Customer relationships take more than CRM software to build. Our CRM consultants help you develop business processes which create a responsive CRM system. Around this goes the small business CRM software.

When:

You lose orders and customers are irate, or worse, silent
You find out your competitors are stealing your customers, at higher prices
You’re still behind, despite everyone's efforts
Your customer relationships stink because your customer service is lousy

You think, “There must be something I can do to improve our business!”

You've been told CRM software is the answer, but you've heard that sometimes it doesn't work.

What is so magic about CRM?
There is a lot of talk about Customer Relationship Management, and most people seem to think it has something to do with CRM software, but why do they think it is special? Other opinions say CRM software doesn't live up to its promise; that it's more like black magic.

A CRM Consultant tells all
David Brydson, an acknowledged expert and CRM consultant says that both views of CRM are correct. "The magic portion is what a dramatic improvement CRM can make in how a company services its customers and improves business." He goes on, "CRM fails when a company expects the CRM software by itself to improve customer service."

What CRM Software Won’t Do

It won’t fix your small business. That’s your job. CRM software is only a business tool. How you use the tool determines its value. If you have no plan to improve customer service; if you have not organized to work more efficiently; if you do not understand what your customers want most, then the CRM software won’t fix your business.

Customers Should Determine Your Customer Support Strategy

Your customers can tell you what strategy to follow. They know how they want you to deal with them and support them, and if you give them half a chance, they will tell you.

Do they want the phone answered by a person?
Do they prefer email?
How quickly do they want you to respond?
How fast do they want action?
Are they willing to pay more for after-hours service?
How do they prefer to be sold?

There are many more questions than we show here, but if you are willing to listen without comment, your customers will tell you what you and your competitors aren’t doing to make them happy.

Once you change your business processes, so you can improve your customer support, then you can consider your CRM Strategy. This strategy brings together how you execute with how you communicate.

What Companies need a CRM Solution?

Companies in a service business, or who have significant customer support in their business need a CRM solution. Good examples of businesses needing a CRM system are Help desks, or anywhere customer relationship management is critical.

That last part refers to businesses where speed of response and customer satisfaction are important in customers’ future buying decisions.

What is a good CRM Strategy?

A good starting point is what makes your customers happy. What works best is different for each industry. If you’ve collected what look like good customer service ideas from you customers, but aren’t quite sure how to use them in your business, one of our CRM consultants can help you.

We always study business processes before we suggest which CRM software to use, and we have a large collection of Best Practices in CRM from which to draw.

Isn’t CRM also used for Sales Force Automation?

Brydson also had an observation, “Sales force automation (SFA) was one of the first uses of CRM, and is still widely used today.” When asked if Microsoft Outlook® had replaced CRM in that function, he laughed. “Outlook does a good job of organizing contacts and tracking email, but that’s about as much as it does well.”

He went on to explain that much like customer support, sales force automation requires business processes developed around the sales function and CRM software which can manage sales leads, sales communications, supporting documents, quotation/proposals, and forecasting at the very least.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is more than an extension forward in time of SFA capabilities It is budgeting, communicating your marketing message, and capture of response to your messages.

A good example of automating marketing is transmission of a marketing message to a specific group of individuals you have identified as having interest in such a message, but not to the balance of your contacts.

There are many similar marketing automation methods to help you reach the right segment with the right method, and CRM software which will support these methods, but a foundation of business processes is necessary before these can be used.

Thinking it all through before you buy equipment or services will make it more effective. If you want to understand more about what marketing automation can do to increase your business by leveraging your CRM software’s capabilities, just ask one of our consultants.

CRM Analytics
Analytics, the science of logical analysis, has its origin in the sixteenth century, but the word became more commonly used when database marketing use became widespread.

In the past twenty years, more and more data has been collected. At first, only the government or large companies had the ability to perform data mining, turning data into information. Now, small businesses that are using CRM software have the inherent ability to convert data – collected for other purposes, into useful information for their company.

We say inherent because the data is there, but not all CRM software makes it easy to access the data. To turn your CRM database into competitive intelligence with one of our CRM consultants, call us, we know how to do data mining in a variety of databases.

CRM Consulting Summary
A CRM consulting company or, individual CRM consultant, can help you get your CRM initiative started in the right direction. Their expertise in CRM will help you fill in the gaps that you are missing. It still requires your involvement, as no one knows your business better than you do. But it does not have to be as hard as trying to go it alone.

Successful CRM deployments require in-depth knowledge of your company’s goal objectives and most importantly your strategy. Any self proclaimed CRM consultant who says they can give you CRM without knowing or having a strategy; is probably a CRM software technologist and not a CRM strategist.

It is your business at stake, your money that will be spent, and your success at risk.

Make sure you are not going to the auto mechanic to get your plumbing fixed.

Talk to a CRM Consultant who understands all that is required to make your CRM system work the way your company does and you too can see the kind of success that CRM promised when the concept was first coined.

Want some CRM Consulting expertise?

Related CRM Information:

CRM Consulting Table of Contents

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is critical to your success.
Contact Relationship Management has changed. What started with contact management software,
moved into customer relationship management software, and yet it still confuses small business. Why?

Learn more about CRM Strategy as part the Business Strategy
CRM Strategy development is the first step to creating an effective CRM solution for your small business.
Defining the CRM system isn’t hard if you follow some simple steps. It starts with…

Find out how our CRM Consulting firm helps your business.
CRM Professional Services, should start with a CRM strategy first. Where did you start with CRM?
Learn how our CRM consultants can help you.

Selecting the right CRM Software because it is your business at risk.
Read this before you buy any customer relationship management software, small business software, or business management software.
Why? Because you will learn....

You need a CRM Consultant!
A CRM consultant needs to meet the needs, and the budgets, of small businesses. Our CRM consultants have years of experience in customer relationship management and know the options small business have, to help you avoid wasted time, effort, and money.

Marketing Automation Drives Revenue
and helps time strapped small business owners. You know you need to do more marketing, but the time to do it never seems to be available.
Revenue decline due to uneven sales lead generation can be fixed with marketing automation.

Customer Service Management – An Overview
Customer Service Management is the key to building customer loyalty and improving customer retention.
Are you providing award winning customer service? If not, your competitors are likely stealing your customers!

Using Sales Force Automation to systematically grow your business
Sales Force Automation software increases sales revenue by leveraging sales processes in your sales lead management efforts.
Are you looking for a better sales conversion system?

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