CRM is a Four Letter Word!
(or “5 Golden Rules for Managing Customers”)
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Introduction
My name is Jon Williams, and I am one of The Web Guys! I am a
web design agency and online web application owner, and seasoned
online marketer. I love poking fun at the corporate life that I am a
product of!
I am the author of this paper, which is based on a popular
presentation/webinar which I have delivered many times to live and
online audiences.
I hope it’s of some use!
In this paper, I’m going to discuss CRM or Customer Relationship Management.
I’ve called it “CRM is a Four Letter Word” because a lot of people find the concept daunting - it
gets blown out of proportion in people’s minds, whereas when you boil it all down, it’s actually
very simple.
It’s not helped by the fact that it has become one of those awful TLAs (“Three Letter
Acronyms”, LOL!) which people in corporate life and those engaged in advisory professions like
to use. Yes, TLAs are a way of simplifying language sometimes - who wants to say or write
“Customer Relationship Management” every time - but my point is that they don’t help simplify
the underlying concept in people’s minds - give it a long name and an acronym and it just
become more inaccessible!
So in this paper, I am deliberately going back to basics, not to patronise or preach, but to
demonstrate to the uninitiated that there is nothing to be wary of, and maybe to give the more
practiced manager some reminders of things they may have forgotten…
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
WHY AM I QUALIFIED?
WHAT IS CRM?
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
THE 5 GOLDEN RULES OF CRM
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What is CRM?
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM) IS THE PROCESS OF
COLLECTING AND MANAGING CONTACT DETAILS,
AND MANAGING INTERACTIONS WITH THOSE CONTACTS
TO MAXIMISE SALES
Why do we need CRM?
When I was young, I had a great memory. I could remember facts and figures, and like a lot of
adolescent blokes, could recite every single Monty Python sketch verbatim.
A little later in my twenties, when my first daughter came along, she loved to watch the film The
Jungle Book, usually at about 5am, and after a few sessions with Baloo and Mowgli, I could
practically recite that film backwards.
“Have 2 bananas”!
By the time I started my business, and discovered a thing called
Networking, I was 40, and the memory wasn’t quite so good.
Trouble was, I thought it still was!
How does this translate itself into the world of business,
particularly CRM? Well, stacks of business cards and forgotten
conversations! I don’t know about you, but I can think of lots of
times I have had conversations with 2 or 3 new people at an
event, then got back to the office, got sidetracked into
something else, then a few hours later, or the next day, I
couldn’t remember who they were or what we’d talked about.
(By the way, there are 2 separate film references in that made
up business card in the graphic above and on the front cover, one quite obvious, one not so
obvious - can you get them? Let me know if you can - you deserve a special prize, especially if
you get the 2nd one!)
This results in lost sales opportunities, and lost branding/marketing opportunities (i.e. you and
your business just don’t look as good to the people you meet if you are poor at remembering
their names and what you talked about last time), more stress, which just makes the problem
worse!
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As if you needed convincing!
In case that’s not enough for you, here are some facts and figures from various sources to help
convince you…
• Research shows that 35-50% of sales go to the
vendor that responds first. (Source:
InsideSales.com)
• 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales.
Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of
this poor performance. (Source:
MarketingSherpa)
• A whopping 68% of B2B organisations have not
identified their funnel. (Source:
MarketingSherpa)
• Companies that automate lead management see
a 10% or greater increase in revenue in 6-9
months. (Source: Gartner Research)
• Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than
non-nurtured leads. (Source: The Annuitas
Group)
• Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate
50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost.
(Source: Forrester Research)
Surprised? Probably not - most of that kind of confirms what you and I already know in our
hearts, that people buy from people, and people they like at that.
Actually the one that did surprise me was “Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than
non-nurtured leads” - it stands to reason like the rest, but I just hadn’t thought of it before people who you “nurture” (more about that in a while), are not only more likely to buy from you,
but likely to buy more from you.
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The Five Golden Rules of CRM
As I mentioned, the tone of this paper is deliberately quite basic - and what I mean by basic is
IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE! CRM when you boil it down is very simple. So here goes with
the 5 Golden Rules…
1. RECORD IT
•
Keep it!
•
1. RECORD IT
• i.e. Keep it!
We waste an awful lot of information. People
who send you speculative emails, business cards
we forget about.
• Your memory isn’t as good as you think it
The brain is a finite resource. There is a classic
line in one of the Indiana Jones films where Sean
Connery has lost his notebook and Harrison Ford
is berating him about not remembering the info “I wrote it in my notebook so I wouldn’t HAVE TO
remember it”
• A system doesn’t have to mean a
is
• Do it a.s.a.p. after you get it
computer
• Do something with your business cards
• Use a SIMPLE process - or you won’t stick
to it!
•
Perversely, the act of recording it actually helps
you remember it too
•
Similarly, repeating someone’s name to them when you first meet them them, helps you
remember the name
•
Mother (an online web application I part own) can do all this, but you don’t HAVE TO use a
computer. Because I’m a web designer/all-round geek, I am naturally drawn to online stuff
(with its advantages of being multi-user, accessed from anywhere on any device etc), but
yours doesn’t have to be. •
We all collect information all day - biz cards, emails, phone calls. Whatever you use, please
DO SOMETHING with it, and hopefully more organised than scraps of paper.
