By the end of this blog, you will have picked up some ideas of how a CRM system will help you grow your business.
If you would like further information on how a CRM can help in any of these areas, please complete this form, and I will be delighted to send you further resources.
I am going to focus on the following areas:
Using client data more effectively
CRM helps you personalize your relationships at scale and manage them for profit. Data is the fuel that drives this relationship and powers the processes that together make up the client experience.
An exceptional client experience will help you retain more clients, build word-of-mouth referrals, and maximize the potential value of each relationship.
To do this, think about
- What Client Experience/s will maximise my profits?
- Draw this out into a Client Journey
- Identify trigger points in the Journey
- What data at each trigger point will drive the journey
If you would like to know how to use CRM to do this, please complete this form.
Grow your business without growing your staff.
As businesses grow, administration tends to increase exponentially. You have more clients, more people to manage those relationships, and often more systems.
CRMs help businesses grow by automating processes to manage more clients with fewer resources. But before automating these processes, you must ensure they are already working and fit for purpose.
To do this, think about
- Mapping your existing processes
- Challenging whether these are the most efficient
- Challenge whether these are broken
- Automate routine steps in CRM
- Configure these processes in your CRM
Interested in learning more about reducing administration through CRM? Fill in this form, and we will send you further information free of charge.
Getting the data you need to grow
If data is the fuel of your business growth, it must be of the highest quality, available when needed, and when it can make a difference.
Quality – The data must be accurate and complete. CRM ensures this by bringing together all the data held in spreadsheets and different systems into one place.
Available – Because all the data is in one place and is called the same thing, you know where to get it. And you know what data is available and what you don’t know but need to.
Timely – Because it’s in one place and there is one entry point, you always have the most up-to-date view of the truth.
To get the data you need to grow, you need to think about:
- What data do I need (not all the data you could keep)
- Where is that data kept now, and in how many places
- What do we call that data (different systems call data different things)
- What does it mean (different systems may define data in different ways)
- How can this be captured in one place (CRM)
Do you need help in developing a data strategy? Fill in your details now to receive exclusive insights, expert tips, and practical strategies to enhance your data quality.
Planning to grow
To grow value in your existing clients and grow your business, you need to know how valuable they are now and could be in the future. You can think of these as two intersecting lines on a grid (like a Boston Box). Then, you can use your CRM data to organize them into each of the four cells.
To do this, you need to think about:
- The actual value of each client now(see above)
- The potential value of each client now
- The future potential value of each client
- The relationship you have with each client
- Their relationship with other suppliers
You can then use this to develop a growth strategy for your business.
To find out how to use a CRM to help you develop a customer development strategy, fill in your details on this form to obtain further information, completely free of charge.
Executing your growth plan
Once your growth strategy is created, you need to realize your clients’ potential now and in the future and retain those you can’t grow (but I will talk about retention separately below.)
Realizing potential in existing clients
You should start with a competitive advantage when marketing to clients, which makes it ten times easier and cheaper than finding new business. Here are some of the things you need to think about:
- What data gives you this competitive advantage
- How and when do you or could you use this information
- How do you track what they are saying to you
- How does this impact what you want to say to them
- Have you got a relationship that you can leverage
- If not what do you need to do to get one…
Get more leads for your business.
If your focus is to generate profit and grow your business, you want to attract new business that is going to add, not detract, to the value of your client base. You need to choose the opportunities you want. Here are some of the things you need to think about
- What do our highest-value clients look like
- Where did they come from
- What do our lowest value and potential value clients look like
- Where did we get them from
- How can we track the actual sales that come from marketing actions
- How do we use that information to make future decisions
- How can we leverage existing clients to get more referrals for free
Ready to boost your campaign ROI and skyrocket your marketing effectiveness? Take the first step towards success by filling in your details now and we will send through exclusive information and tips on this topic.
Increase retention rates
Existing clients stay longer (on average), spend more, are less expensive to serve, and are easier to retain than replace. That’s why Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company (the inventor of the net promoter score) claims that increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.”
Retaining existing clients is also crucial for growth, as the turnover rate of clients determines how fast and large your business can grow.
If you want to boost your retention rates, you need to think about these things:
- How can I know when a client is at risk fast enough to do something
- Are my clients loyal or just can’t be bothered to change
- Which of my clients is talking to which of my competitors
- What is my SWOT against these competitors
- How and when will I know that something has changed
Interested in fostering stronger relationships with your audience? Fill in your details on this form to obtain further expert guidance from us on increasing your retention rates and creating lasting connections with your customers.
Know you are on track
How do you know that your strategy for growth is being executed and is on track? You will need good business intelligence, but that starts with setting SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timed.
To do that, here are some of the things you need to think about
- Which member of the SLT is responsible for achieving which goals
- What will happen if they fail (what skin have they got in the game)
- Who will know when the goals have failed
- How can we know before they fail so we can do something
- What are the dependences across these goals
If you would like more information on benefit management for projects and strategies so that you can manage what is being delivered before the consultants have left and it’s too late, fill in this form
We have just scratched the surface of CRM systems and how they can help your business grow, if you would like further information on any of these topics please fill in this form and we can arrange to send you further resources on the topic.
