Partner Article

The Business And Organisational Cultural Case For Upgrading Your CRM

Do you recognise this picture: - you have a great team and some great clients but your gut is telling you that efficiency and productivity could be even better. Sales are coming in, people want to do business with you but customer satisfaction is not quite as high as you’d like? You take a mental step out of your company and examine the processes, the lines of communication and your organisations social networks and you are surprised to see that although everyone gets on with each other, they are operating in departmental silos and not maximising opportunities for cross selling and efficiency. And even more surprisingly this is despite there being only 15 people in the organisation, you are all based on the same site and there is cross-over in people’s roles.

Zebra Internet Services was in this position three years ago, so we mobilised a hit team to create a new plan that involved a huge shift in gear - we changed our mission and strategy, consolidated our services, adjusted our target market and re-launched our brand. A key feature in the plan was the implementation of a new CRM system because we needed to be slicker in our record keeping, client care and team communication. And boy, has it worked!

Since we have rolled out MS Dynamics CRM everything has begun to fall into place. The sales department activity is more transparent and less of a mystery to the Tech and admin people, the tech team administer client issues through Cases so the account handlers are completely up to speed on every action being taken relating to their clients’ (status?). The importance of relationship building is now valued by everyone in the whole business and the team spirit and comradery that is involved in on-boarding new clients, satisfying old clients and supporting each other is brilliant.

We have also satisfied our Head of Finance (hard man to please) as reporting is better at every level, including Leads, Opportunities and Closed deals. The effect on everyone’s activity and communication has resulted in increased productivity, profitability and levels of customer service. Boxes ticked all round.

My advice to any business owner looking for cost cutting, improvements in efficiency, improvements in culture, take a look at how you manage information flows through your operation. Do you capture all client details, do you know when every next action needs to be taken for which client and by which team member? You either need to get a better CRM or you need to reassess how you use your current one. And if you come to Zebra for SEO management, Data Centre Services or Domain Names registration services you can be sure that your experience will be second to none.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Stephanie Hutcheon .