A year ago, longer or never!  Well if you haven’t I bet at least 30% of it is out of date, ranging from people with new employers, to changed e-mail addresses, to new phone numbers and that’s just the static data!

A CRM is only as good as it’s usefulness to your business and you know what they say “rubbish in, rubbish out” at least that’s the polite version however never has a statement been so true than in relation to CRM.  To put it another way “time is money” and wasted time with inaccurate information is a lot of wasted money.

It’s worth investing a little time and effort on a regular basis to make sure your business information is accurate.  You will soon work out who isn’t updating as they go along as they are the ones who will take longer to get their records up to date.  I will let you decide how to point out the error of their ways.

So here are my top tips for keeping your information relevant and accurate:

• At least twice a year, but better quarterly, review your CRM database by extracting a full list to .csv or excel spreadsheet.
• Highlight any ‘orphan’ contacts (by orphan I mean any contacts who are unassigned to an organisation) and check with the relevant account manager if they have the missing detail.  If you can’t find anyone who knows the contact, remove it from the database.
• Try to find any missing data for contacts e.g. e-mail address, direct dial or mobile number.
• Highlight anyone who hasn’t been contacted for, say, 6 months and inform the relevant account manager. You might find that the person can be removed from the database or perhaps they’ve merely been overlooked by the account manager and this exercise will remind them to get in touch.
• Appoint a CRM Champion within your organisation who should have overall responsibility for checking the integrity of all information held.
• Stay on top of any sales opportunities by holding a weekly sales meeting to discuss what is held in the pipeline and update the pipeline information as it is discussed.
• Often sales leads are kept in a CRM long after a piece of business has gone which again clutters the system resulting in you not being able to see the wood for the trees.  As soon as a piece of work is won, lost or gone away it should be marked as such and removed from the sales pipeline.

By following these simple rules your CRM will be a much more effective and useful sales tool for your business and as we all know, effective sales tools help create sales which in turn leads to profits!

The above paints a fairly bleak picture of life in a busy office however it can also be a fairly accurate picture.  All too often you cannot find the file you are looking for when you have that important customer on the phone and you end up ‘bluffing’ your way through the conversation.

Wouldn’t it be better if when on the phone you could be 100% confident that you’ve got all the information you need to hand, whether it be a discussion held last week or a contract agreement made 2 years ago?  It gets even better if a colleague can take that important phone call in your absence confident that he will have the most up to date information at his fingertips.

So how could you achieve this?  Easy, get your business a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.  Now I know there are horror stories out there of CRM’s being over complex, over priced and not bringing the business benefits that were promised however to be honest the reason for these horror stories is often that the wrong one was chosen or that a business did not embrace the CRM from the start.  The Management Team of a business must lead by example and be seen to actively use the CRM from implementation.  It’s also important that the CRM fits in with your business processes naturally and not be made to fit!

The correct CRM correctly configured and implemented for your business will very quickly become an essential part of your daily life, in fact it will grow into a treasure-trove of information that you will find that you cannot do without.

Want to get ahead of the competition by becoming a much more organised and customer focussed business, then get yourself a CRM.

In January 2010, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) estimated that lost employee productivity could cost the UK as much as £600m per day. How much will it cost us this time and why do businesses not better equip themselves to minimise their disruption?

‘Savvy’ businesses are moving with the times and ensuring their IT applications are all SaaS based i.e. held in the ‘cloud’ which ensures access from wherever they have an internet connection…in the office, a coffee house, client site or even at home!

We at assiso are completely SaaS based so for us there’s no having to make dangerous journeys into the office to get that important information we need to talk to a client.  We keep all our information on Capsule CRM which means I can be doing this blog from the warmth and comfort of my home (with a lovely mug of hot tea!).

SaaS based CRMs may not be the panacea to all the UK productivity issues in this weather but they certainly help!  Our clients have a much better chance of remaining productive and ahead of their competition as staff can continue to access the systems they rely on.

Isn’t it about time you considered equipping yourself to be more flexible re home working for your staff? Contact us to hear more about our CRM.

