Customer Relationship Management
Customer Relationship Management
Whether it’s collecting personal information from your customers or taking surveys to figure out their needs and wants, it’s important to try and build up your relationship with customers. No matter what your business, it’s often far more rewarding to have your past and current customers continue to buy more from you than trying to reel new ones in. That is why you need to do whatever you can to build up customer loyalty.
It doesn’t need to be as hard as you think. Entrepreneurs continue to come up with creative ways to keep their customers coming back for more. From simple incentive or rewards programs, to using thank you notes to follow up from a first purchase, to calling customers to inquire about their post-sale feedback, there are a wide variety of things you can do to not only keep in touch with your customers, but make them feel valued and make them want to keep giving you their business.
It is estimated that more than 70 percent of large U.S. corporations are trying some aspect of customer relationship management. Whether through training, technology, or strategy, these companies are all trying to improve their returns on investments and build lasting positive relationships with their clients. They want to not only generate better sales leads, but also improve their responses to the changing market and the time it takes to do so.
This strategy first began in the 1960s with the likes of Sears and a number of different book clubs. They were the first to start recording and keeping track of customer information. Customers were no longer forgotten about once their invoice had been printed. These entrepreneurs knew there was more where that came from.
But lately, smaller companies tend to be falling behind their larger counterparts in adopting these kinds of techniques. Micro entrepreneurs need to start to realize the vast payoff that can come from such practices. It is especially important to them, seeing as how they usually need every advantage they can get in order to compete in the same leagues as the big boys.
Customer relationship management is not a single simple process. It involves first analyzing your current customers, and selecting your best customers based on sales volume and trends. Then, identify their needs and adapt to that. Finally, continue to seek out customers like those and try to sell them more. The payoff from CRM techniques don’t come right away. But with due diligence and patience, you will begin to see the long term benefits.
Customer Relationship Management - To learn more about this author, visit Bob Ready's Website.
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One of the biggest mistakes that I see entrepreneurs making time and time again is trying to bring in the customer for that initial sale, and then just letting them go. They place on their focus on that first sale that they forget to look at the potential long-term advantages of keeping in touch with their customers. That is where customer relationship management comes in – a set of tools and practices that help business people perform customer-related tasks.
Whether it’s collecting personal information from your customers or taking surveys to figure out their needs and wants, it’s important to try and build up your relationship with customers. No matter what your business, it’s often far more rewarding to have your past and current customers continue to buy more from you than trying to reel new ones in. That is why you need to do whatever you can to build up customer loyalty.
It doesn’t need to be as hard as you think. Entrepreneurs continue to come up with creative ways to keep their customers coming back for more. From simple incentive or rewards programs, to using thank you notes to follow up from a first purchase, to calling customers to inquire about their post-sale feedback, there are a wide variety of things you can do to not only keep in touch with your customers, but make them feel valued and make them want to keep giving you their business.
It is estimated that more than 70 percent of large U.S. corporations are trying some aspect of customer relationship management. Whether through training, technology, or strategy, these companies are all trying to improve their returns on investments and build lasting positive relationships with their clients. They want to not only generate better sales leads, but also improve their responses to the changing market and the time it takes to do so.
This strategy first began in the 1960s with the likes of Sears and a number of different book clubs. They were the first to start recording and keeping track of customer information. Customers were no longer forgotten about once their invoice had been printed. These entrepreneurs knew there was more where that came from.
But lately, smaller companies tend to be falling behind their larger counterparts in adopting these kinds of techniques. Micro entrepreneurs need to start to realize the vast payoff that can come from such practices. It is especially important to them, seeing as how they usually need every advantage they can get in order to compete in the same leagues as the big boys.
Customer relationship management is not a single simple process. It involves first analyzing your current customers, and selecting your best customers based on sales volume and trends. Then, identify their needs and adapt to that. Finally, continue to seek out customers like those and try to sell them more. The payoff from CRM techniques don’t come right away. But with due diligence and patience, you will begin to see the long term benefits.
Customer Relationship Management - To learn more about this author, visit Bob Ready's Website.
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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