Check out our thoughts on the top high, medium and low value benefits for a CRM solution.
We have been involved in 100's of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) business case meetings and discussions so we've taken this experience and put together our top high, medium and low value benefits as well as intangible benefits for you to consider.
1. Improve Campaign Success - Use a CRM to find and qualify better sales opportunities - which has a direct impact on revenue and margin.
2. Faster Cash Collection - Contracts are complex, customer communications are everywhere, performance SLA criteria needs proof - a CRM can prevent any slowdown in the client withholding significant payment if details are missing.
3. Win More Customers - Similar to improve campaign success, but this is where customer perception is changed, and more business arises from awareness of what the customer can do rather than opportunities that arise from campaigns.
4. Better Conversion Rates - When bidding for contracts, better awareness of the customer, key decision makers, threats and weaknesses from competitors can help improve conversion rates. Large contracts have particularly big impact.
5. IT User Time Savings - Familiar templates from all aspects of customer management, avoid training on various proprietary products can amount to significant time and cost savings right across the business.
1. Analytics Savings (single view of the truth) - It is possible for hundreds of people to spend hours preparing reports from multiple systems, reconciling different versions of the truth etc. Efficiencies can save clear £’s even if not naming heads.
2. Reduce Marketing Costs - It is probable that marketing becomes more effective rather than cheaper. So the bigger win is in improved campaign success, even if some non-productive marketing spend can now be avoided.
3. Reduce Software Costs - Many in-house systems may not appear to have high running costs, but as old programming resource becomes ever more scarce, additional fees can escalate and become significant.
4. Faster 'no-go' Decisions - CRM allows the collection / assessment of all the known factors for a potential client, a better decision where to re-deploy (expensive) sales resource can be made if the sales outcome looks weak.
5. Data Quality Savings - Different from analytics savings – because even when everyone has prepared their reports, if the underlying data is unreliable then poor decisions can follow irrespective of the analytics time spent.
These may typically be lower in value compared to other benefits however they may still be important to your customer, so don't forget to included them when relevant!
1. Reduce Hardware Costs - New software initiatives can avoid additional spend in holding current systems together, but don’t normally add up to significant benefits.
2. Operational Cost Savings - Whilst the Customer can change practices, this may not lead to savings, it depends what services are covered by current Supplier and which continued payments are unavoidable.
3. Labour Savings - CRM system maintenance and support don’t always have many identifiable heads allocated to current / inefficient systems so savings are normally lower than expected.
4. Customer Self-service - Sounds like a huge opportunity, but areas of the Customer with complex / large contracts may not lend themselves suitable for “self-service”.
5. Better Forecasting - Better data leads to improved forecasting – low benefit where predictions are second guessed by Finance, but could be high if resulting in resource, cost or cash savings.
These can be very important for company strategy and decisions, but are traditionally difficult to quantify:
1. Brand Reputation - Customers’ perception as a brand and minimising damage to wider corporate perception.
2. Customer Satisfaction - Customer contact, communication and relationship management where no identifiable revenue increase is proven – answering queries, assessing customer behaviour.
3. Regulatory Compliance - Compliance with security, no loss or compromise of customer data – good housekeeping of corporate affairs.
4. Reduce Litigation - Management / clarity of communications, identification of complaints that could escalate, control over contract / communication etc., cheaper / faster recovery of information for litigation.
5. CO2 and Green Considerations - Reduce journeys, avoid pollution / congestion – for those corporate commitments made on the environment but conversion into £’s is not possible.
All of these benefits (plus many, many more) are within the un-customised version of Shark, if you like to know more contact us - we are always here to help!
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