Has your company made its New Year Resolution yet?  Have you assessed what your company needs to get ahead of the competition in 2013 and get your name ‘out there’?

It could be a refresh of your website which is wise as nothing switches me off personally more than an out of date or cluttered website.  Keep it simple is my motto!

It could be to engage with a company to carry out some tele-marketing on your behalf.  Yip, getting your name in front of potential customers and clients is definitely a step in the right direction.

However I personally think one of the best ways to get ahead and stay ahead of your competition is to get your company a CRM, oh and use it!  It’s pointless getting a CRM and then not using it to its full potential.  That would be like getting a state of the art sound system connected through your entire house and then only listening to it through your headphones.

Getting a CRM would be akin to a personal New Year Resolution to go on a diet or refrain from alcohol……it’s a big change in lifestyle, can be difficult to embed in daily life but the benefits are more than worth any pain that you may go through.  As the saying goes, no pain, no gain!

A good CRM correctly configured and used to its full potential will:

• ensure a company becomes much more relationship focussed and will keep the history of the relationship in one place making it easy to view and therefore stay in touch with your customers.
• help with your sales plan.  Have you written yours for 2013?  Do you know who your targets are and when you last got in touch with them or how discussions were left?  Maybe you do, but do your colleagues who may just answer your phone one day when you are out of the office.  Now by accessing the CRM they would be able to continue that conversation exactly where you left it.  Now how good a customer experience would that give?
• ensure that your customers are contacted exactly the way they prefer regardless of who in your company is contacting them.  Can you confidently say that you know what each of your customers’ preferences are or that others in your company do?  Some customers like to be contacted by telephone whereas others are too busy for that and would much prefer an e-mail that they can pick up when they’ve got the time. Others, for example, don’t like to receive any marketing literature whether from a current supplier or not and you wouldn’t want to upset any current customers by sending marketing literature that they specifically said they didn’t want to receive.

OK, I will stop there rather than bore you with an endless of list of benefits……I think you get the message! So go on, make that New Year resolution to get ahead of the competition by getting a CRM.  Oh and I didn’t mention earlier but I know just the CRM that is perfect for your needs…..and if it isn’t, I’ll tell you.  So go on, get in touch.

Now I think I’m a relatively organised person (some may disagree) however I certainly couldn’t possibly manage to know exactly where every child lives, what their name is, what they would like for their Christmas and, most importantly, have they been good!

I may be giving away one of the biggest secrets of all time however I believe Santa has been very smart and got himself a CRM.  How else could he possibly manage to retain all the above information in such a way as to make him what must be the most efficient and organised person ever!

Obviously as letters are received in the North Pole the Admin Elves update the CRM with any change of addresses, tag the child as good or bad (yes, there really is a bad tag although it’s never been used to my knowledge), populate the Toy field with the toy the child wants and keeps any other relevant information as a note e.g. whether they are at their home address or perhaps away visiting relatives.  I mean it wouldn’t do for Santa to deliver the toys to the wrong address!

Santa can then easily tell how many of each toy he needs and get the Elves in manufacturing to make sure that ample supplies are made of each.  He can also quickly tell what exactly he needs for each area (obviously he has fields set up geographically for ease of reference when packing his sack).  And of course Santa can constantly refer to the CRM on his mobile when he’s out delivering just to make sure that he doesn’t make a mistake!

Yes, the more I think about it Santa definitely has a CRM……now isn’t it about time you did!

Now as to how he manages to deliver all those presents in one evening…..well that’s just a bit beyond the capabilities of a CRM

Merry Christmas everyone!

• Free – usually a fairly basic model with tight restrictions on the number of users and number of contacts held
• ‘Out of the box’ SaaS based – usually involving a small monthly recurring per user fee
• Fully integrated systems – usually very expensive and can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

In life, there is a saying that the more you spend the more you get……this isn’t always the case with a CRM.  There are companies who have spent thousands on a CRM and still don’t have a product that their staff can use however they’ve spent so much on it that they believe they have to stick with the product and make it work.

