I thought that I would take this opportunity to thank you for introducing me to CRM Engine. I know that I took time to integrate this into my business, in hindsight it was an avoidable and valuable loss of time for me. Using CRM Engine (I think I’m about 50% there with its full potential) has enabled me to save time on what had been mainly administrative tasks and then use the system for proactive activities such as client communications and retention and converting prospects. It is very refreshing to be able to work alongside people like yourselves that have the technical know-how and the personal skills to help, assist, guide and advise. For those that are new to CRM systems or may have been put off by some of the ‘off the shelf’ options I strongly recommend CRM Engine and would be more than happy to talk to anyone who wants a viewpoint from a ‘user’
Customised/Bespoke CRM or Online CRM? What’s best for your Business?
Customised/Bespoke CRM or Online CRM? What’s best for your Business?
Since the 1980’s when CRM was then known as Database Marketing, getting inside knowledge about your customers meant that you could spend your hard-earned marketing budget where it will be most effective.
Whilst there were large businesses developing Enterprise Database solutions on mainframes in the 70’s, the growth came from the smaller providers in the Mid 80’s selling contact management solutions such as ACT, Goldmine, and Maximiser. This delivered a single customer view and made selling a lot more targeted.
In the mid 90’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management) became the de facto identity for building Customer relationships – the clue being in the name! Then over the years these offerings grew into ERP’s (Enterprise Resource Planning) and added other functions of the business like Product Management, Manufacturing and Accounts systems.
In the late 90’s cloud technology meant that CRM could be bought by businesses at an affordable level which meant they didn’t need to invest in expensive on-site servers and SalesForce was born as Software as a Service (SaaS) so you could pick a package to suit your needs and budget.
Through the 2000’s CRM was beginning to take off and SaaS solutions became the preferred choice. However, as competition grew amongst the CRM SaaS suppliers, so too did the size and choice of packages that were being offered. Businesses knew that they needed to get a CRM and turned to cloud based SaaS solutions for the answer but now they were having to choose from individually priced columns of options which had functions in them that were either not required or were in other columns.
So businesses had to compromise with their selection and integrated their SaaS CRM into the IT infrastructure. However, more often than not, this decision was not backed up with a CRM strategy or the input of those who were going to use it. Even with training, if the sales and marketing user teams felt it didn’t add any value to their current work processes, the CRM wouldn’t get used so making the process and data ineffectual.
With price driving most decisions and with Digital Transformation being the underlying strategy for businesses to take advantage of their chosen markets, Businesses can now get a CRM solution designed to meet their exact needs and more importantly, the workflow of those who are going to use it.
Today, the cost for an SME to invest in a customised/bespoke solution is now competitive with the online SaaS solutions. This means that having a written CRM strategy and input from those that will be using a CRM (the stakeholders), a businesses can get the solution that meets their unique requirements and choose functions that are relevant to help that business move forward. As time goes on, new functions can be added again to meet the growth requirements of that business and at a cost that is affordable.
So what would you prefer – a Customised/Bespoke solution that you can “grow into” or one off the shelf? If the former, check out CRM Engine which can be tailored to your precise requirements, when you need them.
If you want some help choosing, contact me at ja@jamie-allan.com or phone on 07786 228553
Customer Retention is the new Growth!
Customer Retention is the new Growth!
“The Purpose of Business is to Create and Keep a Customer”. Peter Drucker
Retaining your existing Customers is what every business should be focusing on. Over the last few years you have spent your time in finding and winning new business. Therefore you probably have customer contacts saved on written forms, in spreadsheets, on disparate hard drives and if you’re really up to speed, in a centralised customer relationship management (CRM)** database.
If you do not have a CRM, get one installed with the help of those who will be using it and get your data centralised and shared through the business. Next, get all your data cleaned and marketing compliant and perform an 80/20 profile so you know who your best 20% is. Concentrate on this segment before moving on to the 80% to get them up the value chain.
“80% of your future sales will come from 20% of your customer base.” (Small Business Trends, 2020)
To retain your Customers follow this strategy:
- Keep your Customers informed with relevant updates to match their requirements
Now is the time to talk and empathise with your existing customers to understand what their concerns are for their future and how you can help them – not sell to them. Once you know this, keep them informed with relevant resources that will help them get the most out of your products or services such as PDF’s, how-to videos and helpful e-books.
