Blog - ‘CRM’
Wednesday, October 10th, 2012
Some of the most basic Customer Relationship Management (CRM) features are just that –basic. Today’s aggressive sales arena needs tools of the trade that are hardly basic. Having an integration to the office ERP system is just the type of tool that will set a salesperson ahead of the pack when dealing with customers.
Here are a few of the tools to look for:
- Full integration – You have a Proposal; your sales person can usually see how he got
the lead, when he got the lead, what effort has been spent. How about what other Invoices or Proposals you have had for this person; Volume pricing on the Proposal items; Vendor cost data; comparable vendor costs; comparable customer pricing; shipping data; past vendor performance; collection data. Whatever you have in your accounting system, your inventory system, your sales system – anything and everything should be viewable for fast answers, quick changes and more sales. Why have all this information if you are not putting it to good use?
- Outlook integration- Your office staff emails, texts, sends attachments and corresponds with customers and prospects. Connecting all of this information so that your salesperson can see what was sent and when, as well as proper maintenance of up to date contact information, is crucial in the sales process. “Accounting” should not have one set of information, while “Sales” has another.
- Marketing is now so much more than sending mass mailers and waiting for responses. When all of your information is housed under one data roof, sophisticated data mining, projections and probability reporting can be a part of your normal marketing management. “Opportunity Pipeline” tools can help you easily track sales potentials, analyze and respond to outcomes.
For more information on combining CRM with the full features of your office ERP system, as well as other revenue building ideas, ask for our free “Maximizing Revenue” white paper or sign up for a personal consultation.
Posted in CRM, ERP | No Comments »
Thursday, December 8th, 2011
As a distribution company you have an opportunity to stand out from your more complacent competitors by enabling your customers to easily order from you, and track their orders online.
Small to medium-sized distribution companies are certainly not as quick to deliver this feature as the major online distribution houses. But your customers are used to ordering their own goods at home, having inventory and shipping information at hand immediately.
So, can your ERP system deliver when it comes to user friendly shipping and order information? Is it seemlessly integrated to your in-house system? Easy access to shopping carts, inventory status and shipping information is what your customers live with in their personal lives. Do they want to step “back in time” at the office?
Its time to involve your customer in your ERP solution.
Tags: ERP, order, track
Posted in CRM, Profitability Series | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
Our previous posts in the current series on “Building More Profit In Your Distribution Business” covered pricing, inventory, warehouse management, customer relationship management, and customer order tracking.
Data is flowing to and from your customers, vendors, administrators, salespersons and operational areas. Data is flowing to and from from your ERP systems, your CRM system, your website.
The key to make all this work is integration.
When an order is entered in your ERP system, you don’t want to spend the extra time and money to enter it again into your CRM system or if it came from your website, you don’t want to then enter it into ERP and CRM…too many hands on one set of data.
Compounding the problem of multiple systems and different roles within your company that need access to accurate data is the existence of different devices.
Servers. Desktops. Laptops. Smartphones. Tablets. Voicemails. Emails. There are lots of different touch-points where data is coming from and going to.
Can you take all the pieces you have in place and connect them? For the best return on investment, laborious custom tasks should be reduced to a minimum.
An experienced systems integration company working with a state of the art software solution can turn your disparate systems into a seamless whole.
For today’s profitable business, using one solution with all the necessary pieces will keep administrative costs, maintenance costs and operational costs at their optimum lowest level.
And your customers, vendors and employees will have all the data they need at the right place and at the right time.
Tags: disparate systems, integration, multiple systems
Posted in CRM, Profitability Series | No Comments »
Monday, November 28th, 2011
Inventory Management is the number one reason distribution business owners buy software. But Customer Relationship Management should be the number one reason distribution business owners buy software.
In our last “Building More Profit in Your Distribution Business” post, we discussed the need for warehouse management in your software solution. Managing inventory, warehouse by warehouse is important, but only if you have the sales that are actually looking for the inventory.
How will you track sales and your sales pipeline?
How will you keep track of all the leads that come into your business from the marketing department? How will you track the conversations your sales people have had with your prospects? How will your sales people prioritize the time they spend with their prospects? How will your marketing department know which prospects need further marketing?
If sales is the lifeblood of your company, then you need a ready answer to these questions.
That’s why CRM software should be your number one priority
A robust, professional cloud-based or in-house CRM system enables you to:
- Track customer activity: conversations, emails, information they’ve consumed, meetings they’ve had with you.
- Track sales person’s activity: prospecting calls, follow-up calls, nurture marketing activity, demonstrations and meetings.
