customer relationship management

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LISTEN UP LEADERS: The Frontline Makes Your Bottom Line
Does your staff treat customers badly even though your advertising claims you are #1 in customer service? Learn why it is critical to retain current customers and what you can do to improve customer service while managing your company reputation on-line and off.

Develop Customer Centricity with CRM

Contrary to popular belief, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is not a system, or a technology, or a simple application. CRM is a holistic strategy that places customers at the center of all business operations. Some call this customer-centricity; others coin this approach as listening to the “voice of the customer.” Regardless of semantics, CRM is the integration of people, processes, and technology, which allow a company to leverage its information assets to identify, attract, and retain profitable customers. CRM applications should not be viewed as the Holy Grail that will fix all your business challenges; they are simply facilitators.

Evaluating Hosted CRM
Until recently, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software had the unenviable reputation for being difficult to implement in many mid-sized enterprises. Reasons for project failure included high start-up & maintenance costs, I/T resource requirements, lack of user adoption, and large changes to existing business processes.

To Be Known, Or Unknown
Share your expertise with the world to raise your profile and your business's brand recognition.

What are the benefits of a CRM system in your business? Part 1

The concept of CRM has been around for a long time. The original form of CRM was a manual card system kept by a sales person that usually sat on the sales person's desk or alongside them in the car. These client cards sets were very valuable to the sales person as this is where they kept important customer information such customer contact details, key contacts in the company, a running commentary on their activities, personal and product preferences, buying patterns, business connections and so forth. Each card was a dossier on each client. To successful, well managed sales people, their client cards were gold.

How Important is CRM to Your Business?
“…you can find out if the goods were shipped, when they were shipped and where they are now.”

Low cost marketing strategies – is there such a thing?

I recently spoke at an event covering the topic of using time more effectively in business. The audience was a group of small business owners who are often stretched for time and have to manage multiple projects and tasks in any given day. Being the owner of a small business myself, I reflected on what I have done today. In summary, I have been the Account Manager, Sales Person, Book-keeper, Project Manager, Debt Collector and IP Lawyer all in the space of a few hours. Just in a days work really!

How Sales Training Forgets This Essential Sales Tool
How well have you trained your sales staff? Possibly, you may have missed this one essential sales skill?

THE THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR SALES PIPELINE BUT CRM CANT TELL YOU

Why do only 1 in 5 companies state that they are seeing revenue increases after implementing a CRM application ? Why are they not seeing the sales productivity gains they expected? And why do they still get surprised at the end of the quarter? Why is it that they still don’t know what they don’t know when it comes to the health of their sales pipeline and forecast? The main reason is that though you may think you’ve implemented a full CRM solution, you’ve really only implemented half of a total solution.

CRM Implementations the Right Way

There’s always a right way and a wrong way to do most things. In fact, there’s typically several right and several wrong ways. So why is it then that many companies seem to choose the wrong way to implement their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution? Don’t they read all the articles and white papers we’ve been writing over the years that explain why these systems fail and how to avoid these failures? Don’t they care? Don’t they believe us? It’s really quite simple, albeit not very easy. It takes commitment and a concerted effort to ensure you have a successful CRM implementation, both strategically and technically. So, here is the story about two of my customers; one did it right while the other, well, not so right.

Using CRM to Help You Sell

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology can be a huge benefit to helping you sell. It can also be a huge waste of time, money and resources if not used effectively. When it comes right down to it, most CRM systems are pretty much the same. Sure, some are more robust or flexible or customizable. And some run on-premise (at your location hosted on your computer) while others are hosted by an outside service. But from a sales person’s point of view, the features they use and need are quite similar. The difference has more to do with how they are used by sales. And that is defined by, a) what process the company uses (if any), and, b) the type of training the sales people get (technology versus sales process versus selling skills versus all the above).

Will Sales Technology actually improve your company's Sales?

As we embrace the information age, there are more gadgets available to the average sales person, than there were weapons for old age warriors. So does this add a credible advantage to the guy or gal on the road? Early sales reps had their wares and their wits, with which to earn a living, however as technology advances, does all of the constant flow of information actually make today's well trained professionals any more adept than their medieval counterparts? This article will give you a lot of food for thought, as to how you can make the most of technology to grow your sales. When these tools lead to shorter hours and higher commission, then mobile technology will have been used as intended.

Sustainable Business Growth and Profitability with Customer Value Management
Customer Value Management is a comprehensive five-step approach to improving and sustaining profitable growth for any business.

What is POS or Retail management software and why it is required?

