Workbooks CRM Blog

Seven Steps to Heaven: Marketing Automation with a CRM System [INFOGRAPHIC]

John Cheney — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:00:00 GMT

Want an easier working day? Better sharing of information, better customer experience management and fewer manual tasks? Leading marketing and advertising agencies are discovering that marketing automation is giving them the power to outflank their competition.

Operations Director at EST Marketing, Michael Starnes, said:

“Workbooks has already helped us improve the way in which we manage our prospects and sales pipeline. We have seen a noticeable difference in our productivity levels and in how we prioritise our days. We are touching clients we might not have touched before; and more importantly, we are touching them at the relevant stage of the sales cycle – with relevant information. This has directly resulted in more work.”

Here are the steps you can take to automate your marketing, improving your customer service and your profits in the process...

Step 1. Automate (or offload) data cleansing and updating:

Use CRM automated de-duplication tools to clean up customer records with minimal fuss
Customers can update their own information via your website, giving them greater control over their preferences

“By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationships without talking to a human.”
Gartner Research

Step 2. Aggregate all of your customer data into one repository for ease of use and better analytical options:

Pull together your existing databases, spreadsheets, documents and even your existing marketing automation platform data into a single CRM system
Reduce the time taken to retrieve information and carry out analysis

“With a conflux of databases storing information on a single customer, organizations seeking to provide a universal view of customer information, and therefore a more complete service experience for the end customer, must deploy knowledge-powered central databases that can store and automatically present all important and relevant data for a customer.”
Brian Kelly, destinationcrm.com writer

Step 3. Generate a complete picture of every contact for better lead nurturing and targeted customer communications:

Track previous purchases for every customer
Track customers who have stopped spending money with you
Gain a total overview of client likes and dislikes
Target communications and offers accurately based on these preferences

“Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.”
The Annuitas Group

Step 4. Use analytical tools to automatically segment members based on interests for marketing efforts:

Gather clients into target groups based on any metric of your choice; location, purchase history or gender, for instance
Track the effectiveness of each message to see what does and doesn’t work, helping to tune future marketing efforts
Link your existing marketing automation platform, or use the included Workbooks tools according to your own preferences

“Highly relevant email messages can generate nine times improvement in revenue and 32 times more improvement in net profit over non-segmented broadcast campaigns.”
JupiterResearch

Step 5. Move customers through the sales pipeline:

Know exactly where each customer is in the buying cycle at a glance
Find out where the lead came from in the first place
Use that data to provide the right information automatically to move them towards the final sale
Send automated emails triggered by each move along the pipeline to keep the sales process moving

“Event-triggered marketing can potentially save 80% of your direct mail budget.”
Gartner Research

Step 6. Automate email and mass mailings to keep existing customers “warm”:

Automate offers for customers based on their preferences and to keep them engaged
Use analytics like wish lists and abandoned shopping carts to re-engage with customers
Boost loyalty with ongoing, targeted messages sent direct from Workbooks or through a third party system

“A 5% increase in customer loyalty can produce profit increases from 25% to 85%.”
Frederick F Reichheld and W. Earl Sasser – Harvard Business Review

Step 7: Heaven

Increase company revenue:

Put it all together to improve your turnover and profit
Improve customer service and satisfaction
Keep your customers coming back for more

“CMOs who invest in marketing performance management will drive at least a 15% increase in revenue for the company.”
Gartner Research

To do list

Automate data cleansing and updating
Keep all your customer data in one place
Keep detailed information about customer behaviour
Use segmentation for marketing efforts
Track your customers as they move through the sales pipeline
Automate emails
Increase your revenue as a result!

Download our Shared Success Program eGuide - to discover how we can guarantee a successful CRM implementation in your business.

How Much Pipeline Do You Need to Make Your Sales Number? [POLL]

John Cheney — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:00:00 GMT

Poll: How Much Pipeline Do You Need to Make Your Sales Number?

Get fun ideas for transforming sales results in our eGuide: The 30 most ridiculous sales motivation tips ever!

Transform Your Sales Team with Software: 5 Tips [FLIPBOOK]

John Cheney — Wed, 08 May 2013 09:00:00 GMT

If your sales team is in need of motivation, new software could be the answer...

