CRM going Social

There has been a lot of buzz over the past couple of years about this new concept of marketing called as “Social Customer Relationship Management”, this blog aims at putting some light on the Concept , how it works, and how the data is gathered and fed into CRM systems to do further analysis.

*Concept – Social CRM & Social Media Marketing

Social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Face-book are amplifying the voice of people in the marketplace and are having profound and far-reaching effects on the ways in which people buy. Customers can now research companies online and then ask for recommendations through social media channels, making their buying decision without contacting the company. People also use social media to share opinions and experiences on companies, products and services. As social media is not as widely moderated or censored as mainstream media, individuals can say anything they want about a company or brand, positive or negative.

Increasingly, companies are looking to gain access to these conversations and take part in the dialogue. More than a few systems are now integrating to social networking sites. Social media promoters cite a number of business advantages, such as using online communities as a source of high-quality leads and a vehicle for crowd sourcing solutions to client-support problems. Companies can also leverage client stated habits and preferences to “hyper-target” their sales and marketing communications

What Data to gather and How?

With access to such a huge resource of real-time prospective customer data, marketing communication’s need to be planned and executed properly. Advantages of undertaking this strategy are High-quality leads & to provide user-friendly, cost effective and participatory platform for customers to find instant solutions to their problems.

Customers looking for a product or service would express their views on an open platform, where other members help in, by providing more information and adding personal experiences, helping in short-listing the best fit for his requirements.

Companies could monitor these discussions and suggest their product and services to people looking for them; they should start profiling these new contacts to understand them and their future needs better,

They could also add current customers to their company’s online community and increase fan following, this increases brand loyalty and ensures repeat sales. Various social engineering techniques can be used to study each customer better, this would not only help cross selling other services to that customer but also would generate a database which on analysis would give valuable insights on changing customer preferences, and hot industry trends.

How it affects company’s overall CRM strategy?

Social CRM will mean different things to different companies, the goal is to first understand the business challenge and then to make a SM supporting strategy to reach that goal, different companies would want different things and a sound strategy to achieve that goal needs to be formulated before the company enters into Social CRM.

Data gathered over time from such sources could be fed into company’s CRM infrastructure, and can later be used to analyse for better decision making.

NOTES:-

*Source Wikipedia.org

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DISCLAIMER: – IDEAL CRM, blog post is a personal collection of  Research Oriented information, Focusing  on CRM and Customer-Centric Web strategies, comments or opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual contributors only, and do not necessarily represent views of  coAction.com ,Readers may copy and redistribute blog postings on other blogs, or otherwise for private, non-commercial or journalistic purposes. This Content may not be used for any other purposes, in any other formats or media. The content on blog is provided on “as-is” basis, coAction.com shall not be liable for any damages whatsoever arising out of the content or the use of this blog.

 

How can CRM help in identifying new customers?

Good data on your current customers and prospects and good marketing analysis will help you identify new customers.

Quality data collected from various online resources and SEO channels, like online directory advertisements and Google add campaigns, marketing campaigns etc, can be fed into CRM systems.

With additional information and a Quality Database sales can start PROFILIING these new made contacts into different segments, based on their characteristics, this will give a broader view of the existing database for conducting extensive analysis.

CRM systems are built to integrate customized applications to help analysis of this new data and will also provide a collaboration platform for seamlessly sharing this data with colleagues,

Raw data can be filtered based on various parameters to processed data, which can freely be exchanged with various departments through sharing, exporting other formats or by email.

New age CRM software’s can be customized to support various analytical needs of the organization; it will also support analysis of customer feedback, networking data and also as a tool to study data received through social media.

Built in functions to carry out campaigns (Survey, Newsletter etc.) along with good CRM integrated analytical tools can be used to shortlist prospective customers.

CRM applications help you reach and rediscover existing customer engagements, make sure you notice every little traits/buying pattern and if analyzed properly will give you signs about reaching out to new customer, how one reads the signs is purely based upon human judgment and customer experience.

It is indeed very difficult to do Profiling of customers without a good marketing tool like CRM which allows seamless integration of different technologies in a hosted platform where data can be imported from various sources, customized applications can be developed and which can store the information in a structured and organized manner.

This data can further be used to educate sales personnel to make faster and smarter sales by cross-selling products increasing profitability, analysis of CRM data can help identify not only new customers but also new business.