“The term speaks for itself”. POS or Point-of-Sale software is used at location where goods are sold to customers. All sales transaction are made through the software and stored in computer. You provide information like item description, selling price, quantity sold, amount of discount given, tax collected and a few more. As the computer records everything, it automates all kind of tasks for you. For example, it gives you a few reports on key tips such as sales for the day, day end report, tax registers, stock statement and more for any specified period. This is just and example of POS software but there’s lot more to it.

Why CRM is Critical for Small Businesses...
Small business owners face challenges with why it is important to implement a CRM strategy. The basic reason is simple - the business retains more cusotmers. But the long-term reason is to position the business in a position to purchase CRM technology, which helps save money and increase revenue at the same time. This article looks at the reasons for a small business to get started today.

What is CRM?
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is a strategy used to learn more about customer’s needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. Good customer relationships are at the heart of business success.

Factors to Consider When Selecting a Point of Sale System

One of the most critical and possibly frightening purchases a retailer will ever have to make is a point of sale system. It is a critical purchase because it will force the retailer to reexamine their business policies, procedures and plans for the future. It is a frightening purchase because few retailers have experience in selecting a point of sale system and with such a large investment required they will have to live with their decision, be it good or bad, for quite some time. This document lists the essential items that retailers should consider in their POS buying decision.

7 Secrets to Creating Client Referrals

Ask the proprietor of a professional service firm where they get their business from and most will tell you that over 80% of their business comes from word-of-mouth referrals. What is astounding is that most professional firms do not have active referral strategies. Now while devoting 80% of your marketing budget to referrals is a bit far fetched there are seven killer strategies that don't cost the earth to boost your business.

Fear Factors in Small Business: Sales & Marketing
Generating new sales is often the most difficult and challenging jobs for small business owners. That shouldn’t be a big surprise, generating new sales is the most difficult and challenging tasks faced by big business as well, which is why they spend billions of dollars every year trying new sales processes, new sales techniques and different customer relationship management approaches.

Value Over Price Preserves Profitability
One way to add value inside of this business equation is to buy a customer's business by offering the lowest Price. You already know that may get you a short-term sell at the expense of short-term and long-term profitability. But, there are more profitable ways to create Perceived Buyer Value, beyond under-cutting your competitor's price.

Using Customer Service To Generate Incremental Revenue
In a recent strategy session, I had the opportunity to brainstorm ways to generate incremental revenue with the CEO of a small software company. We discussed how the customer service/client relationship may be well suited to creating new revenue streams. One idea that stood out was the perception your clients have towards sales vs. customer service.

Bundling SEO, PPC, CRM and Beyond!

There is intrinsic value in bundling lead acquisition and retention services coherently to serve a common goal. Opportunity is measured by your ability to grasp and act on useful and pertinent information. However, gleaning or foraging this crucial information is dependent on your vision and the tools you use to research, analyze and assess potential data. Just like a tip of the iceberg, it’s not what you see or you engage within the scope of your market, it is what you overlook and do not that results in missed opportunities.

What are the 3 biggest challenges faced by supply chain/purchasing professionals today? (Survey Result 12)
There are many factors both internally as well as externally that are affecting supply chain/ procurement practices today. From the growing talent vacuum to the continuing lack of collaboration between Finance, IT and Purchasing relative to corporate initiatives. What in your own experiences and opionions are the top 3 issues that procurement professionals face?

Is Ford's auto-xchange the "Real Deal?" (Survey Response 3)

In a recent video that was released by The Ford Motor Company, Ford's Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Jim Yost indicated that the company has to "share information in real-time" and therefore can no longer use "the sequential processes” in which there were many “handoffs" and "transfers of information." Yost also emphasized the fact that Ford needs to "integrate much more closely with their customers, supply base and even internally," as well as stressing the importance of making information available to multiple levels of their supply base "simultaneously," thereby eschewing the current "cascade processes that might take days, weeks and even months" to disseminate. To enable you to respond to this question, you can access both the video as well as the corresponding article by contacting the author.

Simplify Your Business With Virtual Technologies

Do you spend endless time and resources on tasks like data back-up, managing client records, collaborating different communication channels, and so on? Small businesses and start-ups can manage their business processes more efficiently by intelligently using virtual technologies. Online subscription-based services help in streamlining many critical business activities. Here are some of the virtual technology services that every small business owner should consider.

Achieve Customer Relationship Management Success

This article is all about data quality and how important it is to you Customer Relationship Management. No matter what size customer database you have, it's good to understand the tools and technology available to ensure that your database stays clean and accurate. We cover relatively simple tools to use all the way to referential data linking. While you may not need this type of linking, it's good to have a grasp of what it is as you are managing your database.

