Do you have any of these business goals? Show
You need to reach these goals in a sustainable way. A big piece of that involves putting processes in place to get — and stay — organized. Sure, spending hours updating Excel spreadsheets of contact info or manually sorting through stacks of business cards might work now, but you can’t live like that forever. That’s where CRM comes into play. The right CRM software helps your business meet these goals efficiently — no spreadsheet necessary. It can also scale with your business as it grows. This means you can put customer management processes in place now that will work for a long time to come. To reach your maximum CRM-using potential, you need to build out a CRM strategy. Within that strategy, set objectives based on your business goals. What exactly do you want to get out of your CRM implementation? In this post, we’ll cover how to set goals as part of your CRM strategy:
What is a CRM strategy — and why do you need one?Where do you have the most trouble in your sales, marketing, and customer support processes? Do any of these gaps sound familiar?
Creating a CRM strategy will help you make the most of your software. To set your CRM strategy, figure out where your current gaps are. The goal of implementing a new CRM is to fill those gaps. What do you need to do to turn where you are now into where you want to be? (via BuzzAnalysis) A CRM strategy keeps everyone focused on reaching the same goals. Your CRM software impacts sales, marketing, and customer support teams — not to mention management. 50% of CRM implementations fail to meet management expectations. Getting buy-in from management across the organization before you get your CRM up and running keeps everyone on the same page. If you don’t get everyone on the same page, you might end up with:
CRMs can have a lot of jargon involved — make sure you know how your organization defines each piece:
To learn more about the CRM implementation process, click here. To dive deeper into setting CRM goals, keep reading. Be SMART about your CRM goals“A goal properly set is halfway reached.” – Zig Ziglar You might be tempted to set goals like “eliminate customer churn” or “close every single deal that comes through our pipeline.” These goals are vague, with no deadlines, metrics, or action plans attached. Being ambitious with your goals rocks, but it’s even more important to be SMART:
Don’t set this goal: “Eliminate customer churn.” What makes this a not-so-SMART goal?
Try this instead: “Too many of our customers leave after one purchase. Repeat customers spend more (and cost less) than new ones, so we want to increase customer loyalty. Our goal: To decrease customer churn by 25% by the end of next quarter, as measured by our CRM software. To do so, we will focus on using our new CRM to improve communication between our sales and customer support teams.” What makes that second goal SMART?
Setting SMART goals makes it easier to create an action plan to meet them. It also helps you measure and report on your success. (via GIPHY) 4 CRM goals you can set todayHow can CRM software help grow your business? How does setting the right CRM goals make your sales process faster and smoother? Here are 4 CRM goals you can set today:
1. Increase customer retentionThe goal: To keep customers coming back for more. Focus on the R in CRM: relationships. Building relationships helps you retain customers. 68% of customers who churn do so because they believe you don’t care about them. You do care about your customers. CRM makes it easier to prove it. You can track their interests, activity, and interactions with your brand to get to know them better — then set up campaigns that encourage (and reward) loyalty:
When customers feel heard and appreciated, they become much more likely to stick around. CRMs also give you insight into your customer behavior at a macro level. Look at any accounts who have churned in the past — what do they have in common? Figuring out common indicators that a customer might leave lets you work with at-risk accounts. The SMART version of this goal might look like the example we gave earlier:
2. Shorten the sales cycleThe goal: to speed up your sales process and close deals more quickly. CRM was made for this. Its raison-d’etre, if you will. What sounds easier — manually entering every customer interaction into a spreadsheet, or knowing that your CRM system tracks them all without you lifting a finger? CRM makes your sales process more efficient, meaning you can sell more in less time. Not sure where your sales process tends to slow down? Run a CRM report to help you identify bottlenecks. These reports help you identify areas of improvement. The process might look like this:
How do you increase efficiency to solve that bottleneck? Sales automation. Stop sales tasks from piling up or slipping through the cracks. Use your CRM to automatically assign tasks to your sales team based on customer actions or deal value. In this sales automation: If the deal value is above $500, ActiveCampaign automatically assigns a task to the salesperson to call the lead. If the deal value is below $500, the lead will automatically be entered into a nurture campaign. Automating the tedious parts of the sales process — like assigning tasks and organizing contact info — gives your sales team more time back to do what they do best: close deals. The SMART version of this goal might look like this:
