How can a business with a sales staff turn their CRM system into a sales tool? The answer depends greatly on the system a company uses and the resources it has or is willing to have to make this happen.Why would a company want to have this boring data be perceived as or used as a sales tool? The answer has more to do with psychology than process. The very nature and make-up of a sales person is such that they won’t use it fully, completely or honestly unless it actually aids in the sales process. In addition most sales people see a CRM system as a way for the company to capture their leads and track their effectiveness, and the majority of sales people don’t like that! This persona and angle gives them their edge.Or does it?Turning this into a tool that helps them make sales and be more effective and efficient is not just in the training and pushing of policy. It is also having a system that actually enhances, enables and drives the sales and marketing process while not being a mundane task or cold vehicle.Pardon me while we get boring for a moment and review the basics of what a CRM is and thus isn’t. The aim of using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is to enable storage of readily available records, to enable such records to be kept in such a way that analysis of the relationship between each record can be enabled, that such knowledge about the customers and prospective clients within an organizations purview can be enhanced. This is typically done using the database feature, mining such data both internally and externally and applying common business intelligence and reporting systems.In most CRM systems the knowledge a company has regarding a customer at the very least, which is stored in the database, are the basics. This includes but is not limited to their name, who they work for, what department they work in, along with all known forms of direct or indirect contact. Some systems are more complex and take the database fields, along with the activity logged in association with the fields, to come up with client profitability, transactional behavior, e-mail opens and clicks-to-links, call center or sales force contact and communication logs, customer satisfaction and retention ratios, and manual entry of the success or failure of legacy mailings and marketing campaigns.Capturing the information from the processes (sales, marketing, installation, credit extensions, etc.) and from the various marketing channels (phone, personal interaction, web site) is not only mechanical, technical and part of the company systems, but more importantly, part of the big picture. It is this big picture that must be instilled within those who will be performing the mundane task along with benefiting from it financially and organizationally. A great system allows complete access to what the sales and marketing members need for tools to do what drives the company. Access and process training avoids duplicate client data and multiple versions of the truth.As has been written on our blog and publicly published, the perfect sales and marketing business model is within the reach of even the smallest business today. These systems, incased within today’s CRM’s on steroids, will:Optimize marketing effectiveness
Attract prospective customers
Enable automated cross-selling and upselling
Aid in retention of clients and quality engaged employees who both are company advocates
Enhance the analysis of client behavior to aid in the product decision making and development process while furthering the drive to utopia with regards to quality and profitability targets.
Make way for tags, targets, groups and associations which enable the sales force to concentrate on identifying key prospective customers that cut their transaction time and increase their relationship building time.
Allow for the near prediction of customer defection and identification of those team members who contribute most to what the stakeholders seek.
Most importantly, the best systems automate the marketing process based upon behavior and choices and nearly eliminate the prospect falling out of the pipeline follow-up.There are many businesses today that have a CRM system and some even have the best of the best. But the select few have put to use the one that changes the game, that levels the playing field, that can enable David to take on Goliath and that give their sales team a real too they trust and use because it helps them make sales and obtain & then retain loyal customers.While the system is about data it must be about being a difference maker in the eyes of the users. The users must be able to visualize the results, understand their role, believe in its impact and trust that they will gain from having made this tool work for the betterment of all.The perfect system does exist, and while they can be complicated, they are capable of performing the following tasks almost automatically when combined with your current web site and marketing efforts:Attract web traffic and prospective customers via webinars, white papers, blogs, testimonial publications, social media and SEO enhancement. Then informing sales and marketing of the results.
Capture information and data by clicks, hits, visits, web forms, opt-ins, recorded conversations, electronic business cards, e-magnets and pod casts. Then informing sales and marketing of the results.
Nurture the reluctant prospect by educating and building a relationship through e-zines, blogs, caring personal conversation starters and an email series once a defined area of interest is established. Then informing sales and marketing of the results.
Convert leads and prospects into customers. Then informing sales and marketing of the results.
Deliver products and services, while automatically billing, collecting, renewing subscriptions and informing sales and marketing of the results.
Add-on, upsell and cross-sell. Then informing sales and marketing of the results.
Refer and collaborate with vendors and like businesses. Obtain and publish references and testimonials. Then informing sales and marketing of the results.Your business must generate excitement, spontaneous enthusiasm, buzz and traffic. Your business must know how to capture leads with systems, how to consistently follow up with those leads, and how to turn them into advocates by creating an experience surrounding their purchase. Your business must have a sales team that knows this system will only enhance their performance through increased opportunities and conversion of leads to customers.