The Benefits of CRM

With the advent of e-commerce comes e-customers who demands an immediate response with a personalized touch. Meeting their needs puts new demands on your enterprise. Since traditional ERP applications do not include a customer management aspect, CRM was the logical next step. Today, CRM solutions allow customers to automate their own lives just by picking up the phone, to check their bank balance, for instance, or by going online to shop, profiting retailers. CRM solutions save customers and companies time and money.

Improving customer service is dogma in CRM-land. CRM proponents like to tick off the many ways that CRM can improve customer service:  

1. Provide product information.

2. Product use information.

3. Technical assistance on web sites that is accessible 24 / 7.

4. Help to identify potential problems quickly before they occur.  

5. Provide a user-friendly mechanism for registering customer complaints (complaints that are not registered with the company cannot be resolved, and are a major source of customer dissatisfaction).

6. Provide a fast mechanism for handling problems and complaints (complaints that are resolved quickly can increase customer satisfaction).

7. Provide a fast mechanism for correcting service deficiencies (correct the problem before other customers experience the same dissatisfaction).

8. Identify how each individual customer defines quality, and then design a service strategy for each customer based on these individual requirements and expectations.

9. Use Internet cookies to track customer interests and personalize product offerings accordingly.

10. Use the Internet to engage in collaborative customization or real-time customization.

11. Provide a fast mechanism for managing and scheduling follow-up sales calls.

12. Provide a fast mechanism for managing and scheduling maintenance, repair, and on-going support (improve efficiency and effectiveness).

CRM is so dynamic that it simultaneously improves customer relationships while it is working on customer service issues. For example:

1. CRM tracks customer interests, needs, and buying habits while you tailor your marketing messages accordingly.

2. CRM tracks customer product use while you tailor your service strategy accordingly. This way customers get the parts they need, for example, before there's a problem with their vacuum cleaner.

Take a sales example: No more will the sales or client rep be solely responsible for interacting with the customer. That responsibility now lies with the home office and not with your sales representative alone. With a sales reps' mobility increasing in this economy, it is difficult to expect the same person to have contact with the customer as often as needed.  

What if there's been a personnel change? Then the new hire has to re-establish a rapport with the customer. This in itself is risky for you and might be irritating to the customer, if they have to explain (yet again?) his needs every time you hire someone new. It is not in the interests of your organization to operate without CRM software in the short or the long term.

With a CRM system, you present one consistent, competent image to the customer no matter whom is representing you. You shorten the sales cycle but increase key sales-performance metrics, such as revenue per sales representative, average order size, and revenue per customer. It benefits your entire organization because every department is empowered and you grow exponentially:

• Your marketing arm can increase campaign response rates and marketing-driven revenue while simultaneously decreasing lead-generation and customer-acquisition costs  
• Customer service organizations can increase service-agent productivity and customer retention while decreasing service costs, response times, and request-resolution times

In industrial markets, CRM technology can be used to microsegment the buying center to help coordinate the conflicting and changing purchasing habits of customers. Such improvements in customer service contribute to long-term customer satisfaction. It encourages repeat purchases, improves customer relationships, increases customer loyalty (decreasing customer turnover), decreases marketing costs (associated with customer acquisition and customer "training"), increases sales revenue, and, therefore, maximizes profits.

That is one of the underlying goals of CRM: To Think Big. You must think in terms of improving business performance exponentially. By streamlining processes and providing sales, marketing, and service personnel with the ultimate in customer information, CRM enables organizations to establish more profitable customer relationships and decrease operating costs.  

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