An introduction to the benefits of CRM systems for small and medium businesses

Opportunities can be fleeting without the correct tools to serve your clients. Unfortunately, many smaller businesses are falling behind in their use of technology and missing out on potential sales opportunities. According to a recent survey, only 34% of small business owners use technology for customer relationship management, and only 18% have marketing data fully integrated with their CRM. To remain competitive, your business must be able to compile information, analyze data to create dependable leads, and actively build relationships with customers. A marketing-driven CRM has the power to simplify these time-consuming tasks and take your company’s sales strategy to the next level.

A marketing-driven CRM can help you:

 1. Analyze relevant data

To help qualify a lead, a CRM tool can track demographic and risk-related information for an agency. If you’ve…

The truth hurts: Why CRM is still growing but still gruelling

A cursory glance at the headline statistics for the CRM marketplace demonstrates a sector that is apparently in rude health. And in purely financial terms, this is undoubtedly the case. A multi-billion dollar industry forecasting robust growth in the coming years, CRM is creeping its way up the agenda of CEOs and CIOs. Even the global economic downturn couldn’t dent its progress, during which it was one of the few software markets that continued to thrive. But if you scratch beneath the surface of these statistics and forecasts, the CRM sector is not all sweetness and light. And while it has progressed far from its problematic early days of aborted implementations and expensive zombie systems, there are still challenges underpinning a large proportion of CRM projects. It’s time to shed some light on the world of CRM.

CRM gathering pace

Worldwide CRM software revenue…

The challenge for managers of contact centres in the era of the social media empowered customer

Integrating social media into the Contact Centre is rather a daunting task, but with demand for social customer service growing at its current rate the time to think about it is now.

Social customer service platform, Sentiment, has put together this handy infographic (below) that outlines some of the biggest challenges contact centres face.

We will also be discussing approaches to manage this issue on January 15th 2014, when our Social Times CEO Luke Brynley-Jones will be hosting a webinar on ‘How Should Contact Centres Integrate Social Media?’. He’ll be joined by an excellent panel, including Martin Hill- Wilson (Brainfood Consulting), Luke Porter (Contact Centre Social) and Dom Sparkes (Tempero). You can register for the webinar.

I’ve picked out some of the highlights from…

Which social media complainer do you recognise?

The importance of social media to customer service has been highlighted through 2013. Marketers are seeking to deliver a positive customer experience, but if there is a problem, to use social media to react quickly and transparently to complaints, as well as using analytics to track and respond to customer behaviour and predict problems before it's too late!. Exact Target have recently created this infographic based on the results from research from the University of Florida. They segmented these Social Media Complainers into 5 types. The infographic gives ideas on how to treat these types of disgruntled customers differently, if you can recognise them. The Meek Customer: Don't like to complain, and will do so on Twitter or Facebook as they are seeking reassurance. The Aggressive Customer: Vocal with their complaints and best…

At least I assume they do. 12 months ago after subscribing to their home media package (phone, TV and wifi), I started receiving letters through the post from Virgin Mobile trying to sell me a new mobile phone contract. I hadn't answered any questions or filled anything in as part of my sign up to Virgin Media to a) suggest I was interested or b) to indicate I needed a new phone contract. But hey, they sent them anyway. Regularly. More recently I cancelled my Virgin Media package and notified them of the date we were moving out. They told me they would send boxes for me to post back the set top box and router and we agreed the date the services would be cut off. However, before the boxes even arrived I started receiving letters through the post addressed to 'the new homeowner'. Intrigued I opened one, to find that Virgin…

Brands and businesses using social data to inform their social media strategy

However, in more instances than ever before, social data is also being used in other areas of the business, and social media has evolved from just being a vehicle for marketing. ‘Social business’ and ‘social across the enterprise’ are now commonplace phrases in modern business terminology. 

Why become a social business?

Social media is changing the way people connect, and is changing the relationship between consumers and brands. Becoming a social business means looking beyond social media to understand how it can benefit your business and change the way you operate. IBM’s statement on their website couldn’t have put it better:

'When you inspire your workforce to innovate and collaborate more productively, you create tangible business value. When you anticipate needs and deliver exceptional experiences, you delight your customers and create advocates. When you integrate…

Which channels do consumers prefer in the omnichannel world?

Last month Mitel commissioned this research which gives an interesting consumer perspective on how they like to contact brands and gain customer service today. The survey delved into channel preference, consumer frustrations, motivations and important factors when contacting a company. It was interesting that '70% would switch companies due to poor experience over customer service' and 'the contact centre has a major influence on this'. Though as expected, the highest frustration was paying for premium rates. How many times have we as consumers put the phone down? Their infographic below highlights these key findings and Mitel's report can be downloaded for further survey findings. …

A common buzzword, but what's involved in practice?

I recall that years ago, customers and prospects were often categorised in a simpler way than today. For example, they were simply assigned as a 'warm/hot prospect’ due to a recent contact or purchase,  ranked by a geo-demographic coding to living in a particular postcode, or simply having an affiliation to the product. 

Today (and for some time) we talk about the 360 degree customer view, but what does this mean in practice? We like the infographic since it suggests what we should aim for, it showcases resources, technology and data. 

As we all know, it’s more sophisticated and can be more complicated but worth the effort. Companies have access to new technology, sophisticated systems which can integrate data and access to more customer insight through ‘big data’. It’s focusing on the customer experience and realizing…

Customer satisfaction measurement approaches from BT and Henley Business School

Customer effort score may be the new kid on the block, but just like other loyalty measurement tools such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction score (CSAT), it sharply divides opinion. In this article I review my discussion with Professor Moira Clark from Henley Business School and BT's Dr Nicola Millard asking whether customer effort score is help or hype? First emerging in 2008, the team behind the research, the US Corporate Executive Board (CEB), challenged the notion that companies must ‘delight’ customers and argued instead that what customers really want is to simply be given a satisfactory solution to their service issue. Additionally, the research claimed that excessive levels of customer service (such as offering free products or services) will only make customers slightly more loyal to…

Benchmark response times on delivering customer service via social media

When I started writing books about Internet Marketing in 2000, I was interested to look beyond ways to use the Internet to grow leads and sales. It seemed that Internet-based customer service 'Web Self-Service' as we called it would also have a strong role.

PR Smith and I emphasised this with the 5s Goals for businesses to consider in what we now call Digital Marketing. The 5Ss are Sell, Speak (a trialogue between a brand, it’s customers and other web users), Serve, Save, Sizzle (add value to the brand.)

We advised finding the gap between customer expectations of online service against what a brand was delivering and then trying to plug that gap by improving customer service.

So, what is the state of online customer service responsiveness today, specifically through social media?

Well back in the day,…