Social Media is yet another medium which businesses are tapping to get access to new markets and to understand consumer behaviour; in fact the entire CRM industry is banking heavily on this new found 21^st century tool to drive sales and to find new ways to integrate this data into their CRM systems,

Although there has been a lot of buzz about the social CRM in the recent times, it is still considered to be in a nascent stage and the hype in the CRM industry seems to be due to the probable ways in which this medium can be fully utilized, it will only be by 2012 that we would be in a position to include social CRM  as a full  fledged medium to execute marketing strategies and a some more time there after for it to become a major contributor to a company’s profits.

Nevertheless, Customer Relationship Management systems for all the above mentioned reasons and many more plays a important role in running a profitable business, by increasing effectiveness of execution and increasing the efficiency of performance in conducting day-to-day activities, it helps sustain steady growth for the business by identifying prospects and providing new business opportunities.

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DISCLAIMER: – IDEAL CRM, blog post is a personal collection of  Research Oriented information, Focusing  on CRM and Customer-Centric Web strategies, comments or opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual contributors only, and do not necessarily represent views of  coAction.com ,Readers may copy and redistribute blog postings on other blogs, or otherwise for private, non-commercial or journalistic purposes. This Content may not be used for any other purposes, in any other formats or media. The content on blog is provided on “as-is” basis, coAction.com shall not be liable for any damages whatsoever arising out of the content or the use of this blog.

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CRM Analysis

Research has proven CRM systems have proven to be a  business most cost effective and profitable tool for external client interactions and for generating new leads, it is the most intelligent tool a Business Big, Medium or Small can utilize for its success. CRM has a lot of Advantages over the traditional paper based way of working; CRM systems provide an easy and effective way to manage business, with all the information available at your fingertips.

Information contained in data warehouse :–

CRM systems maintain a constant stream of client interactions and day to day business activities; it manages & maintains a lot of data in its servers, all this information is very vital from the management perspective as it plays a crucial role in making future decisions.

Let’s take a look at the kind of data that is stored in these systems and the kind of features and usable information they offer.

Sales force automation :– A database of prospective clients can be maintained using this feature in CRM, data segregation is a very effective technique used to gather client information and inbuilt features which enable you to make CALLs send SMS even Emails ensuring multiple touch points to a customer. Leads can be generating using this feature to increase opportunities and maintain a healthy clientele.

Current Client database :– Using CRM systems management can maintain a constant watch on the overall clientele a business has, this helps maintain a healthy active client ratio, since not all the clients are active at all times, the system has a built in calendar to map different products or services a client may need at different times of the year, like filter change or replacement of other such articles.

This enables the sales team to predict future sales and maintain optimum levels of the right kind of inventory making huge savings on operational and inventory costs ensuring reduced costs and repeat sales.

Bills, invoices and other accounting information – A simple application in CRM system can maintain all the accounting information along with other details required for tax returns, insurance, etc. in one place it also can be customized according to a specific business need to tweak calculations. Some CRM systems provide special applications for automatic tax payment.

Generating various customer invoices for sales made during the day and calculating the entire sale for the day, last month or last 10 years. All these features and much more makes CRM a Accountants best friend, it also assists in yearly audit by providing accurate and timely information.

Analysis of this information resource can help management make alert and informed decisions regarding various business functions. The right kind of predictions made using historical data can enable the management track various business needs of the customers at different times of the year, this information can be used to place online advertisements (on appropriate websites)along with increased SEO efforts  to gain the maximum Return On Investment

Increase in online sales – Generating a accurate customer preferences pattern recorded on regular basis from previous visits and purchases made by the customer, offering the right type of products which the customer would actually be interested in buying based on analysis of not only what should be offered but also at what time an form it should be offered at, giving a $10 discount and attractive package on some other product should be carefully considered. Understanding the customer on both micro and macro basis is important.

The data generate can be utilized to plan and forecast various customer needs and can be used for successful Search Engine Optimization and carrying out advertising campaigns.

DISCLAIMER: – IDEAL CRM, blog post is a personal collection of  Research Oriented information, Focusing  on CRM and Customer-Centric Web strategies, comments or opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual contributors only, and do not necessarily represent views of  coAction.com ,Readers may copy and redistribute blog postings on other blogs, or otherwise for private, non-commercial or journalistic purposes. This Content may not be used for any other purposes, in any other formats or media. The content on blog is provided on “as-is” basis, coAction.com shall not be liable for any damages whatsoever arising out of the content or the use of this blog.

Advantages of using a CRM software

Advantages of using a CRM software, Today most of the Big businesses around the world use some or the other form of CRM or Customer Relationship Management software to synchronize all the information gathered on a daily basis running, further soughing & arranging it and converting the same piece of information into meaningful & Valuable data, which can now be used to make Alert decisions, forecasting sales, revenue, but most of all maintaining existing customers base, while generating new leads.

