Each company has its own unique path to CRM. The duration and success of the “journey” (making changes to company processes) will depend on how precisely the starting and ending points are defined, the coordinated movement of all “axes”, the speed of movement is set.
There is a huge variety of “CRM travels”. Some companies come to the idea of CRM, based on their own intuition of the company leader, the feeling of growing influence of competition and the inevitability of struggle for each client. Other companies focus on the successful experience of the industry’s leading enterprises and want proven solutions. Third companies have already come to a customer-centric business, but need help translating business requirements into information technology, choosing a specific CRM system or implementers for a CRM solution.
Both first, second and third are useful to overcome all the way to CRM in the best possible way: with the least risk and guaranteed result. Drawing on your long experience in CRM, you can get a set of Salesforce consulting services (CRM consulting) to more effectively move your company to a customer and partner relationship management strategy. CRM-consulting is a private case of business consulting or management consulting.
These services include
- CRM-Audit – expertise of business readiness for the effective implementation of CRM-strategy. Formation of CRM strategy maps and success metrics to describe goals and monitor progress.
- CRM strategy development and improvement.
- CRM Navigator – CRM strategy maps and CRM metrics to identify and support the right business course.
- Selection, development and customization of CRM strategy implementation tools.
Consulting services accompany the implementation of a CRM solution on all stages of the project’s life cycle:
- Optimization of business processes and regulation of client block activities.
- Selection, configuration and design of CRM-solutions taking into account the peculiarities of your company’s business.
- Implementation and maintenance of CRM-solutions.
- Training of CRM-solutions users.
What does the CRM system mean?
CRM – Customer Relationship Management essentially comes down to the profitable attraction and retention of customers by implementing a customer-centric strategy based on information technology. CRM is not just an increase in sales, but a mutually beneficial “linking” of customer needs with the capabilities of the seller, which requires a collegial work for the customer of different functional divisions.
Thus, CRM “in the big” is a strategy of “distinguishing” business. CRM “in small” – is software that allows you to automate various aspects of interaction with customers marketing, sales and service departments based on automatic processes (including sales) and a single “information space” of the organization (consolidation of all information about each customer by exchanging data with other information systems). Combining the key blocks of information about contacts, organizations, transactions, orders and connections between them, CRM-system allows you to “know on the facts” the behavior of customers and choose an economically viable way to serve them, that is to conduct business “proactively.
Commercial activity is usually based on a simple idea, which can be formulated in a few words – Find, Attract, Save and Develop:
- find and evaluate potential customers (marketing),
- attract them by “personalized” offer of goods and services (sales),
- save clients on the basis of quality service (service),
- develop business with “old” customers based on meeting their related needs and trust (care).