Every company, every product, every service and, above all, every customer is different and CRM strategy should also be different, says Softworx.
Yet, it says, companies continue to rely on legacy, broad-based CRM solutions that have not been developed for their specific business needs.
According to the EOH company, as consumers resist the mass-media messaging of traditional marketing, campaign effectiveness and productivity have decreased. Today's CRM solutions need to offer business-specific solutions for defined vertical markets.
“Customers have to be able to communicate with their clients in ways that they understand and that are meaningful to them,” says Jane Thomson, MD of Softworx.
She adds that today's CRM solutions need to help customers get to their customers by offering them intelligent tools that help them anticipate their customer's needs to deliver the right products and services they want, when they want them.
“You need to be able to offer customers a CRM solution that fits and understands the basic issues that pertain to their industry. One size doesn't fit all: vertical CRM is the answer,” she maintains.
Business-specific CRM solutions enable companies to achieve competitive differentiation in several ways, according to Softworx.
The company says it “speeds time to market by generating new opportunities efficiently without wasting resources through shorter sales cycles and increases bundle penetration by optimising the potential of existing customer relationships by selling bundled offerings that minimise churn and maximise revenue.”
This, Softworx says, is in conjunction with maximising technology investments by augmenting existing front- and back-end systems and leveraging existing technology investment without additional IT outlay and fostering flexibility by increase strength and resistance to market threats through the use of an open, adaptable technology for a flexible business infrastructure.
“To achieve the above, companies need to implement a CRM solution with applications that enable them to communicate with customers more frequently and effectively by providing greater insight into a customer's needs and buying patterns, offering an increased ability to act on that insight,” the company states.
It adds: “Generic solutions that try to capture the entire market's wants and needs into a single view lead only to more unread e-mail and unanswered calls.”
An intelligent CRM solution will break down the traditional methods of sales, service and marketing, says Softworx, and usher in a new era of highly targeted campaigns based on the specific needs of different verticals and customers.
“Customers want tailored services faster than ever before and they want to feel like they are your most valuable asset,” says Thomson.
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