go.
In plain words, CRM allows you to get to know your customer extremely well and be able to capitalize upon this knowledge.
Through the collection of information during routine transactions, you will be able to get to know buying patterns and collect information on your customer that helps both sides of the relationship. 

For example:
For many companies this is their present situation: Imagine a system in place where the lines of communication and information requests are somewhat scrambled.
Issues:

•Each area has their own system, tracking and keeping records on different software
•Management does not have real time performance information
•Customer Service does not have marketing information for cross sell opportunties.
•Sales does not have easy access to client records
•Customer calls, old system doesn't tie into account, so don't know past order

A CRM system has one central system where all the information is collected and stored in one location.

•Everyone is connected into one system
•People have the information they need to do their jobs
•Sales and Customer Service have a deeper knowledge of the customers.
•Data duplication is eliminated
•Data security is strongly enhanced
•Providing promotions, services and products that are exactly what your customers are looking for
•Offering better customer service
•Cross selling products more effectively and quickly
•Helping sales staff close deals faster
•Retaining existing customers and discovering new ones
•Building a relationship with your customer
history


Minute Four:
What are the benefits of CRM?
Using this CRM strategy, a business can increase revenues by:

•providing promotions, services and products that are exactly what your customers are looking for
•offering better customer service
•cross selling products more effectively and quickly
•helping sales staff close deals faster
•retaining existing customers and discovering new ones
•building a relationship with your customer
CRM involves three overall parts: people, process and technology and sews these parts together in an unobtrusive and harmonious manner.  Technology can help automate sales and marketing flow, so that more menial tasks are done by the technology, freeing your people to better do their jobs.  CRM helps your people by enabling them to do their jobs even more effectively.
CRM helps your company by automating many processes, which helps to retain knowledge in the company and enhance the customer experience.  A customer who makes daily or weekly orders will be treated like a person, not a number.  Any special promotions or marketing packages relating to their buying habits can be promoted to them in an unintrusive manner.  The key to successful CRM is to woo your customer, not stalk them.

Minute Five:
What is the best way to implement CRM?
A successful CRM implementation begins with a business process review involving all levels of staff.  If they don't feel like a part of the process, your system will not be easily pushed upon them.  The  implementation depends on the size of the project and the modifications involved.
Keys to success: let the employees know from the start and have them help build and test the system.
A successful implementation of CRM is not about new software, it's about following a refined business process.  People tend to resist change unless they are a part of that change, and 21CRM system works with your company to guide projects from beginning to completion with staff buy-in.

The past decade has seen incredible enhancements to software that small to mid-market businesses can afford.   You can implement CRM at a much faster pace than large companies which take a while to turn around.