- Agree an engagement process that your Customer is happy with
Every Customer has experienced a journey with you, from the time they first contacted you, to becoming a Customer. You need to understand what that journey is and ask your customer how best to keep in touch with them i.e phone, email, social media, etc
- Customer retention starts with your team
The relationship you have with your Customer starts from the first moment someone in your organisation either gets in contact or is contacted. Make sure that the products and services you provide fits with the requirements of your Customer and provide the benefits they are looking for. This is the start of what should be a long term relationship so building trust is paramount. It has to be a good fit for you and your Customer.
- Get feedback from the solutions that you provide to your Customer
Keep asking your Customers, within reason, how they are using your products/services. There may be things that you can do better or maybe something that the Customer may want further down the line. Again this enhances the relationship. Select your top 10 Customers and have an in-depth discussion with them to find out more about them and why they are happy to do business with you.
- Treat your best customers as VIP’s
This comes back to your top 20%. Nurture and support these customers and they will become advocates for your business. This in turn will mean that you get some positive testimonials and also referrals to other contacts of theirs. Loyalty has to be earned so make sure you treat your top Customers with special attention like access to up and coming developments, invitations to unique events and even gifts to celebrate personal events like moving home or birthdays.
Creating and KEEPING your existing Customers should be the main focus of your business. It costs 7 to 10 times more to win a new customer than it does to keep your existing ones.
“5% Customer Retention = 75%+ increase in profitability” (BAIN)
ARE YOU CUSTOMER DATA READY??
Are You Customer Data Ready?
Do you regularly sort out, clean and centralise all your Customer data? During the Covid pandemic this was an ideal time to do this but now that we have come out the other side, the need is still there. So consider all the sources of information you have that relate to your customers and prospects and commit to storing them all in one centralised and secure environment – effectively a Customer Relationship Management System (CRM).
As your business has grown over the years, you have accumulated multitudinous amounts of customer data which lies within box files, business cards, spreadsheets and in your PC’s, laptops and servers which you are using across your company’s departments.
Once you have done this;
You will have relevant data so you are only talking to those customers and prospects where you are most likely to do business so saving time and effort
This in turn will mean you can target your marketing more accurately and save on your campaign costs.
You will undoubtedly have an edge against your competitors as many businesses don’t manage their data as they should, especially when it comes to finding out more about their Customers.
5 steps to get Customer Data Ready:
Clean your Data
Find out where your data currently resides – as paper documents in files, on spreadsheets, on other PCs, on servers
Where you can, export that data as a CSV file into one master spreadsheet. Physically add data from paper files onto the spreadsheet. Column headings should include name, address, company and job description (where applicable) products and/or services purchased, value of these products/services, dates bought. Create new columns for any other data captured and populate these accordingly
Organise the data by company or address
Make sure the name of the person/persons are cleaned so you have one contact name e.g Mr J Smith may also have been added as J Smith or James Smith. This is also called de-duplication
Make your Data GDPR Compliant
Make sure that the data you now have is checked for compliancy. Only keep those contacts where you are sure that you permission to contact them
Profile Your Data
Get all your data onto a spreadsheet and do an 80/20 profile analysis by value so you can see who your best paying customers are.
This top 20% profile will essentially show you the kind of customers you do your best business with. You can then use this to create your avatars or personas and target similar new customers in the future
You can also look to engage with the other 80% and move them up the value chain
Centralise your Data
Now that you have clean data, you need to import it into a centralised and secure Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) so all the information can be shared with all the stakeholders in your business.
Talk to your Customers
Start talking to your top customers (20%) and understand what their concerns and plans are for the future and how you can help. This is where you start to build a long lasting and trusted relationship
Make sure that you capture all this information in your CRM
After this, look to engage with the rest of your customers (80%) picking those that you feel you can move up your value chain.
If you want any further clarification on this, please contact Jamie here.
Know and Understand who your best Customers are. Then KEEP them!
Know and Understand who your best Customers are.Then KEEP them!
Your business is built on a foundation of 3 things. Your Market – Customers, Competition, Unique Sales Benefits. Your Message – who are you going to talk to and how are you going to say it. Your Media – choose the right channel of communication with which to make sure you get the attention of your customers and prospects.
What does your Market look like?
What is your Message?
Through What Media?
