How to Gain a Competitive Advantage with a CRM
As the economy continues to recover and businesses are seeing both more sales and competition we are noticing more clients who are interested in learning more about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
The bottom line is that Customer Relationship Management software provides you with a Strategic Competitive Advantage. What differentiates you from your competition? Is it your customer service, close business relationships, price, or quality product? No matter what your differentiator is today, our changing world forces business owners to always be looking for ways to further improve on what sets them apart.
One way to boost your competitive advantage is through introducing a CRM that will allow you to streamline the order process, better manage your prospecting and new client on-boarding process, and better handle your scheduling and projects.
A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution is the answer for most organizations that are looking for a way to do what they do even better. CRM provides an efficient and convenient way to centralize operations across an organization, while providing efficient and quality service. CRM is used to record, track, and report on all prospect, client, and vendor activities and transactions. It allows businesses to have information that is immediately available, complete and up-to-date and enables them to respond appropriately and quickly to any requests to empower them to work at peak efficiency.
Introducing a CRM system within your organization can provide you with the following competitive advantages:
- Give Your Sales Team the Tools Needed to Succeed. With the right CRM in place, you’ll be able to streamline workflow and ensure every detail from the sales process is preserved. Sales teams will be able to convert sales from quotes, to orders, to invoices all from within the CRM. These simple CRM features streamline communication and eliminate errors as well as double data entry. When the Sales Managers can view all planned sales activity within your CRM, your Sales team can spend more time selling and less time reporting.
- Provide Personal Service. Exceed your customer’s expectations when everyone knows what was promised, what was ordered, what projects are under way, and what is scheduled for the future. No matter which department takes the call from a prospect, they will know exactly what is going on with that account by viewing the past interactions. Full-featured CRM’s, like Results CRM, tie all departments together, becoming your “one-stop-shop” for accessing all the information you need to build and maintain amazing relationships.
- Streamline and Automate Your Processes. Improve customer satisfaction by ensuring consistent service delivery and making sure that nothing falls through the cracks! The proper CRM will automate your business processes, allowing you to deliver consistent results each and every time. For example, in Results CRM, you can create a library of customized process templates to automatically assign tasks to the right person at the right time.
- Centralized Information – Mature CRM products go beyond Contact Management to truly manage the entire business. Your CRM should unite your Sales, Service, Billing and Finance departments. CRM should be your central location for company-wide contacts from QuickBooks, Outlook, Constant Contact, and even Excel spreadsheets. When CRM becomes the central location for all vital company information across your organization, you will significantly reduce double-entry with two-way communication between these products. Be confident that you’re always viewing the most current and accurate information available!
- Provide Service Anytime, Anywhere – In our instant-access world, clients expect quick responses. Gone are the days where employees are at their desk from 9 to 5… and your clients are aware of this! It doesn’t matter if you’re working from home, in the office or on the road – you’re CRM should provide access to the real-time company information needed to be productive from anywhere.
Small and large businesses alike use CRM to stay competitive, become more productive and respond to requests and opportunities with great speed and efficiency. If you are not currently using a CRM system, chances are you are giving up an opportunity to further differentiate yourself among your competition. Now may be a good time to consider the many ways your organization would benefit by implementing a CRM solution.
If you need assistance with using this concept to separate your business from its competition so you can take your business where you want it to go, please feel free to contact us for assistance.
george.horrigan@horrigancpa.com
Office phone: (770) 664-4044
