A Simple Measurement for Determining if You Need CRM

Our phone starts ringing the Monday after Thanksgiving.  The message – can you help us pull together our data for getting out the holiday cards?  Over the years I have come to believe that this question is the single best indicator of how much an organization needs CRM. 

As companies pass around Excel files trying to organize the holiday card mailing or VIP list for the gift basket, one gets a pretty good idea of how information about customers is managed – it is not!   

Rather than this task being as simple as filtering for those customers with the holiday card box checked, it becomes a Chinese fire drill, consuming considerable amounts of support time and sales reps’ time. I have even seen some companies give up and tell the sales reps to come in to address their own cards to mail.

If this simple task is not being completed in minutes, how well are you maintaining relationships with your best customers?  Are you satisfied with leaving that responsibility totally up to the sales reps?

The number one advantage of a CRM system is getting sales, marketing and customer service on the same page with every customer. It is not just getting out the holiday cards.  CRM is all about customer touches.

Is marketing reinforcing the sales message?  Does sales know it? Is customer service easily sharing issues with the sales reps?  Is the president aware of the good and bad things regarding a key account before they call?  After the basic communications are taken care of,  then you are ready to analyze the data and know who to cross-sell or up-sell and who else should be your customers. Any value in that activity for your growth?

Just run the time numbers required for getting out the holiday card, times it by the other 12 months of little issues that come up and ask yourself how much is it costing me not to have a CRM system. Well, how much?

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Comments

[Suzanne Obermire]

Bob,
Wow, you crystallized the essence of CRM when you wrote: "The number one advantage of a CRM system is getting sales, marketing and customer service on the same page with every customer."

That's a great definition and I hope you don't mind if I borrow it. And, you are right on regarding the importance of a CRM system that works.

[Nicole]

I agree 100 percent. The frazzled, time-scarce sales team is not a customer-focused sales team. To be quite honest, CRM no longer even necessarily represents a cost to companies, with several free CRM offerings such as www.octopuscity.com in the marketplace.