10 Essential reasons to upgrade your CRM Now

Transcription

1 10 Essential reasons to upgrade your CRM Now

2 There are a myriad of reasons why it might be 3me for you to consider upgrading your exis3ng Customer Rela3onship Management (CRM) system. We have compiled a list of the 10 most common reasons our clients have cited as key contribu3ng factors in their decision to upgrade their CRM system. Most modern CRM systems are scalable to support business growth, they can be customised to some extent and provide a degree of repor<ng capability. However, there will come a <me when your exis<ng CRM system will no longer meet your business requirements and a CRM upgrade will be necessary to support con<nued growth and success These 10 essen<al reasons to upgrade your CRM system will help you iden<fy if that <me is right for your business now. 1. You can t track all your customer data If your current CRM system is not providing you with the ability to see a single, 360 degree view of your customers and their interac3on with your business, irrespec3ve of their method of engagement, then it s 3me to consider an upgrade. If you are finding it difficult to track all customer ac<vity from within your CRM system and communica<ons are taking place outside your CRM then alarm bells should be ringing. This is because the value and accuracy of the data that is stored within your CRM system will be ques<onable and most certainly incomplete. Do you know how your prospects or customers are using your website in real <me? Your CRM system should make it easy for your marke<ng, sales and customer service teams to capture and record customer communica<ons, whether that contact is via a web form, , telephone or indirectly on Social Media. Unfortunately It can either be too complex or simply too expensive to integrate all those data sources within your current CRM system. If you find yourself in this predicament then you most certainly need to look at upgrading your CRM system before it starts having a detrimental effect upon your business. When you look for a new CRM system you ll be able to ensure you select one that is flexible and able to capture all customer interac<ons whilst also being adaptable, to incorporate new channels such as new and emerging social plaporms.

3 2. You are not receiving enough leads or conver3ng enough to won deals If your CRM system isn t helping or providing you with enough leads then take a step back. Look at what marke3ng ac3vity is taking place to ensure your sales pipeline is receiving enough marke3ng qualified leads. Most CRM systems have only basic marke<ng func<onality that many businesses quickly outgrow. Today, marke<ng departments have an ever increasing number of ways in which they can iden<fy and engage with poten<al customers. If your CRM system doesn t provide your marke<ng team with the tools it needs to nurture and connect with customers then you need to upgrade before your business gets les behind. Marke<ng Automa<on is a must have for businesses today, providing the marke<ng team with a comprehensive lead management tool that helps companies turn more leads into revenue. A common issue within many businesses is that there is no process for managing leads, other than saving them in the CRM system. Marke<ng Automa<on ensures that your leads are sufficiently qualified to be assigned to a salesperson. The key features offered by Marke<ng Automa<on that are essen<al to create an automated lead management process include: marke<ng: Allows for unlimited s op<mized for deliverability Lead nurturing: Includes trigger- based s and mul<- step campaigns Landing page builder: Includes a form builder to capture leads Lead scoring: Both demographic and behavioural ac<vity Ac<vity tracking: Based on and web ac<vity Bi- direc<onal integra<on with the CRM database Comprehensive marke<ng repor<ng and analy<cs If your marke<ng team are genera<ng an acceptable number of qualified leads but not enough of these are conver<ng to closed/won opportuni<es fast enough, then look to the way your sales process is managed. Can you show that your sales team is following clearly laid out steps or are they diverging into self- managed, fragmented processes?

4 Your CRM system needs to allow you to clearly define each stage so that your sales team can iden<fy and accurately label prospec<ve clients and customers. Once this is in place you should be able to run reports that track conversions at each stage and monitor progress. You should be able to iden<fy where opportuni<es are being lost so further inves<ga<on and appropriate ac<on can take place. If your current CRM system doesn t allow for this level of repor<ng then you most certainly need to look at upgrading your CRM system. This crucial insight into your sales performance can osen go unno<ced, par<cularly if sales figures are being reached. But sales figures are like the score at the end of the football match. They tell you li^le about how the game was played let alone how you might be able to improve things next <me around. Cloud CRM can increase lead conversion by 38%, Sales win rate by 26% 3. You have no real 3me visibility of your sales pipeline, marke3ng effec3veness, order processing or customer sa3sfac3on With the explosion of sales and marke3ng channels, and the number of ways a customer can interact with your business it takes much more 3me and effort to find out which ac3vi3es are working and which ac3vi3es are not. No doubt your exis<ng CRM system will offer some repor<ng capabili<es but does it provide your sales, marke<ng and support teams with access to real <me informa<on and allow them to query, understand and act on relevant data quickly without the interven<on of your IT department? Today s CRM systems can provide access to real <me customer intelligence and analy<cs that can help your business to develop or enhance strategies that increase cross- sell opportuni<es, upsell opportuni<es, and customer reten<on. The advantages are shorter decision cycles and the ability to take ac<on in real- <me which results in improved margins, increased produc<vity and greater customer sa<sfac<on.

