Describe the importance of customer relationship management (CRM) to sales management.
CRM is important to sales management for many reasons (Customer relationship management, TechTarget). It helps them optimize information shared by multiple employees and streamlines business processes such as taking orders. and, it allows the formation of individualized relationships with customers, with the goal of improving customer satisfaction and maximizing profits. It does so in part by providing employees with the information and processes necessary to know their customers, understand their needs, and effectively build relationships between the company, its customer base, and channels. and, it helps drive marketing efforts that increase the number of high quality leads for the sales team.
Identify different types of technology that the organization in your case study could use to enhance their selling functions and CRM techniques.
There are many technologies that could help G.W. Pergault enhance their selling functions and CRM techniques. Examples applicable to incorporating the online sales channel include (Meister, Chambers and Fenner, 2001).
Integration across all channels -- a single view of the customer is important. This means tracking the various channels through which the customer interacts to understand the information requests at each point, track the status of any pending requests, and report on contact histories. With a common, unified view of the customer, the company can ensure more consistent service and follow-up.
Customer self-service -- by providing rich content around customer transactions and self-service activities such as frequently asked questions, bills, policies and product documentation, organizations can increase the value of their Web site to their customers....
Many CRM systems provide a central online "knowledge base" to support customer self-service, while others rely on integrating disparate back-end systems within the organization.
Business processes automation -- a good CRM system should provide a unified mechanism for automating customer service processes and workflows across all channels.
Personalization -- One of the keys to success on the Web is overcoming the challenge of moving the customer through a successful sales process without human interaction. The Internet is a powerful tool for one-to-one marketing because the customer's interactions on the Web site can be tracked using cookies. Plus, customers can enter their data directly into Web site forms that can be directly connected to a customer database to provide even more information. Using knowledge from cookies and the customer database, personalized interactions can be triggered to increase the chances of purchase. For example, the customer can be presented with personalized greetings and shown items that are likely to be of interest based on purchase history.
Reporting and analytics -- These capabilities allow organizations to leverage the information contained in their back and front-end systems, to identify customer trends, demographics, tendencies, and preferences -- data that can be leveraged in personalization and marketing efforts.
Bibliography
Customer relationship management. TechTarget. Retrieved May 17, 2005 from Web site: http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,sid11_gci213567,00.html
Meister, F., Chambers, B., and Fenner, J. (2001, May 31). CRM in insurance: capitalizing on the customer service opportunity. Retrieved May 17, 2005 from Web site: http://www.insurancetech.com/resources/fss/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=14706299&pgno=1
