For those of you considering a CRM or a customer database, there are a number of hidden costs that you need to be aware of if you want to get the most out of your system.
Let’s start on a positive note: the benefits.
A CRM that is set up and tailored to your business can bring fantastic economies of scale. Work that is duplicated many times at the moment (e.g. delivery plans) can all be automated and tied in together in an efficient and clever way. Having everyone up to speed on that customer who doesn’t pay or that big deal that is just around the corner if you go that extra mile is invaluable. You can also get reports to investigate anything your heart desires – from seeing who your best customers are to how long your sales people take to close a deal.
You can see where in the sales cycle your customers are – do they need that extra final document signed to get them over the line, or are they just not interested? This makes your sales process much more efficient.
You can reduce costs – no need to waste time and money having the same client called twice in a day by 2 different sales people – aside from the fact it looks very unprofessional. You can also see at a glance what products or services are easy sales and what ones are hard to sell.
You can find pain points and reduce them – if you can find that repetitive task that everyone hates doing and make it go away with the CRM, your employees will love you, and also free them up to spend their time more productively.
Your customers will be more satisfied – they will feel you are taking care of them at a professional and personal level.
Now for the hidden costs:
Firstly, and this is a big one, your business is unique. There are certain things that are relevant to your business that are not relevant to other businesses. If you are selling machine parts you will have a whole range of workflows that are very different to a company running training courses. Therefore for your CRM system to be of any use, you are going to need to tailor it to your business. This involves either hiring someone skilled in this area, or hiring a consultant.
Secondly, chances are high that you already use some sort of Excel based system for keeping track of customers, and now it’s become completely unmanageable. However, this data is still valuable. Somehow you need to get this data into the CRM. The amount of work in this should NOT be underestimated.
Here at BeMoore we help you through these pain points, with an initial assessment of your needs, targeted training, consultancy, and thereafter a low monthly fee for running your CRM. Find out more at www.crmbel.com.