It’s not just a recession, it’s an opportunity. There is a lot to be said for being in the right place at the right time and having the right product. But how much do you know about your product, who buys it and even who sells it? For the purpose of this blog where I say “product” read “product / service / membership type / subscription” - whatever you sell. A decent Customer Relationship Management system will provide you with the tools to track and manage sales leads and opportunities from a customer and sales person-centric point of view. By carefully configuring the CRM you should also be able to take a product-centric view of your business, reporting and forecasting by product. This might not sound terribly exciting, but ask yourself how well you can analyse why you win and why you lose sales for your product – do you know?
If you are winning every deal with Product X and people are saying it is down to price then could you make it £1 more expensive? What impact would that have had on lasts year’s sales figures? If you are losing a lot of deals for Product Z then why? You might get some answers you don’t like, but loss analysis (and taking positive steps to combat reasons for losses) can make a massive difference to most sales-led organisations. There’s obviously a link here to competitor analysis, which we’ll talk about some other time. Are some salespeople only selling one or two products when they could or should be selling a wider range? Perhaps they need some training, or shouting at? Despite being “product agnostic” at Concentrix I think it’s fair to say some of us have our favourites. Our CRM system certainly shows trends in the products I sell and the type of organisations I sell them too...
How about cross selling? It’s so obvious, but many companies overlook it:
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How many people who bought Product X also bought Product Z in the last twelve months?
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How many didn’t? Who are they? Shall I send them an email marketing campaign about Product Z, assign them to the telesales team or invite them to a showcase event?
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How many Product Z#1 customers would benefit from an upgrade to the all new Z2009-Super+ ?
None of this is rocket science, but neither is it possible unless you have a reliable, company-wide system in which you record the information in a standardised form where it is easy to keep up to date and interrogate.
None of these concepts are ground-breaking, but if they are not things your business is used to doing it can be a big step to put them in place. A well-thought-out, properly designed Customer Relationship Management system can help you with this, putting processes in place and giving you the tools to explore and exploit your data. Which CRM is right for you and how much it will cost is hard to say without talking to you about it, but if you would like to find out more please contact me and I will be happy to help.
I’ll be blogging shortly on other tips and ideas I pick up on my travels. In the meantime, check out Survival of the Smartest? Part 1: Focus on Customer Retention You can also see if you can answer a couple of question about Counting the Cost of Sales Leads. John Odell - CRM Consultant
CRM can help
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