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2. ORGANISE IT
•
So this is where computers do start to become useful - bits of paper, biz cards etc - soon
the pile becomes unmanageable and you hanker after the easy days when you just forgot
stuff!
•
So file it - and I don’t mean under W for waste paper bin ;)
•
Categorise it - again this is an advantage of computers, because if something is filed in a
paper file, you’d have to duplicate it to put in another, e.g. a customer file, and a subject or
a project file. Mother uses a system of “tags” which a simply colour coded labels you
create, and then attach to your contacts in this case, and you can then use those to search
or filter.
•
Maintain it - there is no point in creating it once, then forgetting it. I’m sure we’ve all created
a file of useful stuff then forgotten about it, and created an identical or very similar one later.
•
Habit is important. Research (depending on which you believe) say is takes between 13
and 45 repetitions of an action to make it a habit, so it’s hard work at first. •
In order to form that habit, go easy on
yourself! Bite it off in small chunks process your business cards after each
networking meeting, not once the stack is
teetering on your desk,
2. ORGANISE IT
• Now you’re collecting, you need to
organise
• File it
• Categorise it
• Maintain it
• Make it a habit
• Make it simple
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3. TRACK IT
•
Add: Once you have your record, it becomes an easy place to add snippets of info. In this
case we’re talking about your contacts, so you might record:
•
Communications - phone calls, emails, face to face, correspondence, social media
interactions. You’ll never remember who said what to who and when, so this is where
we start to live up to the term CRM, because if you have that all in one place, and other
people can access it (more about that
later), you’ll be instantly on top of any
3. TRACK IT
situation that arises, or seem much more
impressive to your prospects.
• Add to what you have
•
Business Done - for customer service type
situations, it’s so much more impressive
(nay, vital) if the representative on the
phone has accurate records they can call
up quickly
•
•
Potential Business - which of your products
or services is this contact potentially suited
to, either as an “upsell” to an existing
customer, or as a new lead - they will love
you for it.
• Record details of communications
• Record business done
• Record potential business
• Keep it short
• Keep it organised
Organise - if you’ve built your “system” (not
necessarily computer based) in an organised fashion, this is going to be easy. Once you’ve
formed the habit of adding small bits of info as they come along to your base, it becomes
second nature, and after a very short period of time, you have an invaluable historical
repository.
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4. DELEGATE
• Delegation doesn’t have to be downwards
• Know who is doing what
4. DELEGATE
• Make someone responsible
• Customers like knowing who to contact
•
“Delegate” simply means to assign
responsibility to an individual. That can be
your boss, your colleague, your staff, or
yourself. Now if it’s just you, you are all of
those things, but you might work externally
with subcontractors, and you hopefully have
customers, and this is one of the areas where
online systems really come into their own,
because they don’t have to be in the same
building, country, or organisation. •
The key is knowing who is doing what, giving that person (could be you) all the info they
need, and then monitoring whether they’ve done it, and when. •
Making someone responsible - even if that person is you - and you’ve suddenly freed up a
tiny corner of your brain to work on more important things instead of having to constantly reassess priorities and worry about uncompleted tasks.
•
This will help your customers too. Customers love certainty - who is going to do what and
when as part of the work you are delivering for them. Make it your USP that all your staff
act as if each customer is a long lost friend, even if they have never encountered them
before
•
It also makes life easy when you’re not there. When someone rings in, and your staff or
colleagues don’t know where things are up to, who the person is, what’s been said, it can
be embarrassing!
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• Make info accessible if you’re not there
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5. FOLLOW UP
•
Communication - this is actually what a lot of people think CRM is, but as you’ve hopefully
seen, there is quite a lot more stuff you need to get right to get the most out of this. But it is
the goal, the pinnacle, and vitally important. •
“The fortune is in the follow up”: When you meet someone and strike up a conversation,
ask them if you can call them, talk about a timescale and then DO IT.
•
Social media is very important and provides a nice easy, low impact way of connecting and
communicating.
•
Email marketing (Systems like Mailchimp etc): Add your new contact to your list, but make
it personal - mailchimp etc have personalisation fields, so it’s a good idea to have “met you
at” and “we talked about this” fields you can fill in. •
Networking is a great way to meet new people, but also increasing relationship with existing
contacts. •
The key is to create several “touch points”, particularly with prospects, i.e to .communicate
in different ways - if someone gets an email from you, they’re more likely to respond if
they’ve also seen your tweets, or met you networking. •
Play the long game: Networking is relationship building, not selling. Standard networking
advice is be a good listener, ask your contact about themselves. Tell them what you do, but
don’t ram it down their throats - let them speak first.
5. FOLLOW UP
• Communicate! (“The fortune is in the follow
up”)
• Connect on Social Media
• Email Marketing
• Networking
• Several “touch points”
• Play the long game
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If you’ve enjoyed reading this, why
not think about:
• Check out The Web Guys - great value pay-monthly professional websites
(www.thewebguys.co.uk)
• Book a 1-2-1 with me - we can talk about CRM, The Web Guys great value websites, or
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• Like The Web Guys on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/metanymthewebguys)
• Connect with me on LinkedIn (https://uk.linkedin.com/in/jonatmother)
• Check out Mother, a simple online tool to have you manage CRM, Projects & Tasks,
and Financial Management for your business (Disclosure: I am a 25% shareholder in
this business) (www.mother.management)
Thanks and see you soon!
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