The concept of customers and even customer relationship management is not new. Cavemen, way back when, traded items with each other and I am sure the meaner ones with fewer people skills found it hard to swop berries for nice chunks of rib eye. If they kept on hunting for one type of animal without considering what the neighbourhood or family members actually wanted or liked, they probably weren't considered the most popular cavemen.
Fast forward a few thousand years to the 1940s and this quote, attributed to Kenneth B Elliot, started making the rounds:
"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption on our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider on our business. He is a part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so."
Every business exists to serve a customer's need or want. Back then, the customer had to walk into the shop, make a phone call or write a letter and send it by post. They asked family, friends and colleagues for opinions but the reviews were personal and mostly first hand.
These days you can casually mention to a colleague at work that you are looking for a new sports watch and 10 minutes later you are getting e-mailed with 10 different links to online reviews, photos, which famous super star wears it and what online tracking site it links to.
Your customers know more about what they want. They can get the information themselves before they even talk to you, or walk in your shop. They have asked friends, family, colleagues and even strangers what they think of you, your company, your products or service. They are answering other people's questions about your brand before you even know the question was posted on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
What are you doing about this? How are you communicating? How are you making the most out of these engagements? Do you even know about them?
Luckily business insight has evolved, and dramatically so over the last decade. If you are quite happy with how much you sell and who you sell it to, if you are happy with your intern posting to your social media once a week and replying on behalf of the company without any knowledge of the person they are talking to - then this article really isn't for you.
But if the figures I discuss next surprise you - then we really should talk about how we can take your business to the next level with a solution geared to making your company more productive and profitable.
Let's talk about your sales force; the guys driving snazzy cars, wearing crisp white shirts with cufflinks and who drive the morale in your company. Did you know that facts show they spend 75% of their time NOT selling? Imagine if you increased their selling activities by just 5% - what would that add to your bottom line? Due to them having so many admin-related tasks they lose 40% of their productivity just multitasking and switching activities. How many of your champion sales people do you have cold-calling when cold-calling only works 1% of the time?
Your customers are demanding and savvy. They expect the information they get from you to be personalised, sent to them at the right time and through the correct channel (don't tweet them back if they asked a question on Facebook). Meanwhile, your sales team are juggling tasks, trying to uncover more information about the customer, about your competitors and trying to achieve their target while on the road with no access to information. Just thinking about it all is enough to grind productivity to a halt.
Karabina Solutions, together with its partner Microsoft, is here to help. It can show you how to pinpoint your ideal targets, how to win faster and sell more. It is not going to sell you a product: it will present a business solution that allows your sales force to zero in on what is important, focusing on the right customers and prospects. It can revolutionise your view of your sales performance, so that you can make better decisions and work more collaboratively with the team and other departments.
To help you get started on this process, Karabina Solutions are offering free monthly webinars, where its Head of CRM Solutions, Wynand Roos will demonstrate the power of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This first webinar will focus on Dynamics CRM and Update 1 and if the update effectively improves lead and opportunity management. Within only 30 minutes, you will see and appreciate the possibilities presented by this powerful solution. The webinar will take place on Thursday 23 July at 3.30pm.
Improve your sales team's ability to collaborate and drive toward desired outcomes to rapidly grow and increase sales. Gain better visibility into your customer data in order to prioritise leads and opportunities to drive sales alignment and increase revenue. Work with leading, multiple award-winning Microsoft partner, Karabina Solutions, which offers the lowest total cost of ownership and best value and service on the market.
Click here for more information and to register for the webinar or contact Karabina Solutions to set up an appointment. It will help you turn that admin time into celebration time.
Karabina Solutions is a Business Technology Solutions company which is a Microsoft Gold Partner in CRM, Business Intelligence (Data Analytics) and SharePoint.
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