5 The average business loses around 20% of its customers annually simply by failing to a^end to customer rela<onships. In some industries this leakage is as high as 80 percent. The cost, in either case, is staggering, but few businesses truly understand the implica<ons. Many organisa<ons lack the tools to iden<fy the reasons for customer a^ri<on. Keeping customers can be challenging, but as markets mature, successful reten<on strategies are becoming an increasingly essen<al element of compe<<ve advantage The following example illustrates the importance of reducing customer a^ri<on. Imagine two businesses, one that retains 90% of its customers, the other retaining 80%. If both add new customers at the rate of 20% per year, the first will have a 10% net growth in customers per year, while the other will have none. Over seven years, the first business will virtually double, while the second will have no real growth. Everything else being equal, that 10% advantage in customer reten<on will result in a doubling of customers every seven years without doing anything else! If you have to make do with the standard, canned reports provided by your current CRM system, enlist the help of your IT department or worse, resort to spread sheets to get the informa<on your business needs to make informed decisions then it s <me to change your CRM. 4. People don t use the system properly. There are too many spreadsheets in the business. If your employees are avoiding or failing to use your CRM system correctly then the value of the data contained within it will at best be ques3onable and at worst, useless. You won t be able to forecast accurately or make informed decisions that will impact on the performance and success of your business. Prolifera<on of spreadsheets is evidence of data being omi^ed from CRM and disconnected processes Your CRM system should allow you to create an advantage to using the system, for the end- user this means, it s easier to do my job using the system than not using it.

6 If there s an advantage to using your CRM system there should also be a disadvantage to not using it. Many businesses take the view If it s not in the system, then it doesn t exist. If users have been trained on the system but are s<ll not using it because of personal preference, this will mo<vate them to change their ways par<cularly if they lose credit for a lead, opportunity, or sale because they forgot to log it into the CRM system. Your CRM system should also provide you with tools to measure its use, with sales teams this could be the number of contacts created in the last 30 days - they should be mee<ng new people all of the <me are they being entered onto your CRM system? Opportuni<es that have Close Dates in the past - this will give you important informa<on about the sales pipeline but it s also telling you that sales people aren t managing their opportuni<es in the system. Opportunity Stage Movement - this can tell you how opportuni<es are moving through the various stages. For example if a large propor<on of opportuni<es go from an ini<al Stage of Prospec<ng straight to Closed Won or Closed Lost then it means sales people are not using the CRM system to track opportuni<es through the various stages (or you have poorly defined sales stages), the result is that you are losing valuable pipeline repor<ng informa<on. If your CRM system isn t intui<ve to use and doesn t require the user to follow well defined, structured business processes then this needs to be addressed and if it can t, it s <me to upgrade to a more flexible system that you can tailor to your business processes. 5. Your sales team are on the road and need to access CRM from any mobile device Employees are now able to conduct business faster and more intelligently when armed with smart devices and mobile CRM out in the field. FACT - Today s mobile enabled CRM solu<ons raise sales produc<vity by 36%. If your sales or field service teams are having to call into the office prior to a client visit to confirm customer contact details, obtain past purchase history or warranty and service record details for example and then having to wait un<l they get back into the office to raise an order or update a service call request then they are clearly not as produc<ve as they could be.

7 Mobile CRM allows your sales and field service teams to focus on what they do best; selling and delivering excellent customer service rather than spending endless ineffec<ve <me on administra<on. I ve never met a salesperson yet who enjoys doing admin, so freeing them from this chore osen results in addi<onal benefits, such as improved job sa<sfac<on and when they realise the benefits of Mobile CRM overall adop<on rates increase. The best CRM solu<ons today let people do everything on their mobile devices that they could do with CRM at their desktop. In addi<on, mobile devices also offer capabili<es unique to the device, such as the ability to capture photos, voice recordings, and GPS data, and upload that into the CRM system. If you have teams that are mobile that interact with customers and your CRM doesn t have the ability to provision those teams with mobile CRM then you need to upgrade because your business is most certainly not as produc<ve as it could be. 6. The security of your data is at risk. Too much knowledge is stored in people s heads or personal systems. Have you eliminated the risk that people will leave with valuable customer data and that their replacements will not have access to the customer informa3on they should inherit? At its very heart, your CRM system should provide your business with a safe and secure place (database) to store your most valuable asset, your customer data. This data should be stored centrally and be easily accessible to anyone who needs and has the relevant permission to access the informa<on. You should also have processes and procedures in place that clearly set out how this informa<on is collated and then entered onto your CRM system and your end- users should be trained so that they are fully conversant with how the system works in rela<on to their par<cular roles. This all might seem obvious but in prac<ce is not always the case. Without effec<ve policies in place people can pick up bad habits, resort to storing informa<on locally on their PC, using spread sheets, Outlook contacts, even post it notes and notebooks to store cri<cal customer data.