Market
Your business relies on Customers to survive. No matter what size your prospect is, it is really important to do your research. The more information you have about your market, your customers’ business, the better prepared you will be and you will demonstrate an interest in their business. Also look for the best type of customers for your business – don’t sell to everyone. Your customer database is your most valuable asset and is vital for your success. To this end you must make sure that your database is up to date, normalised, deduplicated, GDPR compliant and centralised in a CRM.
You must understand your customers:
- What did they buy from you?
- How much did they spend?
- Why did they buy from you?
- What are their profiles? Demographics (Who are they), Geographics (Where are they) and Psychographics (What are they interested in).
- Who are your best and worst customers?
Understanding this will start to show you where you are perceived as “different” in the market place so you know know your Unique Sales Benefit is for your business.
“So what makes your offering different?“
Profiling your existing customer database will help you to understand who your ideal customer is – this is called an Avatar or Persona. It is likely that 80% of your income will come from 20% of your customers. Once you have a profile of your customers, you will be clear as to what sort of businesses typically want to do business with you. You can then use the intelligence to create or purchase new suspects/prospects. Furthermore, make sure that you are maximizing your effort by developing stronger relationships with your best customers – the 20% – so you can up sell and cross sell. From the 80%, select those you wish to nurture to turn into better customers and then manage the lowest 20% and “keep in touch” over longer intervals as you don’t want to waste time on those customers who are not doing much business with you.
Your customer list is really important to get right – they are your lifeblood so it is important to nurture and maintain this list at regular intervals to keep the database clean and compliant.
And when you do communicate your product/service offerings, this understanding will ensure you know your customers extremely well and be able to offer them timely and relevant solutions to meet their business needs.
By adopting this process will help you to develop a strong relationship with your customers and will be the reason why your customers buy from you. Like any good relationship, keep in touch with them and ask why they buy from you and how they want to grow their business as it is possible that you could plan for new product/services to supply them with in future.
Finally, know your competition by understanding what they are able to offer and if any are being considered by your customers. The stronger the relationship that you build with your customers, the more likely they will stay with you.
Message
Once you understand who you are talking to – and once you have segmented and profiled the database, you need to think about what messages will be most relevant.
For example; the top 20% get upsell, cross sell and personal contact. 50% to 60% get a nurture approach and the bottom 20% or so get the polite “Let’s re-negotiate our business relationship” letter. The objective is to get them to buy your new product or service – NEW being the operative word. If something is not new or different; why should anyone want to buy it – providing of course you have ascertained that it is relevant to them.
Any message needs to switch on the emotions in a person. It needs to appeal to their desires and get them to do something.
All your communication should follow the A.I.D.A principle – Attention. Interest. Desire. Action.
So when targeting one of your selected segments, rather than have a headline which says:
“This “product/service” will give you the edge you have been looking for”
Say instead for example:
“7 important reasons why your competitors will be sorry that you bought “this product/service”.
A headline like this will get the ATTENTION of the reader. The purpose of this headline is to get them to read the next line and get their INTEREST. This creates a DESIRE and finally a call to ACTION. Writing powerful copy is an art on its own right and you need skilled people to create and deliver this.
You then can test your message with small campaigns (e.g Google AdWords and Facebook) that leverage the internet with different headlines. You can then monitor and measure results using Google analytics or similar so your communication can be fine-tuned so that only the best results are being paid for.
To stand apart from the rest you need to “Break the Mould”. People like to buy the unusual not the ordinary.
Media
All very well to have your Market and your Message – but how are you going to get it out there?
I have already mentioned online media like Google AdWords and Facebook as these are low cost and high return options if done properly.
Traditionally companies blanket the media options using, to name but a few, newspapers, radio, email, leaflets and direct mail and where they can afford it, TV. Not a bad thing to do but the targeting can be too broad.
There is still a place for traditional media such as Direct Mail and many company owners still like receive post which when done creatively, can work wonders. Leave the TV and radio to the big bigger organisations as these are not for limited budgets.
Now you know what your Avatar or Persona looks like, you can concentrate on where these target customers live; the geography – and the who your market is; the demographics – and what motivates them to buy; the psychographics. Then choose the media to fit the message more tightly.
Conclusion
Getting and KEEPING Customers should be the main focus of any business and should be driven from the top. Using a CRM solution tailored to your business processes you can develop the relationship and the TRUST of a customer and as a result they will become a powerful ally for you and refer you to other businesses.
Contact Jamie here if you would like to talk further about this and other ideas.