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Okay, so last time I had a whinge about poor CRM. I guess it’s time to look at what makes good CRM and how you do it?

Goals, Objectives, Outcomes

The big three of CRM. If you don’t know what you want then you’re going to struggle to get there. Try a visualization exercise that has you looking back over a successful CRM implementation and reviewing the results?

• What do you see?
• How is it happening?
• Who are your best customers?
• What are you doing with them?
• Who do they refer on to you? How often?

CRM is a strategy, not a technology. Technology is the enabler or the facilitator of your CRM strategy.

So, what is your strategy?

This is a huge topic so I’ll address one aspect here and then go on to others in the coming weeks. A CRM strategy, in simple terms addresses the following items:

• Who are your businesses key customers?
  • The rationale for these can be so varied it can make your head spin. Some may be pure profitability. Other may simply be the relationship and the connections they have the assist your business. Maybe they are good to have around as mentors or people to bounce ideas off? But you are looking for KEY customers and, maybe as much as we’d like ti to be different, some custoemrs are more key than others.
• What separates them from other customers?
  • This can be the hard part of segmentation. It depends on what your measures are. If your measures are simple, clean and precise this is a simple process. You can always put some favourite customers into a category if you want to. This isn’t rocket science and it’s not hard and fast but you must have some guidelines. Even if you’re a blogger, there are may be people who you always want to respond to when they make comments and others that you never do.

• How strong is the relationship with these customers?
  • This is a great question to ask because, as you begin to separate clinets you may find you were spending a lot of time with clients that don’t bring in a whole lot of value to your business. It then means that you need to develop stronger relationships with the more valuable clients and determine how you will go about that.

• What is the communication strategy with them?
  • Many CRM software systems have a place where you can select the "best method of communication." Great idea but you don’t need special software. Just add a note into Outlook or whatever address program you use. On a case by case basis this may not seem important but it will be very important if you want, or need, to do a mass mailing. It also entails how often to communicate. What is too much, too little. What do you communicate to them also needs to be considered. If it is of little value it may mean the relationship is of little value (though that is not what you mean) therefore, consider what you send.

• Who is the key contact within your company?
  • This is crucial to consider. It may be that your client has a sales contact or a regular contact within the company. BUT, as you segment and begin to profile the client you may find there needs to be contact from the CEO, or the owner to let the client know they are valued. The salesperson, or relationship manager, may then take the key contact with them on the occasional visit to reinforce the value. If the client feels like a number, they are a number. It’s the special contact moments that minimise that effect.

There are a myrioad of more intricate strategies that we’ll explore as time goes on.

Feel fee to send me your best tips on building client relationships and I’ll put them all in a post for others to benefit from (Of course you don’t have top send me your extra special, Top Secret tips! )

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