So with the benefits of CRM software’s to Big Business having multiple branches across the country or the world, been tested and proven in the past few years ,

Why can’t the millions of supporting smaller business apply the same strategy to grow and expand their businesses?

The answer to that is YES…they CAN, but most of the small business owners somehow seem to be ignorant about the fact, thinking it takes Millions of dollars to set up such an infrastructure, but the fact is that it might take even less money per month than your car loan…

Today’s ON Demand or Hosted CRM provides Small Business owners the advantage of not investing huge sum‘s into such infrastructure, by providing a online platform to store all their information on their servers in a safe and secured manner, and all of this is available at nominal monthly fee.

CRM is best for Novice as a blog on written on the same by experts  at crmscorecard.com rightfully point out, explaining the Advantages of CRM software to the newbie’s in the business or small business owners who are looking forward to educating and investing in CRM systems,

Blogger rightfully pointed out some key advantages of CRM systems to Small Businesses,

1. Discovery of new customers

2. Increased sales volume

3. Prompt revenue generation

4. Customer and employee satisfaction

5. Improved business productivity

6. Attainment of organizational goals

7. Advanced business identity development

8. Competitive edge

9. Corporate Transparency

10. Corporate Scalability

11. Improved performance of HR department

12. Balanced and proactive approach &

13. Effective business planning

Small business owners can take advantage of CRM software as a tool to Boost sales, improve business productivity, and improve customer satisfaction. Small businesses also benefit from CRM system’s as they are accurate trust worthy and very cost effective in comparison to the traditional way of working with piles of papers cluttered around, Hence Business Small or Big benefit  from this and can hence use CRM to effectively achieve their corporate goals.

DISCLAIMER: – IDEAL CRM, blog post is a personal collection of  Research Oriented information, Focusing  on CRM and Customer-Centric Web strategies, comments or opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual contributors only, and do not necessarily represent views of  coAction.com ,Readers may copy and redistribute blog postings on other blogs, or otherwise for private, non-commercial or journalistic purposes. This Content may not be used for any other purposes, in any other formats or media. The content on blog is provided on “as-is” basis, coAction.com shall not be liable for any damages whatsoever arising out of the content or the use of this blog.

IDEAL crm – Changing times and trends in CRM industry

In today’s rapidly changing business enviournment, a modern business needs as much help as it can get to compete and out perform its competitors, in order to do that, it will take much more than the traditional and simple business particles being used by businesses in the past, today’s Modern Business needs the best of all available resources & help it can get in order to increase productivity, maximize profit, cutting down unnecessary costs and building profits.

Most of the business running today in America use some or the other kind of Customer Relationship Management systems or CRM as they are popularly known as to successfully run and manage their business, a CRM software can be of two types, one which is a standard version and another one which is designed as per a specific company’s requirements Customized CRM,

Over the years CRM systems have evolved, and an IDEAL crm should have the following customer information

1)    Client Company’s Corporate Information – (Name, Address, Telephone Nos., etc).

2)    Key contact details (mediators OR other persons outside the organization).

3)    Bank Account Number’s.

4)    Customers Sales History (this week, this month, last month, last 6 months, last year, etc).

5)    Customers’ total enquiries & Quotes given to them.

6)    Quotes accepted.

7)    Quotes declined (also space to mention reason why).

8)    Outstanding quotes (last follow-up, Processing or reason why not accepted yet).

9)    Outbound communication trail & inbound communication trails (Notes).

10)  Special offers, Discounts offered in the past (Notes).

11) Future Work Scheduling (pending orders to be delivered in future).

12) Notes on any Service calls Made in past (Notes).

13) Complaints (Notes).

These crm systems help you do everything right from Generating new Leads to converting them into first time customers, processing orders, making order delivery, sending invoices, collecting payments & storing all data for all your customers in a database available conveniently at your finger tips.

But these systems with all the advantages they provide somehow seem to be prehistoric in comparison to the Services & Functions offered by a modern day CRM.

DISCLAIMER: – IDEAL CRM, blog post is a personal collection of  Research Oriented information, Focusing  on CRM and Customer-Centric Web strategies, comments or opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual contributors only, and do not necessarily represent views of  coAction.com ,Readers may copy and redistribute blog postings on other blogs, or otherwise for private, non-commercial or journalistic purposes. This Content may not be used for any other purposes, in any other formats or media. The content on blog is provided on “as-is” basis, coAction.com shall not be liable for any damages whatsoever arising out of the content or the use of this blog.