Inside CRM carries a very good blog post on why CRM is very important during a recession period here . I will try and simplify and summarize it here.

1. Deeper understanding of one's customer base
This will make the sales and marketing depts more certain of being able to address the needs of the customer instead of just pushing to the customer. No one likes to be pushed around and more so when financial difficulties strike. The customer ideally would always like to get something that will solve his problem. 90% of the time, sales are made on the 10% that the CUSTOMER does NOT want. So good time to get back to basics.

2. Valuation of customers
Some customers are gods, and the rest are not so. These 'gods' have to be treated with care and often have the ability to influence a lot many folks because they have used whatever has been sold to them (mostly!) and have endured/experienced the service given. Since they come back and buy, one can safely imagine that they are happy with the service ;-) and would be happy to share the news around.  This makes it even more important to be ready with the red carpet when they come around. This information is typically stored as a stat entry. Time to get the dust off the CRM system-data and search/ferret out these gods! And then, see what you can give them.

3. Filter the Leads
Most of the time, lead filtration is not done and data are just about dumped into the CRM system. In recession, getting a lead in itself is a task. So time one got down on the knees and wade through each so-called lead that comes into the system. Is the lead worth classifying a lead, is it gossip, is it someone's room-mate who accidentally happened to smile at me and give the card, etc? Take those junk out.

4. Keep the base happy
Having a customer base is good. knowing what they do/buy/etc is also good. But what do they get for being good to you??? Spend sometime thinking on this and try and go back to basics. Time to populate the CRM with data that will help enhance one's knowledge of how the person behaves/wants. Come up with a scheme to tell them they are royal for being loyal and that one is willing to bend over and help them else, well, this is recession time and someone will undercut you. Remember, a penny saved is a penny gained, right?

5. Be smarter - well, you knew this so no need to harp on it.
A man is known by his abilities in times of crisis. In a recession time, think through your strategy. Do not panic. Take time to think of what you stand for and what would you expect your customer to see you as. They may not be the same!
You are human too so it is far easier to sit and analyze what they would need.
It is the Cerebral things that matter. The brawns certainly do matter but less so in recession time.

Let me know what you felt about this.

Archie

This is not going to be a one off blog. This is something that I would welcome your inputs too so that we can come up with a good practice list of a kind. Loose, conversational.

Try and avoid using the CRM system as an information hoarder. Anyone can do that.
The intent of using a CRM system is to store Quality Data in it. So focus on getting the right data in by validating firstly, the entry point of the data to the system - Leads/Contacts/Prospects whichever you like to use as the starting point.

Focus more on customer engagement. It is not sufficient to have a world-class CRM system backing you. Remember, the CRM system is only as good as the data you give. So Trash In results in Trash Out and no one is the more wiser.
These are tough times so focus on the data that you have that you have garnered by engaging with the customer. The customer needs a human touch 99% of the times. I am not giving you stories - I have done this in real life. There is nothing more that will help win/lose the deal in less time than you blink.

Engaging the customer is about talking to him about his needs AFTER he makes his needs clear. Tell him honestly if you can or cannot give what he needs. Also mention to him what needs to be done to get the desired results and where does your product/service stand wrt that need. He will help you to get the deal from him and this will result in getting a long time, loyal customer.

Store these info that you have gleaned from him. Yes, this may require investing a couple of more days with him but is worth it since you have invested time in him and he in you. So the chances that he would prefer to remember and deal with you next time is much more higher. An already existing customer is the best reference you can have and also the best to do business with since your hunting-cost is 0.

Once a month or whatever scale you use, generate reports. Spend time on what kind of reports you need. These needs will evolve so be forgiving in that sense.
But at the same time, be very specific on what you need to see. Make the report and schedule it.  Do not just fire and forget. Analyze the report. Go back to the drawing board aka Board Room/Sales Strategy/ Marketing Execution/etc, see where things ought to improve and improve it. Repeat it.....


PS : If the report cannot be done or is not supported, please do escalate to support at zohocrm dot com. We will look into it immediately. Yes, I am not committing anything since unless we have a look at the need, we will not be able to give an assessment of what/when we can actually give you the result. But I promise, we will hear the case without any pre-conceived notions. We too are human and can make mistakes, remember?

Archie

Doing business is less of a buy/sell and more of a relationship thing.
There are various businesses who do the buy/sell kind of business and spend quite some amount of money trying to get newer customers, so, their cost/customer is very high.

Typically, PUSH is the word in these kinds of organizations. These feed on the hope of new customers being pushed the product each time. This is not scalable.

Slowly PULL is the way relationships are happening ie the seller is actually trying to PULL customers his side and indulge in a long and sincere relationship. This makes the relation symbiotic. Most of the time, we buy based on emotion and this further helps the cause. Since this is an emotion-based selling, the cost/customer is low. The propensity of the customer to buy more from the same folks from whom he had bought last time and with whom he shares a good rapport is very high. This results in reduction of the cost per customer aquisition. In these cases, the potential of upselling and cross-selling is very high.

Sales becomes the by-product in this case and is the reward in its own right.

All the above you knew anyway, so what is news?

The news is this :- A good CRM works on the ability to capture the meta-data present in the relationship. Once you capture that, you have to mine it to see the gems that lie within. And then, you have a long relationship with the customer which results in WIN-WIN for both.

So try and figure out what all you need to capture when you consider using the CRM. Begin with the end in mind [or at least whatever extent the end is visible that is ...]

Archie

Truespace 3 is a cool 3D tool which can give a kickstart experience to anyone who has interest in 3D. At Zoho CRM, I am using Truespace to draw some icons or part of icons.

 

Today, I created a trash bin icon and it sure came out very well. The following image shows the Trash Can icon rendered in Ray-Tracing mode with multiple lights around. Yes, it does contain reflective finish too. :-)

 

The below shown image is the full size render. Further image editing is needed to resize and add shadows.

 

 - Rajesh Sundaram

Data is God in CRM systems!

The one common mistake committed is to have some data put into the CRM system, sometimes. No wonder CRM is blamed for failures.

CRM does not have the intelligence to keep you abreast of the happenings. It is a tool and it is a tool which is fed data by you to analyze and give you reports that you can plan/execute upon. So the efficacy of your plan is directly proportional to the quality of data in your CRM system.

Find out what is the level of granularity that you want your data to be tracked in. Figure out how good your data needs to be, then find someone to validate it. The first is the easy part, the latter is the hard part. It is a tough and boring thing to do but once the system is in place, you can swear by the CRM system.

Everyone has different metrics on what is the latest data for him - Hurricane Ike's occurence may be the latest data for someone who studies Hurricanes, the last time Mt. Etna had a blast couple of years might be the latest for someone who studies volcanoes, etc. So come up with what is your metric.

Remember, in all these cases, the age of the data is a known metric and is adhered to as the standard. Come up with something of that sort for your system too! It may just be a few minutes/seconds if it is some SOS system or days if it is some sales data that you need to track. This will help you get an understanding of what reports to generate and what you understand from the reports.

Archie