8 Have you ever experienced someone leaving you, and nothing is les behind? The pipeline wasn t up to date. The contacts weren t updated. The important contacts weren t registered because all relevant informa<on was stored locally. Don t let it happen to you. Your customer data is your most important asset, it can work its hardest for you only if it is available, accurate and up to date. If you are not confident that you have full, central and secure control of your customer data and your CRM system doesn t have the capability to ensure this is so, then it s <me to upgrade your CRM. 7. It takes too long/ costs too much to change your CRM system to do something new or adapt to your business growth If you are using a tradi3onal client/server CRM system then you will know how costly these are to manage and maintain. In addi3on to the hardware, sovware and costly updates they also require specific technical skill sets, all this ul3mately detracts investment away from more produc3ve ac3vi3es such as genera3ng sales. Today, CRM has shised toward cloud compu<ng and the SoSware as a Service (SaaS) subscrip<on model which eliminates the need for expensive infrastructure and the technical skills to support and maintain it. Market leading cloud CRM providers offer mul<- tenancy services which can scale indefinitely to meet customer demand. Mul< Tenancy services provide 99.99% availability and be^er remote data connec<vity and data security than could be afforded by client server solu<ons. And it frees up your office space and lowers energy costs. With this type of architecture, which is similar to that used by Amazon and Google, all customers share the same systems, which run on the latest release, and benefit from automa<c upgrades.

9 If you have been using your current CRM system for some <me your business may have changed or diversified, you may have recognised opportuni<es to extend or integrate your CRM with other core business systems. Within a client /server environment ins<ga<ng these changes, whilst bringing numerous business benefits, can be technically difficult, cost prohibi<ve and osen results in significant business down<me. A cloud based CRM drama<cally reduces the <me, cost and risk previously associated with systems integra<on. The leading cloud based CRM systems offer extensive customisa<on capabili<es to meet specific needs and provide applica<on programming interfaces (APIs) that let you integrate with exis<ng ERP systems or other business produc<vity systems. An Internet connec<on and a computer are the only infrastructure required and as most people are familiar with using the Internet to find what they need, Cloud based CRM systems tend to have high adop<on rates, with a lower learning curve. 8. You are deaf to what customers are talking about on social media Social CRM, the integra3on of social media with CRM strategies is the next fron3er for many businesses that want to op3mise the power of social interac3ons to get closer to customers. With the worldwide explosion of social media usage, businesses are feeling extreme pressure to be where their customers are. Do you know how many of the conversa<ons and ques<ons about your company and products are appearing on social networks? Prospects and customers will turn first to Google, Twi^er, Facebook, Blogs or other Internet sources to look for answers to ques<ons about services that you are providing or could provide for them. Social CRM can equip you with business intelligence you might not otherwise get; listen to your online community to gauge the health of your customer rela<onships, get their feedback on your products and services and track new leads from a Tweet or Facebook post and move them into your sales funnel.

10 If your exis<ng CRM does not have the social media tools now available to automa<cally find, engage and respond to those conversa<ons, it s crucial that you consider upgrading as Social CRM becomes an increasingly important method for finding new prospects and retaining exis<ng customers. 9. Your CRM system should integrate with/ replace your business systems Integra3ng your CRM with other core business systems such as your Accounts, ERP, e- commerce, Invoice to Cash, Purchase to Pay, Recruit to Re3re, can streamline business processes, increase efficiency and improve the flow of informa3on across your organisa3on. However, with many tradi3onal CRM architectures, integra3on can be a complex, risky and above all costly exercise. If you want to eliminate these silos of informa<on and have a fully integrated, affordable CRM that will enable you to quickly and effec<vely share data between systems, then it is <me to upgrade to a more flexible, cloud based CRM system. Studies have shown that it is up to 5 <mes faster to implement and integrate in the cloud. 10. Your most valuable customers do not have real- 3me access to their quotes, orders, customer service issues or your corporate knowledge base. Customer self- service is helping businesses provide more efficient customer service and helps drive down opera3onal and support costs. If your current CRM doesn t include the ability to offer your customers a portal which provides them access to real 3me informa3on then it may be 3me to consider upgrading to one that does. An integrated customer portal can offer your customers the ability to schedule a service, submit support requests, access self- help knowledge base and corporate content, view account history and track the status of their orders. All these ac<ons can be captured and reported on from within your CRM and provide you with greater insight into your customers and their interac<on with your business.

11 In Summary There are numerous reasons cited by businesses over the decision to upgrade their CRM system, hopefully these examples provide some food for thought as to whether it might be <me for you to undertake a review. If you do, consider not only whether your CRM system is mee<ng your current requirements but will it con<nue to support your businesses in an increasingly mobile, social and interconnected world. If, as a result, you recognise the need to upgrade your CRM then the choice for many organisa<ons now is increasingly a Cloud based system over tradi<onal on- premise client/server systems. Gartner predicts by 2015, more than 50% of CRM implementa<ons will be deployed in the Cloud, and will reach 80%- 85% of all CRM deployments by For further informa<on and help to implement a new cloud based CRM system for your business contact Xenogenix today on , smart@xenogenix.co.uk or visit our website

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