- Market to your prospects: determine which prospects are cold and require educational marketing, and which prospects are further along the path and require more trust-building marketing.
In other words, a CRM system helps you take control of your sales process, just like an ERP system helps you manage your inventory management process.
Make acquiring a CRM system a priority
You manage your Inventory with your ERP software. But you’re not in business to move inventory from one warehouse to the other. You want to sell it. This is the purpose of your business.
So make CRM software a priority now.
Tags: crm, distribution business
Posted in CRM, Profitability Series | No Comments »
Thursday, September 15th, 2011
So you have the right contact info, you know all the right history. Your software should let you proactively reach out to your customers with the right message at the right time.
Now you can let the client know that it is “re-order time”, “pay attention time” or just “say hello time”.
But can your software really do this?
Treating customers right can benefit your customer and your sales
Armed with your customers’ information, you can individualize communications to customers to let them know they’re special, and at the same time drive repeat business with them. Special pricing, special promotions and “special client” programs that thank your customers while doing what you really want – selling to them.
Modern CRM packages allow you to dynamically adjust pricing and present offers based on sales history, profit history, and vendor pricing, allowing you to reward your best clients.
But you’ve got to have the right software
Yes, salespeople work hard to manage this “best price for best customer” relationship, but that’s an extra burden on them. They should spend their time selling instead of trying to analyze their customer history. That’s the role of a modern CRM application.
But if your software can’t deliver these numbers to you proactively, in very real time, its time to revisit your software.
Next Steps
What are your next steps? Will you continue to guess who are your best customers, or spend endless hours manipulating spreadsheets so you can get this information? Or will you invest in a state-of-the-art CRM system that does all this for you? Talk to us about what a CRM can do for you.
Tags: crm, customer relationship management
Posted in CRM, Hot Topics, Tip of the Week | No Comments »
Friday, September 9th, 2011
In our previous blog post we discussed the importance of knowing your customers’ history.
Now this is where it gets interesting.
Did you know there’s gold in your customers’ records? Are you mining for that gold or just letting it sit there?
Most modern software systems will allow you to slice and dice the data you collect on your customers’ purchase history in ways that allow you to see new patterns and possibilities.
What the data tells you
Is it time for your customer’s typical monthly order? Are there new products that your customer might be interested in, based on previous purchases? Are vendors passing down savings for bulk or repeat business that certain customers would like to know about? Has someone been out of touch for too long?
The right time to use this data
In addition to slicing and dicing, many systems will allow you to set up “alerts” that allow you to take advantage of timing triggers so you can take advantage of this new data, to benefit both your customer and your company.
Are these “alerts” easy enough to set up in your current client management system or is your staff haphazardly checking (or not checking) these records in a far too tedious manner? Are you spending too much time looking at “normal events” when you should be honing in on the “exceptions” that really deserve your attention?
Newer software solutions can easily select, alert, email and track responses on all of these pro-active sales efforts.
Are you ready to mine for gold?
Tags: business intelligence, customer data
Posted in CRM, Tip of the Week | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 7th, 2011
In our previous blog post we discussed the importance of identifying all the contacts within your customer’s organization. Get to know who all the players are, and expand your relationships within the companies you do business with.
But you can go beyond that. To really deepen your customer relationships it’s important to know their history.
How much do you know about your customers?
Do you manage every contact you have, including every prospect, every reference and every client? Do you “touch” these connections in a user-friendly, value-added manner, spreading knowledge and good will?
Can you easily find every contact you have ever had with these prospects, references and clients – what they have bought or sought, proposals you have given, prices you have charged, items purchased and the when and where of them?
Making your customers feel special
Knowing your customers’ history makes them feel special, like when you greet an old friend.
When you meet an old friend at the store, you can pick up where you left off. You ask them how their mother is, how their kids are doing, how the new job is treating them.
Knowing your customers’ history, with the help of a modern customer relationship management application, can help you generate the same effect: like you’re meeting an old friend.
You can make your customers feel special.
The soft benefits and the business benefits
Knowing this information can help you with the soft benefits of generating good will, letting your customers know you care, and engendering loyalty.
But there are some solid business benefits as well. Knowing their purchase history with your company, for example, can also help you predict how often they’ll buy in the future, and what else they might want to buy.
You can then focus your marketing efforts on current and past customers, increasing sales to your current customer base, without the attendant expense of acquiring new customers.
Maintaining your customer knowledge base is as important as maintaining your financial records. Maybe its time to devote more resources to client management and less time on rote, automatable bookkeeping tasks…
Tags: crm, customer history
Posted in CRM, Hot Topics, Tip of the Week | No Comments »
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