Want better sales results? Of course you do!

Getting the right CRM solution can transform your sales team, in terms of:

how they work
their motivation levels
the results they get

Not convinced yet? Read on for our top 5 reasons for investing in a Cloud CRM solution...

Reason 1. Save Time

The right CRM solution can automate time-consuming, but important, tasks such as:

scheduling sales appointments
sending follow-up letters and emails
tracking contacts
updating sales opportunities

The right CRM system can give you ‘web2lead’ functionality - which means you can automatically manage leads from your website. They can then be assigned to the relevant sales queue or sales rep, efficiently organising how you manage your lead opportunities.

Reason 2. Improve Customer Service

The best CRM solutions integrate marketing, sales, finance and customer support activities to give a holistic view of the customer relationship.

So with all of this information at their fingertips, your sales team can have better informed conversations with your customers and, therefore, can deliver a better customer experience. Your sales team has immediate access to marketing data to see who’s been sent what, and whether they responded to it. No customer wants to receive a call from the sales team if they've just been on the phone to support with an issue.The right CRM analyses a customer’s recent activity, and makes sure this doesn’t happen.

By keeping the finance team in the loop as well, your sales team can see if their customers are paying up on time and step in to help if there is an issue. A tardy payer will be much less likely to fob off someone they have a relationship with than an unknown caller from finance.

Reason 3. Increase Revenue

Freeing your sales team from mundane admin tasks means they can make more sales calls, which:

generates more income for the company
generates more income for the team member
increases employee satisfaction and profits

CRM can also easily reveal which customers deliver the most profits or buy the widest breadth of products. This information means your sales team can focus on promoting the most relevant products or services based on a customer's purchasing history.

“Over 62% of people polled in the UK held a deep rooted cynicism towards companies and felt that companies are only interested in selling products and services but not necessarily the product or service that is right for the consumer.”

Socializing CRM eGuide

Reason 4. Improve Opportunity Management

CRM can help improve opportunity management with:

Competitive intelligence features that track competitors' activities so your sales teams can spot - and act on - competitive threats and opportunities
Information from online queries or the website fed into the CRM automatically for speedy follow-up and an increased chance of conversion
Tools that allow you to track potential customers, their executives and activities, as well as any meetings and possible matches between your offerings and prospects' needs
Integrated marketing materials, research reports or data from other disparate sources to better equip salespeople

Only 6% have integrated their CRM with social data.

Scribe Software research of 300 IT and business leaders, quoted on IT Business Edge

Reason 5. Manage Sales Teams Better

With the right CRM, Sales managers have:

Immediate access to each salesperson's activities, opportunities, sales figures, customer complaints and other metrics used for measuring success and sales revenue
Tools to develop sales reps' territories, without running the risk of too much - or too little - coverage in a given area
The ability to select the optimal individual to follow-up on a particular lead, based on geography, expertise, performance or availability. By immediately connecting prospect and salesperson, a lead is more likely to become engaged, and ultimately buy
The ability to spot potential issues, such as an under-performing team member, and take steps to address them before they become a problem

Research by Towers Perrin indicates that highly engaged sales employees generate 19% higher operating income.

Research quoted on growthengineering.co.uk

So, we’re sure you’re convinced now - CRM for sales really can transform your results!

Get fun ideas for transforming sales results in our eGuide: The 30 most ridiculous sales motivation tips ever!

Watch out for Fake Cloud [INFOGRAPHIC]

John Cheney — Wed, 01 May 2013 09:00:00 GMT

Many providers advertise “Cloud” software solutions which are not quite what they seem. This guide will show you what to look out for when considering Cloud CRM solutions.

Real Cloud CRM	v	Fake Cloud CRM		Why it matters
Needs nothing more than an internet connection (usually runs in your web browser)		Needs additional software or servers installed in your office or home		Easier to get up-and-running Less to go wrong Nothing for you to maintain

“83 percent of companies are frustrated with having to cut through marketing hype to find out which solutions are genuine cloud offerings and which are merely conventional hosting services with the word 'Cloud' added to the title.”

