Customer relationship and a dozen tried tips to better know your crm

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#1 Easiest Converged CRM for SMB
Customer Relationship and A Dozen Tried Tips
TO BETTER KNOW YOUR CRM
Nurturing customer relationship is not just a one-time event.
In other words, excelling in customer relationship
is not a destination but rather a journey.

2. nvergeHubOC
Customer Relationship and A Dozen Tried
Tips to Better Know Your CRM
Veteran marketers mostly pride themselves on their connections and of
the capabilities in understanding their customers.
However, on the flip-side researches on this subject show that although
76% of smart marketers claim that they are aware of their customer’s
requirements, only 34% have ever asked their customers as to what their
customers want.
This Perception Gap a word coined by Brian Solis and his team at Pivot is
the breach between what the customers need and what the company
executives think that their customer wants.
Customer Relationship and A Dozen Tried Tips
TO BETTER KNOW YOUR CRM

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A pretty fascinating topic for discussion.
Just as making an assumption about your customers can prove to be
costly, similarly, on the other hand, understanding what your customers
need can enable any business to leapfrog their competitions.
If you are of the opinion that you understand your customers, can you
answer these few questions to find out if your assumptions are true?
Here we go:
• What are the three most common problems that keep your customers
up at night?
• What are the three most sought after services or products that you
provide, that can solve your customer’s greatest woes?
• When was it last that any customer purchased these three products or
services from you?
• How long did it take to complete your sales cycle in selling these
products and services to your customer?
• How many touches did this sale require from your sales reps?

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• What are the opportunities that you have for shortening your sales
cycle?
• What are your up-sell opportunities?
• How many up-sell opportunities did you lose?
• How satisfied are your customers with your buying process?
• Do you have any other contacts for building a new relationship in your
customer’s organization?
• Do all your team members have the access to the data to collaborate
and nurture leads that will ensure the best possible experience for
your customers?
It is unfortunate that although many small and medium businesses may
have this information in their head, this data is not tracked anywhere.
Hence, this information most often remains in the minds of the
product-marketing managers, sales reps, CEOs, and customer support
representatives.

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If you want to dive deep, here is the infographic developed by Brian Solis
and Pivot based on their Perception Gap research:

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The power of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system can
make or break your business. CRM offers most basic insights that can
improve collaboration and revenue while decreasing the length of sales
cycles in the fields of marketing and sales of a company.
It is a commonly known fact that it is always much easy to sell to a happy
existing customer than to acquire a new one.
So, why so many marketers skip the most important thumb rule of
sale-retaining ongoing customer relationship management?
Do you have any idea about what businesses you are leaving behind on
the table for not being proactive in doing your homework about knowing
the needs of your customers on a daily basis? How many relationships
could you have not nurtured properly with your customers because of
broken communications and unavailability of data to identify your
customer’s needs that stopped you from embarking on the next step?
Knowing your customer do not just mean understanding their buying pat-
terns and social behaviors or simply reading industry reports on what
your customers may need now.
It has been often noticed that marketers get so busy doing upfront
market research before a product launch, that they lose sight of the
importance that nestles beneath continuous understanding of the
customers, which keeps any business relationship thriving.

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All businesses have a multitude of opportunities to gather customer data
throughout the customer lifecycle.
However, the secret to success lies in interpreting those data to better
serve the customers, retain them and ultimately sell the customers more
products and services.
CMS platforms enable business leaders along with their sales and
marketing teams to stay on top of the customer buying patterns, a trend
that can directly affect their sales, delivery, and customer service
successes.
Even an unimportant customer data can prove valuable over time,
particularly when it is coupled with additional data sources.
There are many organizations those who invest in complicated or
complex CRM systems, only to find they do not have sufficient in-house
resources to manage these platforms.
Therefore, before buying your CRM for small and medium businesses,
focus on right sizing your CRM system, and buy a CRM built exclusively
for SMB processes.

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Here are 12 killer tips for buying a CRM that will help you to take your
customer relationship to the next level this year:
1. Before purchasing a CRM system, identify your tactical and strategic
needs. Research and find the best platform that will suit the
requirements of your business. Not all CRMs are meant for
everyone- as one size does not fit all.
2. Know what you expect out of your CRM. Identify your goals and
metrics that will help to guide your transformation to the new
customer relationships that your desire.
3. Get a real feel about your available resources to acquire, prepare,
implement, and maintain your new CRM.
4. Ask hard questions to your CRM vendors so that you can be certain
about knowing what you are getting regarding all cost and time
considerations.
5. Find out if you need to outsource additional help for implementation,
maintenance of the CRM or for any other kind of CRM related strategic
guidance.

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6. Ask for additional customer testimonials from your CRM vendors even
if they have readily available testimonials of their customers from
our industry niche on their website. Once you are in possession of
these extra testimonials, call those references and ask them what
challenges did they experience while implementation of their CRM.
7. Never underestimate the power of your peers. Ask them what CRM
platforms they use and why they admire their CRM. In addition, read
online reviews of different CRM, search for forums, and groups those
who are devoted discussing CRM related issues.
8. If you are migrating from an existing CRM system to another, find out
what are the necessary steps, cost and time that is associated with the
transfer process.
9. Even before buying a CRM, prepare a detailed plan for execution of
the system. Set solid goals, timelines, milestones, SLA responsibilities
and encourage absolute collaboration across your organization for
implementing the system.
10. After implementation of the CRM platform, continuously manage
your progress. Find out if you are utilizing your CRM to its fullest
potentials.

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11. Find out if your agents and other employees are filling the CRM with
every single valuable customer data, as you instructed them during
installation of the system.
12. Most of all, after installation of CRM, evaluate how or what you are
continuously learning about your existing and new customers so that
you can enhance your customer relationships using the system.
The more you do this upfront pre-sales research, the greater will be your
satisfaction and happiness with whichever CRM you choose as an ideal
customer relationship management platform for your business.
Nurturing customer relationship is not just a one-time event. In other
words, excelling in customer relationship is not a destination but rather a
journey.
Remember, the more you can learn about your customers, the better you
can serve them, which is directly proportional to your company’s growth
and ROI.

11. www.convergehub.com 510.924.1683 info@convergehub.com
nvergeHubOC
#1 Easiest Converged CRM for SMB
ConvergeHub is the #1 easiest converged CRM for SMBs. It
can manage all of your sales, marketing, support, and
billing needs, with a converged, full-featured, yet extremely
easy-to-use CRM that is priced within reach. The features
are optimized for small to medium sized businesses that
have the same needs as the large corporations–but don’t
have massive budgets to integrate or pay for expensive
add-ons. All ConvergeHub CRM features are built-in, work
together flawlessly, and have a uniform look and
behavior. You can use ConvergeHub to automate your
typical day-to-day tasks and marketing automation
processes within a simple and intuitive interface.