There are many major CRM providers out there who, if you have the money to spend, will indeed build you a system which will do everything you want…..and possibly more…..however you don’t need to have ‘deep pockets’ to get a configurable system nowadays.  Most ‘out of the box’ SaaS based CRMs allow you to configure the system to fit your needs and they don’t cost the earth.  They also now allow integration to many other business applications enabling the sharing of information between, say, your accounts package and the CRM.

So what are the advantages of SaaS based CRMs:-

• inexpensive monthly user fees, sometimes on a rolling contract with no tie-in
• no expensive hardware costs
• no system upgrade costs
• configurable to your business needs
• integration to many other business applications e.g. accounting packages, marketing tools and website contact forms.

SaaS based CRMs are now within budget of all SMEs and you’d be surprised at how little they do cost.

As December approaches, a meeting takes place to discuss who your best customers are, which suppliers you have been using and who are the top targets for the year ahead as these are perhaps the people that you want to send a card to.  And so the debate starts! Who you think is a very good customer your colleague may believe isn’t, that important supplier may get overlooked and what about the targets for next year…..do you have the organisation and contact details to hand?

Not only can it lead to disagreement between colleagues, it can result in people spending time working through lists and excel spreadsheets whereas their time would be better spent winning new business.

For many organisations the thought of working out who to send a Christmas card to is such an ordeal that many just don’t bother sending any!  Now where is their festive cheer!

So what do the astute businesses do? They use their CRM to keep the relevant information throughout the year and it is a case of pulling of a report and hey presto, you have your Christmas card list in a matter of seconds.

Now I’m not for a second suggesting that the main reason for getting  a CRM is to make a more harmonious office throughout the festive period (albeit this is the season to be jolly) however this is just another example of how fragmented information can create extra work.  A CRM, correctly configured to keep data relevant to your organisation, can save you hours of extra work throughout the year and be a benefit to your marketing activities, generating new customers, cross/upselling to existing customers….the benefits just go on and on.

So go on, now you know what to ask Santa for

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, that’s the easy bit!  In fact, drop the word ‘Customer’, it should really be called RM as that’s what it really does.  It enables you to manage relationships for customers, suppliers, partners…..in fact anyone you have contact with.

A true CRM brings together information to provide one complete view of your relationship with each person or organisation in real-time e.g. what you last discussed, what business you have done with them, who the key relationships are with, how best to contact the individual, progress on sales opportunities, any problems being resolved, etc, etc, etc – I think you get the picture!

A CRM empowers you to make quick and effective but informed decisions on everything relating to the relationship from cross-selling and upselling opportunities to targeting marketing strategies to simply making sure you stay in touch and understand what matters to the organisation or individual.

It’s easy to believe that a CRM is ‘just’ a sales tool and that only sales people should use it but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact often sales people are the worst offenders for not populating a CRM.  ’Switched on’ companies are now using CRMs in every aspect of their business where relationships and access to relationship information is important.

Marketing Departments can use a CRM to view an existing customer’s previous purchases and use this information in direct marketing campaigns and Customer Service Departments will have a complete view of all communications with each and every customer which will enable them to provide a better customer experience.

So what does a good CRM look like?  In my opinion it should:

• be highly flexible and configurable to your business needs
• provide you with a tool for tracking sales leads from inception through to sealing the deal
• allow task creation and allocation
• give anytime anywhere access from any web browser or mobile device
• help you manage events and marketing campaigns
• help you improve customer relationships leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty
• provide real-time information for all users
• link with social media e.g. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
• link with other business applications.

Can your business afford not to have one?

So there, you can now join in the discussion about CRM and cut the wittering short!

All of this information in one concise place is invaluable for building relationships and sales and saves considerable time.  You will be amazed at the potential opportunities you may come across by reading a customer’s Tweets.

Before picking up the phone to call that very important customer it’s always worth having a look at their CRM record to see who else from your organisation has been in touch with them and what has been said.  It gives an excellent customer experience when you can pick up exactly where a colleague has left off.  Your customer will feel that they are dealing with a very efficient organisation and that their business would be safe with you.  It’s all about building confidence in your relationship and that’s the value add that a CRM can provide.

Now if that doesn’t make a CRM essential I don’t know what does!