A CRM, what is it for? "we know our customers and we
have always done without, so ....".
That was before the Yellow Vests, the Covid and remote
working .
In front of the extent of your customer file, multi-source
and multi-channel prospects (web, telephone, social networks ...) and the
history carefully kept at the account 'or at the ADV (sales administration) ,
you find it hard to measure the importance of a customer at a glance. If your
salespeople (and marketers) spend a lot of time capturing or extracting data
instead of selling, and managers are tearing their hair out of making reliable,
real-time reporting, then this article should be of interest to you.
Indeed, what are the tools and methods to put in place to no
longer have to search between files (or too many Excel files) and find the
hundreds of information scattered here and there in the company, or in the
laptop of your best salesperson? A good CRM, of course!
A CRM (for C ustomer R elationship M anagement in
VO or GRC for Customer Relation Management in VF) is a tool that allows, among
other things:
• to
optimize the quality of the customer relationship: before, during and after the
sale
• to retain
• to
maximize revenue: increase in revenue (by activating the Recency, Frequency,
Amount and upsell / upscaling + cross-selling / cross-selling ) levers or the margin per customer.
• manage
business and portfolio monitoring in real time (and accelerate the sales cycle
with modern tools for your sales representatives)
• to have
clean reports
Promised, you will no longer say "Maryse, you have the history of the
RunCompagnie customer? Since when has
he not bought? Who is the sales
representative who manages this account? Who is your contact-decision
maker?" Or "that would be? good to know who buys what from us,
because we have customers who only buy part of us "or " it would be
good to set up quotes with electronic signature "...
Structure and model the commercial activity
Companies equipped with a CRM would not run the streets 5
years ago, unlike Anglo-Saxon countries familiar with these tools. Indeed, only
one in four companies was equipped in France ( 27% to be precise ), and one in
six locally , according to Digital Réunion.
But the situation has changed. The demand for CRM is
increasing sharply, especially since the health crisis has passed through it.
Sales and marketing have had to quickly deploy solutions to
keep working, at times in a rush. We are talking about the star tools (CRM,
Zoom, Meet, Teams, Slack ...) but also the sales methods and techniques that go
with them.
If accountants have accounting
software and payroll managers have payroll software, then salespeople and
marketers have commerce software. Obvious, right?
Faced with the video series, the multiplicity of sources of
prospects (business cards, trade shows, website, social networks, telephone
platform, etc.), it is now essential to centralize all the information for
better commercial follow-up. and don't run out of business .
If you still work with dispatched databases, you spend a lot
of time extracting, importing and deduplicating data, managing opt-ins and
outs, the CRM is a collaborative tool, accessible everywhere, which will change
your life. Just that !
It allows you to
manage all the information of your customers and prospects and the
various interactions with them. For managers, it also offers a real-time view
of the activity of the commercial forces , the famous "pipe" or the
conversion tunnel.
When we know that ' pass an average commercial e 65% of the time to do tasks other than selling ( Prialto ) to
delve into Excel files and see three times the same data, we quickly see the
benefits of a such solution.
Not to mention that after the seizure, he must still warn
(often "by hand" or by phone):
• the
production
• the shop
• counted
it
• Maryse at
the ADV
Optimizing customer service to deliver a flawless customer experience at
every step
CRM is the commercial memory of your company and its
goodwill. It allows you to qualify and segment your customers and your
audience, but also to follow prospects in their purchasing journey. Even after
the sale.
Pre-sales CRM
As a sale today begins in more than 80% of cases with an
internet search (source IFOP) , you must be able to record key information from
the pre-sale (search for information, answers to questions from prospects) to
after-sales (advice on use, after-sales service, loyalty).
In France, if customer service is not the priority ( read
this article here ), a CRM tool will allow you to collect and store a volume of
fundamental information so that your sales and marketing teams finally reach
their objectives .
For the company, this is all information that aims to
improve the effectiveness of campaigns , loyalty but also customer engagement.
CRM during the sale
Today's customers are looking for a holistic and seamless customer experience .
They get used to the standards of e-commerce giants who know how to offer them
this omnichannel experience simultaneously (synchronization of physical,
digital, mobile, social networks ...) And, you guessed it, CRM software
guarantees this experience. unified customer, at every stage of the customer
journey.
CRM after the sale
As for the after-sales service part, you can manage
post-delivery satisfaction surveys (the famous NPS score, Net Promoter Score)
or even customer requests (after-sales service and ticketing). Better yet, you
can automate them.
Example: when an after-sales service request comes in via
the website, chatbot, phone or email, then create a complaint ticket and
automatically notify the customer that his request is taken care of, that it
will be processed by Jean-Pierre and that he will be alerted when it is ready
.... At the same time, internally, Jean-Pierre receives the request by email
and can process it. Everyone in the company knows that there is a pending
ticket with this customer.
Maximize business and marketing results
And this is still one of the essential points. If you adopt
a new way of working, you have efficiency and effectiveness together: the right
actions, well done and with minimal resources.
In figures, this gives these results:
• The
productivity increases of 14.6% when sales have mobile access to their CRM (
Nucleus Research ).
• Once
adopted (see point 4 below), a CRM helps to increase sales (up 29%) and the forecast accuracy (40%) according to
the publisher Salesforce .
• Businesses
using professional mobile applications also benefit from a 74% improvement in
customer satisfaction by responding more quickly to customer questions and
requests ( Forrester )
Doesn't that make you want to try?
To save precious time
Do you know the common point between you and Jeff Bezos, the
richest man in the world (financially ...)? Answer: your day and his are 24
hours.
Any tool should save you time. Like the chainsaw for the
lumberjack, the CRM for your sales and marketing teams should allow you to
focus on high value-added tasks and in particular be close to customers.
Never forget "time is money". Since at least 1748
(Benjamin Franklin) .
The good news is that the advanced version of the CRM also
allows you to automate a number of tasks. We are talking about Sales
Automation.
Example: when my quote is signed, then send a notification
to Maryse at the account 'to establish the invoice, then a notification to the
store, then to the production'. And also send an email to the customer (and an
SMS why not to thank him), plus a notification to my N + 1 to let him know that
the deal is done. Which will avoid the perennial "where are you with
Runcompagnie?"
Nothing if there is no adoption
And yes, before you jump on the first tool , you should know that 49% of CRM projects fail ( Forester Research
).
No need to jump on your DAF (administrative and financial
director) or jump on your DSI (director of information systems) at the end of
reading this article to claim such an investment .
Why are they failing?
More than once in five, the art implementation problems are
related to people or related to user adoption ( Forrester Research ).
Moreover, 83% of senior executives
concede that their biggest challenge is getting their teams to use the software
( Really Simple Systems ).
In other words, there is no point in equipping yourself
until you have explained that the working method will change . Once the method
is understood and accepted, you can begin this CRM project. Otherwise, you will
be entitled to the famous " new tools and old methods ", which we
relate a long time ago in this article.
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