Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a business strategy that defines how your business connects with, deals with, and interacts with your customers, suppliers and business partners.
CRM is:
- Practicing an integrated effect to each customer-facing business function
- An integrated approach to identifying, acquiring and retaining customers
- Managing customers across multiple channels, departments, lines of business and geographies
- Maximising every interaction and driving corporate performance
- Evolutionary (evolve or die!)
CRM enables your business to maintain the vital competitive edge - your relationship with your customers. The ability to understand their key needs and wants, coupled with regular proactive contact and positive client interactions are key to customer retention.
Why is customer retention so important?
We all know it takes months to find a customer and seconds to lose one. The average US business loses 50% of its customers every 5 years, and the majority of those customers won't even advise that they are leaving. The cost to a company is 7-10 times more than retaining an existing one, and many new customers leave before becoming profitable. An increased retention of just 5% can increase company profits by 25-75%.
What can CRM achieve for your company?
- Increase business efficacy
- Increase revenues and profits
- Lower costs of marketing and selling services to customers
- Break down information silos throughout the organisation
- Better align business processes, culture/behavior and customer data across customer facing functions
- Build successful, profitable and long term relationships
Tips for what not to do when thinking CRM:
- Don't start by looking for technology
- Don't try to do everything at once (keep the project managable, control your budget and timelines)
- Don't have unrealistic expectations. The 360 degree view so often promised becomes unattainable as the initiatives became complex and prohibitive
- Don't focus on technology features instead of the customer and organisation
- Don't allow one person to drive this on behalf of all organisational areas
- Don't depend entirely on an external party to successfully implement a solution without your involvement
For a copy of the White Paper "4 Steps to CRM Success" please visit Resources.
