CRM System: Give Meaning to Your Data

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Author: Cameron Brown

Article source: http://www.teawithedge.com/. Used with author's permission.

A customer relationship system (CRM) system uses technologically-driven strategies to assess customer needs and buying behavior. This allows businesses to market their products and services more effectively. The ever-increasing level of technology available to a CRM system can, however, provide an overwhelming amount of information to a company, not all of it useful. Large corporations compile enough data in their 'data warehouses' each day to occupy a team of marketing analysts for a lifetime. In fact, 'data mining,' a relatively recent term coined by marketers and data analysts, was coined from the attempts to sift sales trends and associations out of the mountainous volume of data constantly pouring into a company.

This information overload has created a need to give useful meaning to data. This is where a CRM system can be essential. A CRM system takes data mining to the next level by focusing on data that will paint the clearest customer portrait possible. If a CRM system works properly, a number of important benefits should result, including:

· Customer retention improvement
· Increase in call center sales conversion rates
· Sales agents are able to more effectively cross-sell products
· Deals close more quickly
· New customer inflow
· Increase in revenue

To get the results listed above, a CRM system must take the name, address, and other important demographic information into account. Moreover, the system must be able to gather information from a wide variety of customer 'touch points', or instances of customer contact. These can include faxes, emails, direct mails, personal sales, etc.

The most important function of any CRM system is to provide you with an accurate profile of your customer. If you can identify your customer, you know how to market, where to focus R&D funds, and what kind of potential growth road blocks you can expect.

With all the different options available to businesses wanting to pinpoint customer profiles, how do you know what to look for in a CRM system? With ever more sophisticated technology and techniques available, making this decision can be difficult. Let me share a few CRM system features that will not only help you track customer information, but also help to create new revenue.

Power Dialing CRM systems equipped with power dialing allow you to significantly increase the number of sales calls made by your outbound call center. Anyone who's worked in an outbound call center (myself included) will tell you that it's only a matter of time between two calls that end in a sale. This feature helps you shrink that time dramatically.

Voice Messaging A CRM system that includes this feature will allow our sales agents to automatically send a pre-recorded sales message to potential customers with the intent of eliciting a return call. By using voice messaging you will be able to multiply your efforts dramatically without paying for additional staff.

Customizable Fax and Email The ability to customize mass correspondence with potential clients will go a long way toward improving your sales conversion rates. Moreover, the ability to do this quickly will ensure that you don't miss out on time sensitive sales opportunities.

System Flexibility Since every business is different, the CRM should be flexible enough to accommodate your business's particular needs. Make sure that whomever you buy from is willing to work with you until the system is working properly.

With the right CRM system working for you, you can expect a significant increase in ROI.

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