Building Your Business with Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

We will explore how to implement a CRM System in order to achieve maximum Return
on Investment (ROI).

In my consulting practice many times I am brought in to kick start an ailing CRM installation or to
do the ground work on a new implementation. In both cases I am usually faced with a less than
functional customer/prospect database. This valuable information is usually strewn out across the
organization residing in spreadsheets, contact managers, mobile devices and business card folders.
The only somewhat accurate data I can find is located in the accounting system. This data rarely
contains the business contacts that are required for sales and marketing campaigns. Consolidating
and cleaning this data to create a quality database can be an onerous task, but is usually well worth
the effort. Keep in mind for the following reasons this database can become a priceless asset to
your business.

1. Customer, prospect and partner information will become a priceless corporate asset.

2. A complete understanding of territory requirements allows for better management of
internal resources

3. CRM will provide the vital information for measuring the effectiveness of sales and marketing
campaigns the execution of long term business development strategies

4. Faster response times to requests will lead to increased service levels and reduced costs

5. A greater ability to prioritize, manage time and improve the frequency of customer and
prospect follow ups

6. Increased pure selling time and the ability to stay in front of the right opportunities at
the right time

7. Will keep you in front of the right opportunities at the right time and eliminate opportunities
from falling through the cracks

8. Will allow you to uncover more opportunities in existing accounts

9.Reduce stress and improve sales productivity, margins, closing percentages and compensation

Step One to creating a quality CRM database is to consolidate and clean up your existing customer
and prospect data. Unfortunately, sometimes this becomes a monumental task as this information
is probably located in spreadsheets, email systems, personal contact mangers and mobile devices.

Step Two is once your data is clean build profile templates for each Customer and Prospect. Most
CRM systems will provide you with sample profiles to help get you started. Here are some of the key
profiles that most any B to B Sales team will require.

Corporate Profile: This details company information, such as locations, organizations size, structure,
line of business, purchasing volumes and affiliations.

People Profile: This details information about the people you need to communicate and build
relationships with. This usually includes contact information, titles/job functions and roles and
responsibilities.

Opportunity Profile: This profile covers the overall sales opportunity that is available with the customer
 or prospect. For example if you currently sell 500 Ant-virus licenses to a company but you know they
have 5000 PCs this profile needs to reflect the potential for 4500 additional seats. As well as any
information you can collect on the competition. I refer to this as the Opportunity Gap. This part of
the profile should also record current opportunities in the sales pipeline with this company, the size
of the opportunity and forecasted closing dates.

These are just a few of the profiles you will need to build in your CRM System. As you become a more
sophisticated CRM user your profiling requirements will begin to grow.

Step Three will be to categorize each customer and prospect by a priority level. Your best customers and
prospects will be labeled as A, followed by B’s and C’s and possibly D’s. One of the big advantages of
classifying accounts is to make it easier to prioritize and schedule your follow-up activities. The following
is an example of how a Computer Reseller may classify their accounts.

A Customer/Prospect will have over 5000 PCs

B Customer/Prospect will have between 1000 and 4,999 PCs

C Customer/Prospect will have between 100 and 999 PCs

D Customer/Prospect will have between 100 and 999 PCs

Now that you have a quality CRM Database let’s look at how this technology can help you achieve 100%
account coverage. First of all every accounts would receive blanket coverage through a direct marketing
campaign. Many companies effectively use quarterly newsletters for this purpose.

The rest of the call mix may look like this:

‘A’ Accounts would receive

Monthly field rep phone call

BI-monthly field rep visit

BI-monthly inside sales call

Direct mail campaign

‘B’ Accounts would receive

BI-monthly inside sales call

Field rep call or visit as required

Direct mail campaign

‘C’ Accounts would receive

Quarterly inside call

Field rep call or visit as required

Direct mail campaign

‘D’ Accounts would receive

Quarterly inside call

Direct mail campaign

This sort of scenario will keep our field sales rep, which is usually the most valuable and costly
member of the sales team, concentrating on “A” accounts and still be in front of other accounts
when they are required to close business. This system will also give you 100% account coverage
and even the smallest or underdeveloped accounts will not feel totally neglected.

In closing a properly planned CRM Database will give you 100% territory coverage, higher levels of
customer satisfaction and allow you to focus on the best customers and prospects.

Remember, when selling becomes a process, you take care of most of the problems.