7 Ways to Power your Business with a CRM System
Running your business can be a humbling experience. The equations of success have too many variables that keep changing. Businesses need to manage the complexity of ever changing market dynamics and predict the trends proactively to stay ahead. The leading businesses are quick to adapt with the changing needs of the market place. They are quick to pounce on data insights & figure out what metrics are most crucial for defining their success. They are able to see the data patterns and its correlation to their business. They have a way to measure the most important Key performance indicators. A CRM system is a tool that helps to understand, track & improve key drivers that impact business. There are numerous financial and operational factors for a business that can be improved with a CRM System such as:
1. Tracking Revenue & other related parameters:
The CRM enables companies to track their revenues. Not only do the companies measure revenues but also the key parameters that affect revenue outcomes. For e.g. the average time to close a deal, the average deal size, the pricing of products & services etc & their correlation to the revenue are analysed with realtime data. When discounts are offered, how it affects the revenue for the company. The complete analysis of what impacts the revenue & how. The way these parameters impact the revenue is uncovered with details. The revenue information is crucial for managing operations successfully. When the revenue parameters are not meeting the set targets, the parameters causing the downfall are presented. Regular triggers are sent to the relevant personnel to take actions based on the patterns emerging from the data. A particular location or segment for a company may be running into losses, the reasons for these losses and their details can be sent to the designated authorities.
2. Order lifecycle:
The growth of a company depends on its ability to execute orders for its products & services. Realtime data for the orders helps the organisation to plan its execution better. An indepth analytics of orders is crucial for a company. At any given point of time, the organisation should have data to answer questions like, how many customers are placing orders for their products & services. What is the maximum number of orders they can handle at any given point of time? What is the work load of the staff for handling these orders? What percentage of orders is delivered late? The management can take appropriate actions when the total orders are extremely low or high.
3. Employee time spent on projects:
How employees spend time decides where the company is headed. Organisations want to have the best tools and practices to ensure that employees spend their time working productively on the most important projects. A centralised system enables the companies to analyse the work hours of employees on various projects, trainings, meetings, client calls, tasks and other activities. The managers are prompted by the system to keep optimised workloads for their teams. The average workload of various teams across the company can be compared. The productivity analytics and alerts can help the managers to change things dynamically depending on the requirements of the projects.
4. Billing & Accounts Receivable Data:
The billing cycle can be automated and tracked with an analytics based system. When employees are working on a project, automated time sheets and invoices can be submitted to clients. The clients can make online payments for completed work or purchases. The accounts receivable data is aggregated for all the products & services. The accounts receivable data or the pending payments from the customers is correlated with other parameters like complaints, services feedback and project delivery schedules etc. The data for outstanding bills and invoices is sent to the higher management with detailed track records of the clients. These insights are very helpful for companies to improve their performance and manage financials better.
5. Acquisition of Customers:
The acquisition of customers is complex. Managing the leads, key opportunities and converting them to clients in optimised fashion is a prerequisite for a business to flourish. The CRM enables a business to visualise, understand, analyse and act on the customer acquisition process proactively. The system is able to use pointers from previous deals, leads, opportunity information to make informed suggestions to the sales persons. The complete sales process can be optimised with CRM. Every sales person gets an intelligent tool to help them plan their leads follow-up. The tool not only manages the critical data, but also provides them pointers on which leads to follow-up.
The key performance indicators for customer acquisition like the number of customers, average time for closing a deal, top products/services, etc can be tracked with CRM. The company can also look into how parameters like pricing, offers, and festivals etc affect customer acquisition. The system prompts and pushes crucial information
to the executives for taking the right actions for acquiring more customers.
6. Staff Performance and Retention:
The staff performance is crucial to the success of the company. It is also important to have a work place where staff
is constantly learning & upgrading their skills. Conducting regular surveys, one to one meeting, evaluating the work load of the staff are all crucial measures that organisations take to improve staff performance. A high retention rate and top performing staff augurs well for the organisation. When the employee turnover rate is high or performance
is not meeting the standards, the system tracks these aberrations and sends automated reports. The staff projects, learning, and workloads are managed effectively so that retention rate can be improved.
7. Customer Retention and Service:
Managing customer relationships are quintessential for a business. The customer lifetime value for an organisation
is proportional to the service provided to its customers. It is extremely important for an organisation to have a fool proof system for hearing its customers. When customers are satisfied with your services, the retention rates are higher. The CRM system measures various metrics that determine customer satisfaction. The key metrics for customer satisfaction such as average time to solve a customer issue, total number of outstanding customer complaints at a given time, surveys, and opinion polls are regularly tracked with a CRM system. The system can keep Net Promoter Score scores, which indicates the customer’s confidence in organisations products/services. How likely that your customers will recommend you to someone they know.
The system regularly checks for patterns, when it finds aberrations such issues are immediately reported to the
high authorities for corrective actions. Say when net promoter score falls below the accepted index, outstanding complaints, customer attrition is high. Delighting customers, providing them top class services and building long term relationships is the essence of the CRM system.
Today businesses have to deal with enormous complexity of data. What is relevant today might not matter tomorrow. An advanced analytics based CRM system can be customised and tailored to the requirements of a business. Explore more on the benefits of a customized CRM here. The idea is that the key personnel shouldn’t put intense efforts for monitoring the ever changing business dynamics. The advanced and smart analytics capabilities offer simple insights derived from organisation’s data.
These insights are simple enough for management to understand the key drivers & metrics that need attention. The system is equipped with business intelligence to track events that matter the most. When a change takes place that has high impact, then the key personnel are notified proactively with actionable pointers leading to superior business outcomes.
Kreyon Systems provides customized and industry specific CRM development services. If you are looking for a tailored CRM software for your business, please get in touch with us.