Six tell-tale signs you might need CRM Customers + Relationship does not equal Management For a business to survive it needs customers and many businesses just don’t manage the relationship they have with their most valuable asset properly, as they rely on individuals not the whole organisation to work with the customer. Having a customer is like any relationship, if you don’t show interest and communicate often they quickly become bored and move on to someone new. And that means extra money in the hands of your competitors.

Remember repeat business does not come out of your advertising budget!

Mail shots and letters take far too long to send!
How do you contact your customers now, do you phone them when you remember, or at the end of the month to see if they want to place an order. Does writing to them involve lots of Excel spreadsheets with names and addresses, or lots of hand addressed envelopes? Does all the headache and effort involved stop you getting really involved with your smaller customers? But a little time and effort spent with your smaller existing customers to encourage them to buy more, can be more cost effective than a huge advertising campaign to find new customers, only to not spend enough time making them feel wanted.
Call you next week, definitely.
It’s the easiest thing in the world to promise to call someone, but the hardest thing in the world to actually do it. Everyday we juggle extensive to-do lists moving some things up to top priority, removing others and adding new things. Unfortunately lots of people rely on their memories to help them, or even scribbled notes on the paper, but in the heat of the moment things begin to slip and customers and prospects begin to feel more and more left out.
Are you free Tuesday for a meeting?
Most people have a diary, otherwise how would you even begin to keep track of everything you have to do. If its paper based, or even the calendar in your PDA it works really well for you, but what happens when other people need to share some of your time. Do they have to call you and start scheduling ping-pong while you both come up with a time both of you can actually be free. And it gets worse if more people have to come to the appointment too.
Who said what, when?
How often do you communicate with your customers. You probably send them letters, make telephone calls, send them emails but where do you store them. Simple letters are either stored as paper in a filing cabinet somewhere, emails in the sent folder of the person who sent them, and phone calls in someones memory. Would it not be easier if everything was stored within easy reach, electronically and filed against the person who it was for/from?
Not my customer I don’t know what is going on.
We all get territorial about things we work on ourselves, it is human nature. But what happens when you are out of the office and can’t be contacted when your newest or best customer phones in. They don’t want to wait around for you to get back to them, wouldn’t it be better if whoever speaks to them has the same information you have, when your last appointment was, what was covered, when your next appointment is, what they are interested in, and even any other notes you have made about how to make things go more smoothly. It helps spread your workload as the customer goes away happier, you have potentially one less call to make and you can concentrate on your day without constantly being interrupted by calls from the office asking questions.

What will a CRM system offer me?
A basic CRM system can help with almost all of the above. At a very minimum it will contain your contact lists with your customers and prospects, a calendar that can be shared and some integration with email, so that sent and received emails can be stored linked to the person who sent it, or who received it, and email shots can be sent, and finally a link to a word processor so that it will take the pain out of writing letters and sending mail shots.
More comprehensive systems will have more features like the ability to share information via PDAs and Blackberries, or integration to SOP or ERP systems, or even accounting systems to enable salespeople to get a snapshot of the current state of a customers orders, or even if they are on credit hold.