A CRM Strategy improves customer profitability, life-time value and sales. We show you how to succeed in each of these areas, developing an integrated and powerful base for implementing a CRM strategy tailored to meet the needs of your organization and its customers.

CRM Strategy Best Practices reveals how to develop a strategy which will enable your small business to achieve its goals. There are no quick-fix CRM solutions or one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to CRM.

CRM Strategy Best Concepts

I know you are here looking for best practices related to creating a CRM strategy.
They don’t exist! There is no such thing as best practices when it comes to Customer Relationship Management or CRM strategies.

There's no cookie-cutter CRM solution that will ensure great results for every company. Specific customer relationship management (CRM) strategy and tactics must be company oriented and fit the situation to be successful--that is, they must be the right solution, for the right challenge, at the right time for your company.

However, there are several universal concepts to aid you in ensuring your CRM system is successful. Many of these concepts are particularly relevant in a slow, or recovering, economy. You should, however, consider them an essential part of any CRM strategy design, whether we have a good or bad economy.

So, they are:

Concept #1: CRM Strategy that is Knowledge-Based.

The core of any CRM strategy is the understanding that your company can't be all things to all customers. To try to be such would mean you won’t be effective with any customers and dilute your efforts.

It is essential to develop your CRM strategy based upon intimate knowledge of your customers

who your most valuable customers are
their demonstrated and anticipated needs and preferences
what drives their satisfaction and
what impacts their purchasing decisions

This understanding of your customers helps you leverage your strategy as the foundation for developing cost-effective processes and tactics. It also ensures your efforts are focused and your return on investment can be maximized.

Concept #2: Proper Execution is critical.

A sound CRM strategy is essential, but regardless how fabulous are your ideas, if you can't execute them effectively, they are worthless. All initiatives and tactics will hit roadblocks and snags. Count on it.

Anticipate issues, identify them as they happen, effectively manage them, or have contingency plans to apply when they occur. Your ability to do that will determine your level of success.

To ensure effective execution of your CRM tactics and objectives of your CRM strategy, the following will points will increase your chance of success:

Engage the skills of the correct players for the role they have
Effectively Plan, revise it and review again. Then repeat
Project all costs and compare to the benefits – be critical
Communicate status, issues and progress to all involved
Implement new processes gradually to quickly identify and address issues
Understand critical dependencies, and changes needed or affected
Develop contingency plans
Recognize and reward progress/success.
Establish key measures based on your goals and objectives
Gather feedback at every step, modify based on it, and get feedback again

Concept #3: First Focus on Strategy and Requirements

Most CRM technology spending was focused on sales force automation and customer service processes when CRM software was first introduced. The large amount of data collected in operating these software packages has caused management to ask what else can be done with this information to help the company.

Technology continues to be critical to most CRM strategies. It provides significant advantages through cost reduction, improved employee efficiency, better business decisions, and enhanced ability to meet their customer’s needs and requirements.

But, many CRM software implementations fail to deliver expected results.

For example, a study by the Gartner Group indicates that in 32 percent of sales automation software projects, little or no use was made of the technology 12 months after deployment. Technology project failures include low or ineffective use of the sales software by employees and/or customers. This includes an inability to measure improvements or gains from the CRM solution.

Concept #4: Learn From Mistakes and Successes to Improve Performance.

Some CRM tactics and initiatives will succeed; others won’t. But all is not lost if an educational experience is gained. Your long term success is dependent on learning from your mistakes and successes, and using that knowledge to optimize your performance.

Focus on these areas to increase your learning experience:

Have a clear definition of business requirements before data gathering begins
Recognize who needs access to, and how they are using, the data gathered
Ensure business requirements drives database development and data collection
Give the right people the right information, at the right time, for business decision support
Develop a knowledge management system for employees and arm them with decision-making skills.

Concept #5: Your Greatest Allies are your Employees.

In a difficult economy, employee participation in your CRM cause can provide an added benefit of improving employee morale and deepen their sense of purpose.

A successful CRM strategy must include some form of change management with it. Real-world experience with the new strategy will bring out aspects that should be added to the CRM strategy, or changed. If no provision is made for change, your CRM initiative has a much greater chance of failure. Include change management and you will succeed much faster.

Any change management initiative should include:

a communication plan to keep employees informed
a method to get employee feedback on your CRM initiative
training required to support desired behaviors, both hard and soft skills
performance measures that match your goals and objectives
executive buy-in and commitment to the endeavor
alignment of compensation and incentives with desired outcomes
organizational alignment

Summary of CRM Strategy Best Practices (oops, I mean Concepts)

Customer relationships are your company’s greatest assets. They provide for continued revenue streams and profits.
Creating a great customer relationship management strategy and you will build better customer loyalty and never have to worry about your customer retention rates.

You must continue to invest in those relationships even in a slowing economy. Any company with a clear, customer focused strategy and supportive corporate culture can sustain itself and prosper even in turbulent economies.

This solid CRM strategy provides a consistent sense of direction, a customer-centric sounding board against which tactics and programs can be evaluated and prioritized, and basic values that your employees and customers can grasp and hold onto.

The Bottom Line: A commitment to a well defined CRM strategy ensures that existing relationships and customer services can be leveraged to drive enhanced profitability and growth directly to your bottom line.

Related Information -- Other visitors also viewed the following:
What is CRM?
How to do better at Customer Service Management.
Marketing Automation drives move revenue for time strapped small business owners.

Get guidance on creating a CRM Strategy for your company, while you are reading about CRM Strategy Best Practices.

We also offer other CRM Consulting Services as part of our Small Business Consulting firm's practice.

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