More firms than you would ever imagine both small, medium, and larger organisations, still have little or no visibility and control over their sales revenue.

They often fall into two camps, either they have no CRM system at all and rely on a myriad of spread sheets and disparate reports to attempt to manage the business.

Or they have a CRM system, but it has never been fully adopted by management or staff to effectively manage their customer engagement.

Often the CRM is little more than a glorified address book of contacts rather than a vital tool to track the business in real time and capitalise on the many opportunities currently being lost to deliver value to customers.

So, why not take a fresh look at what you are doing to improve the effectiveness of your management & sales team by reviewing these 6 points below provided by David Beard CRM Principal at Sage.

Do an honest self-appraisal and see where you can improve.

We would love to hear your comments on what you have done so far that’s working for you?

And what challenges are you facing now to take results to the next level?

We are all continually learning from each other and so develop better solutions together.

1. Future Visibility.

• An accounting system only views past performance. What about indicators of next year’s success?
• Contracts due for renewal, key contacts to follow-up, marketing activity to study for trends, sales pipeline dips indicating possible customer departures and much more.
• Only “forward looking” customer relationship management (CRM) tools can give you this.

2. Proactive Sales Approach.

• Are you leveraging customer information as well as you should? Proactively plan & accurately target your products & services, rather than just trying it randomly with a few people that are front of mind. 

3. Protect Your Assets.

• When a key staff member leaves, are they walking out the door with your business in their head, not retained in the company?
• What would it mean to your business if you lost a key customer or contract just because no-one else knew what was going on?
• What has a customer been promised, what is yet to do? A central CRM system collects, manages & retains a key corporate asset – information. 

4. Increase Productivity.

• Are you operating in an even more competitive environment? To keep up, are you trying to do more with fewer resources?
• Shouldn’t you be more efficient by getting all your information in one place & taking advantage of CRM tools (email marketing, workflow, etc.) to improve your business volume without employing more staff or doing more hours?”

5. Improved Customer Experience.

• In a world where customer experience is a key differentiator, how are you managing?
• Can you make sure all your staff are ‘in the know’, ensure anyone can manage issues with ease & that no-one drops the ball at every customer touchpoint?
• Putting CRM in everyone’s hands helps you commit to your company’s promise of quality service.” 

6. Organisation = Efficiency.

• Overwhelmed by spreadsheets, word documents, paper files, invoicing & a myriad of other systems?
• How much more efficient could you be internally & would it look externally?
• Putting CRM at the heart of your business can ensure prospects, sales, service & financial information is available to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

If this subject resonates with you and your experiences, then:

We will be running an Executive CRM Workshop in partnership with Peter at Linear Structure on Tuesday 21st 11:00am. More information to follow.