3. Sell moreThe goal: To increase sales. The best way to do that? Focus on selling to the right people. In a perfect world, every lead that moves from marketing to sales is 100% qualified and valuable. In reality, some leads will always be worth more than others. Use your CRM software to figure out what your best customers have in common. This can include demographic info:
And previous interactions with your company:
These factors help you set up a lead scoring model. Lead scoring assigns value to certain characteristics and behaviors, then gives each lead a numerical score. This helps you figure out:
Your CRM software can show you which leads your team should focus their time and energy on — and which should be put into a nurture campaign or left to self-close. When your sales team focuses on closing only the most qualified leads, you not only close more deals but gain customers with higher customer lifetime value (CLV). These leads are more likely to become loyal repeat customers, and your sales team can up-sell and cross-sell these leads later on. (To learn more about lead scoring, click here.) The SMART version of this goal might look like this:
4. Decrease your customer acquisition costThe goal: to spend less per sale. Your CAC is the total sales and marketing cost required to close a customer. Fact: Every single business wants to decrease their CAC. (via Smile.io) To lower your CAC, you need to:
CRM helps you do both:
We’ve already touched on the latter — CRM makes your sales and marketing processes more efficient, which saves you time and money. You can automate:
As for number 1, when you spend your marketing budget on more qualified leads, you close more deals — and your CAC goes down. Your CRM holds a lot of valuable info about your best customers. Like with lead scoring, you can use this information to figure out what your ideal customer looks like — then focus your marketing efforts on targeting those people. The SMART version of this goal might look like this:
How to measure your CRM goalsKPIs: Key performance indicators. These handy numbers tell you:
Just like your CRM goals, all KPIs focus on bringing in more sales, improving the customer experience, and bettering the business as a whole. (via The Balance) Good news: A well-set CRM strategy should make these easy to define — and calculate. Since you set SMART goals, your KPIs should be easy to measure within your CRM. More good news: CRM software has built-in reporting you can run to measure your KPIs. But before you can run reports, you need to choose which KPIs to measure. Here are a few metrics to choose from:
(Okay, maybe more than a few.) Use the list above as a starting point — but don’t use all of them. Choose the KPIs that measure the things you want to improve.
For more information on measuring these metrics by running CRM reports, click here. Measure your KPIs regularly. If you find yourself off-track, adjust your CRM strategy accordingly. Adjusting your strategy might involve:
Be willing to test different ways of using CRM to meet your business goals. As someone wise (and anonymous) once said, “If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan. Not the goal.” Conclusion: What are the goals of CRM?The 4 most important CRM goals and objectives are:
The goals of CRM are generally to create a better customer experience — and because of that customer experience, to get more sales. That’s why it’s called CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, and if you focus on your relationships, you’ll be on your way to your CRM goals. Which of the following is the objective of customer relationship management?The overall business goals of CRM systems are to help organizations 1) capture new leads and move them through the sales process; 2) support and manage relationships with current customers to maximize their lifetime value to the company; and 3) boost productivity and lower the overall costs of marketing, sales, and ...
What is the main objective of a customer relationship management program quizlet?What is the purpose of customer relationship management? To indentify and understand customers so that a strong relationship.
What is customer relationship management software used for?Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology for managing all your company's relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve business relationships to grow your business.
What are the two main objectives of customer relationship?The main areas of focus are as the name suggests customer, relationship and the management of relationship and the main objectives to implement CRM in the business strategy are: (i) To simplify marketing and sales process. (ii) To make call centre's more efficient.
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