Sure you can beat my price, but can you beat my CRM?

 Every company has competition. Every company tries to differentiate themselves against other companies so that they can some form of edge over their competitors; whether it is a lower price, better support, a better product, etc.

And although winning customers is very important, retaining them as customers is even more important. But then why do companies often neglect this important aspect of business. Remember you can have no better sales person on your team than a happy customer telling others about your fantastic product or service. So you need to invest in some form of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy. Because if you don’t you will get an unhappy customer. And having an unhappy customer is not what you want. They can cause a lot of damage to your reputation and could be the cause of the downfall of your business.

CRM 2.0 is still CRM

 

After the countless failed CRM projects back in the early 1990′s CRM became a very unpopular subject. Instead of CRM helping companies retain customers it ended up being a costly undertaking that did not produce measurable results. Everyone blamed the CRM software for this and lots of CRM software companies vanished overnight.

 

But CRM has made a comeback. Some have tried to call it a different name to distinguish between the old failed CRM projects and the current more successful implementations. But “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet” and the same applies to CRM. We cannot blame the CRM software for the failed implementations. But rather the blame rests squarely on the shoulders on the companies that tried to implement CRM. CRM software without a CRM strategy is the same as being on a boat without a rudder. You need to have a CRM strategy and buy in from management for any CRM software to have the slightest benefit.

 

We should stop concerning ourselves with what CRM stands for (Customer Relationship Management), but rather view it as a tool to increase customer service, customer loyalty, employee productivity, and a means of reducing duplication of effort and input. If the reduction of duplicate work is accomplished both your customer and your staff benefit. And happy staff, means happy customers, means increased revenue, means happy managers.