CRM Development

Posted On Sunday, 25 July 2010 07:03

by Joey Ricard

A smart man once told me “If you can’t measure it, you can’t track it”. This is what we take to heart when it comes to CRM, we keep track of our customers and where our business is going.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. If you have customers, you need to manage them.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Which one of your customers buys the most annually?
• Which one buys the most monthly?
• Which customer has frequented the most this year?
• Which customer are you losing?
• Which customer bought the most last year versus the least this year?

Those are simple questions to ask when a CRM is being developed. Customer Relationship Management tools not only help you to run reports, but it also helps you manage your sales team. With our reporting you cannot tell what ads are working for your company, where your business is coming from, or you number one reason on why you are losing business.

There are all types of objections sales people come across during the sales process. Without statistical analysis, you cannot run a report to see where you business is going to and why. The average sales cycle takes about 3 months. Following up makes for about another 20% of the close rate. Post-it notes do not help to close, a CRM tool allows for the proper close rates. It also allows your sales team to know what is in the pipeline. A lot of sales forecast are based on guesswork. With a CRM you can see what status the sales process is in, what is expected to close; allowing you to budget more accurately.

The real key is finding good CRMs that work. There are lots out there, and there are lots that are not user friendly. With the right research, we can integrate it with a cloud computing solution and offer far more flexibility and mobility then anyone.

In previous companies we had our sales team accesses their Customer Relation Management tools via iPhones. They can update them on the road, and even with their blackberries. This is why Cloud Computing gives you the leverage that your competitor does not have. You can simply insert more employees in the sales force by just adding a hosted desktop or developing your own CRM development via a Managed Server.

A good CRM allows you to add and remove sales people, managers, and administrators; creating a more secure environment. If your company is not using a CRM tool, I would definitely do the research and look into one, custom or cookie cutter, it will only increase your business.