What is CRM?
CRM. It's a business buzzword. But what is a CRM? And are you realizing the full potential of your CRM? This article gives you the CRM rundown.

Why Your Company Needs a CRM Program
Even if you're familiar with CRM programs, you may not know the ways in which they can help your business grow. In this article learn two of the main problems companies face when not having a CRM program, and how they can be overcome.

Is CRM Really As Good As The Buzz?
Over the last few years the buzz has been extensive growth when it comes about CRM or Customer Relationship Management. Marketing executives and Sales executives around the country have jumped on the CRM bandwagon. In fact US businesses have spent over $6 billion in CRM technology software since 2000. So CRM really is as good as the buzz.

Customer Relationship Management

One of the biggest mistakes that I see entrepreneurs making time and time again is trying to bring in the customer for that initial sale, and then just letting them go. They place on their focus on that first sale that they forget to look at the potential long-term advantages of keeping in touch with their customers. That is where customer relationship management comes in – a set of tools and practices that help business people perform customer-related tasks.

Who Said Nothing in Life is FREE?

BLARE Media, a Fresno web design and video solutions company, has launched a new free business contact management website with a twist called Contact Squid. Like most contact management systems, the site allows users to add resource and vendor contact information, organize them into useful categories, and rate them. Contact Squid’s other features, however, effectively transform it into a social-driven database of professional service providers with serious marketing potential.

Contact Squid - An Ocean of Business Contacts

February 10, 2012. BLARE Media, a Fresno web design and video solutions company, has launched a new free business contact management website with a twist called Contact Squid. Like most contact management systems, the site allows users to add resource and vendor contact information, organize them into useful categories, and rate them. Contact Squid’s other features, however, effectively transform it into a social-driven database of professional service providers with serious marketing potential.

Cient Relationship Management

In any business, both off-line as well as online, tension with the customer is almost always unavoidable. It is part of daily interaction with the clients. In order to maintain a good client relationship management, there are some guidelines that always need to be followed and implemented. It is most often best practice to maintain a good and open communication line with your clients. This helps in maintaining a healthy and productive relationship with them which is a key ingredient for internet relationship success.

Taking the Cus out of Customer Service: Why Ask Why?
Why ask why? It engages customers to think rather than wait. Like a rock laced with gold, raw feedback needs to be refined. We don't want to appease demanding customers…we want to figure them out. There's pain in work. We all have some symptoms. We all have some points. True customer service is a two-way road: discovering the problem together and working on a solution together.

The Myths & Realities of Customer Relationship Management CRM
The goal of our discussion here is to differentiate between the myths and realities regarding CRM and to remove some of the mystery around these types of solutions and their benefit to your organization. By M. Danny Estrada, MBA CRM Practice Manager, Net@Work

The Myths & Realities of Customer Relationship Management CRM
The goal of our discussion here is to differentiate between the myths and realities regarding CRM and to remove some of the mystery around these types of solutions and their benefit to your organization. By M. Danny Estrada, MBA CRM Practice Manager, Net@Work

Understanding Customer Relations Management (2)

Not long ago, companies with efficient facilities and greater resources were able to satisfy customer needs with standardized products, reaping advantages through productivity gains and lower costs. Mass marketing and mass production were successful as long as customers were satisfied with standardized products. As more firms entered the market, mass marketing techniques, where the goal was to sell what manufacturing produced, started to lose effectiveness. Target marketing, or segmentation, shifted a company's focus to adjusting products and marketing efforts to fit customer requirements. Changing customer needs and preferences require firms to define smaller and smaller segments.

Customer relationship management (CRM) in medium-sized enterprises.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the active set-up and preservation of long-term profitable customer relations by interaction with the customer. The interaction is made by use of suitable technologies, value increasing business processes and content employees.

Selecting The Right CRM Solution For Your Business
If you're considering purchasing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solution for your business this article gives you six points to help you select the right one.

Advantages Of CRM
This article highlights several major advantages of having a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software solution.

CRM - an intelligent investment
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a process that makes you understand more about customer’s needs and behavior in order to develop strong relationships with them. Customer Relationship Management helps bringing together huge amounts of information about customers, sales and marketing, responsiveness, and market trends for better understanding of customer’s requirements.

Effective use of CRM software
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. CRM is an effective practice which is used for maintaining a healthy relationship between customer and the organization. CRM is responsible for managing the company’s interaction with its clients.

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