How CRM Solves These 5 Business Challenges Here are 5 examples to demonstrate why organisations implement Customer Relationship Management strategies, and how professionally implemented CRM systems resolve these challenges. #1 Inaccurate Sales Forecasting If sales teams aren t able to easily forecast their sales opportunities there are two likely outcomes. They ll spend time manually compiling a list, or they ll guess the numbers. Neither outcome is helpful to anticipate sales revenue and predict cash flow but it s the reality for many businesses without an effective CRM strategy to support their selling efforts. Sales teams are always be better organised if they have a firm steer on their pipeline to identify which prospects are most likely to close rather than acting on gut feel. CRM applications provide clear visibility of sales cycles by tracking each prospect through every step of the selling process from initial lead to order. Inbuilt CRM dashboards, reports and pipeline charts remove uncertainty by giving sales professionals and managers clear insight into actual and predicted sales performance, and because this data is shared in real-time through multiple channels time isn t wasted waiting for forecasts or making decisions using suspect data.
#2 Too Much Time is Spent on Sales Administration If sales teams spend hours every week on administration tasks it s an expensive drain on productivity. How many extra opportunities could be won each month if sales admin absorbed less time? How much could the cost of each sale be reduced if sales are converted more quickly? An effective CRM strategy liberates sales staff from the burden of admin tasks by minimising, or even removing, repetitive processes that steal time from the working day but contribute little profitability. Sales quoting is one example of how CRM applications like Microsoft Dynamics quickly prove their worth by reducing the time it takes to create new quotes. By combining activity & sales data in a single application, CRM will: Store product & price detail so quotes can be quickly generated - and accurately Trigger reminder activities that prompt sales user to take action on active opportunities & keep in touch with existing customers Profile contacts for effective segmentation Automatically score leads to identify sales ready opportunities Enable sales teams to manage their opportunities by web, mobile & desktop apps Integrate with electronic document signing applications like EchoSign and DocuSign for quick turnaround of order forms #3 High Customer Churn Delivering average service, or worse, is a sure-fire way to see customers defect to competitors. But without an effective CRM system that connects users and customer data to a single interface how can staff consistently provide amazing service?
CRM empowers everyone in a business to serve customers efficiently whatever their preferred channel including by phone, email, in person, online and through social networks. With access to complete relationship detail and dedicated service desk tools users are able to provide a responsive, personalised service that increases case resolution and client satisfaction, and ultimately reduces customer churn. #4 Increasing Account Revenue It s hard to promote new products and services if you can t easily assess the status of each customer relationship. That s sure to happen if client data is stored in spread-sheets or multiple applications that aren t connected. CRM packages centralise all relationship detail including communications across every customer touch point and connects with specialist applications and data sources including ERP, email marketing and web tracking. The result is a single integrated database that s accessible to everyone within an organisation. With every communication, transaction and other relationship detail accessible in a single interface, sales and service teams have the information they need to better develop accounts by upselling and cross-selling. This facilities increased lead generation activities including: Anticipating new requirements by reviewing order histories to assess individual buying behaviour Profiling contacts & accounts to segment data & execute highly targeted sales & marketing campaigns.
#5 Lack of Productivity When Staff are Away From the Office If individuals can t easily access their sales and customer information when they re working away from the office productivity is sure to take a dive. This can include: opportunities not being following up in a timely manner, delays issuing quotes, slow responsiveness to customer issues and repeated phone calls to the office to ask for information. To be responsive sales and service teams need all the essential information at their fingertips wherever they do business including client history, recent interactions, contact information, active quotes, outstanding support issues and more. CRM system connect authorised users to all the data they need to stay productive when working remotely and on the road. Activities, client and sales data is accessible in real-time using ipad, iphone, Android, Windows Mobile and other mobile devices, via a web browser on a laptop, or offline using a local database enabling updates to be synchronised. Mobile CRM gives individuals the freedom to carry out business whenever the need arises, and when opportunities strike regardless of location. By empowering mobile teams to do business at any time using their preferred mobile device the benefits are clear: Improve the outcome of meetings and calls by instantly looking-up CRM detail to respond to customer questions Write up meeting notes while information is still fresh & progress the next action steps Improve data quality by immediately updating CRM when new data is found Stay on top of sales pipelines and follow up with opportunities on the go Be responsive to customer requests & service cases wherever you work Assign tasks & collaborate with users between locations
Expert CRM Consultancy & Advice These are just 5 examples to demonstrate how Customer Relationship Management systems help businesses to improve efficiency and motivate teams to do their best work. Contact Preact to learn more about how a new CRM strategy will transform your performance and get advice from our consultants on how to implement a personalised solution that will achieve quick wins and long term success. About Preact At Preact, our aim is to help our businesses achieve outstanding success from their CRM system whilst giving excellent value for money. Our core values are to put customers first, be the best and build business together, these pillars are central to the way we behave, both with each other, and with our clients. Preact has helped all types and sizes of businesses achieve success from their CRM strategy since 1993 and we support over 4000 CRM users worldwide. We offer help with all aspects of CRM including requirements scoping, project management, system build, CRM integration and training.