Why CRM?

Companies purchase CRM products for many different reasons. Many are just looking to have a central place to keep all their contacts, some are looking to improve their ability to forecast business accurately, some are looking to improve customer support, some are looking at doing some email marketing with the CRM, and my favorite are the ones who are looking to improve their sales teams ability to sale more effectively. These companies are prime candidates for Salesnet. There are also many companies who don’t have a CRM.

I will use the car analogy to discuss the different situations. First let’s take the companies who have no CRM. This is like still using a horse and buggy to get from place to place. You can still get there but it will take you much longer and if you are in a race with your competition, you will lose. The cost is low but the value is also low.

Next we have the companies who use CRM as an electronic rolodex or filing cabinet. They just want to keep track of their customer’s contacts and maybe some notes about the customer and conversations they may have had with the customer. Believe it or not this is probably the largest group of CRM users. While there is some value gained by using CRM for this limited purpose, it is much like driving a Model T Ford. It is better than the horse and buggy but it is hard to get to where you want to go with this approach.

Third there is a group of CRM users who use their CRM to manage forecast, track activities, send email blast and maybe even some basic process capabilities. This is like driving a modern car. Likely you will have many new features in the car like antilock brakes, air bags, variable
speed wind shield wipers, CD players, and so on. The basic process capability in your CRM is like having a map in your car to guide you to your locations.

The last group takes advantage of everything that the third group has but also uses the CRM to drive sales effectiveness of the sales team. This is like having a GPS in the car. It makes it much easier to get to your location and even if you get off track it brings you back to the best route. Salesnet with its patented process engine is like having a GPS for your sales team that not only keeps them on track, it drives the correct activity and insures that the right data is captured at the right time with its also patented smart forms. While I can get to my destination without the GPS it sure makes it a lot easier if I have it. Until next week good sellng.