ElasticHosts CIO Survey

Real Cloud CRM	v	Fake Cloud CRM		Why it matters
No software needs to be installed locally		“Cloud CRM software” is installed on your server or laptops		If the software is installed locally, there are no benefits over traditional “on site” CRM solutions

“Cloud washing (also spelled cloudwashing) is the purposeful and sometimes deceptive attempt by a vendor to rebrand an old product or service by associating the buzzword "cloud" with it.”

TechTarget.com definition

Real Cloud CRM	v	Fake Cloud CRM		Why it matters
Uses Cloud CRM servers spread across different geographical regions		Installed on a single server on or offsite		Increased resilience in the event of a local disaster Less chance of data loss Increased up-time, allowing any-time, any-where access to your data

“Part of the cloud computing mystique is that cloud services are resilient. Hardware devices fail, but the services continue running without loss of data.”

Charles Babcock, Editor at InformationWeek

"Cloud washing refers to the practice of slapping the term “cloud” on any old technology you have."

Larry Dignan, ZDNet

Real Cloud CRM	v	Fake Cloud CRM		Why it matters
Billed on a per user or similar unit basis		Attracts additional charges such as an ‘installation fee’		True Cloud CRM solutions should only bill you for what you use A full charge breakdown is agreed in advance so your business knows what it will get for its money

“To truly follow the cloud model, software should be sold based on usage metrics that make sense to the end user.”

Thoran Rodrigues, TechRepublic

Real Cloud CRM	v	Fake Cloud CRM		Why it matters
Services can be added or removed according to your needs through a self-service portal		Services require significant manual intervention by the provider		Adding services as and when required means not having to wait for them to come online Self-service portals end problems getting through on customer helplines or dealing with language differences Service costs are cheaper as your Cloud CRM provider doesn’t need to employ so many customer-facing staff

“Over two thirds (67%) of respondents in the CIO survey had been offered "cloud" services that are fixed term, 40% had been offered services that were not elastic or scalable, and 32% had found that in many cases services were not even self-service.”

Forrester Research

Real Cloud CRM	v	Fake Cloud CRM		Why it matters
Access on-the-road from mobile phones and tablets is easy and seamless		Often needs additional configuration of a network VPN connection or 3rd party products to provide mobile access		CRM is only effective if your employees can keep it up to date with timely and relevant information Easy on-the-road access to your CRM system allows for increased productivity by ensuring that your team can use the full range of CRM functionality and can see the latest customer information from anywhere, at any time

“Gartner Research is reporting mobile CRM apps will grow 500 percent by 2014, another sign of a shifting market that has more to do with work getting done in the cloud more so than from a server behind the firewall.”

Techcrunch.com

Takeaways

Cloud software offers a range of benefits - including cost savings, easier maintenance and better resilience.
Cloud software is also more flexible and scalable, meaning it’s easy for you to update your systems yourself as your business grows.
Don’t just take the vendor’s word for it, though - not all supposedly ‘Cloud’ software is genuinely Cloud. Make sure they can answer all your questions about how they bill, where their server is installed and how easy the system is to update.

Download our free eGuide Customer Experience Management: a business owner’s guide now!

Get the Right People Behind You in Your CRM Assessment [SLIDESHARE]

John Cheney — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:30:00 GMT

By getting the right people on board from the start, you can make sure your CRM implementation isn’t one of the 70% that fail.

The sad fact of CRM failure

Depending on the research you read, you’ll come up with different statistics as to how often CRM implementation failure happens. But all the studies show that an alarming number of CRM projects fail:

A Butler Group report found that 70% of CRM implementations fail.
A Gartner study found that approximately 55% of all CRM projects failed to meet software customers' expectations.
In a Bain & Company survey of 451 senior executives, CRM ranked in the bottom three categories of 25 popular tools evaluated for customer satisfaction.

While there are a multitude of reasons cited for failure of these projects, user acceptance is one of the most critical factors.

Why CRM projects don’t work

The reasons for project failure are often the same across different organisations:

Lack of training and support before and after implementation. Sometimes this is not because users don’t receive training, but because it is not given in a way that resonates with them.
Incorrect, incomplete or bogus data. Marketing cannot run successful campaigns if customer and prospect information is inaccurate.
You chose the wrong system for your company, as you didn’t get the right people involved at the right stage of the assessment.

Making CRM a success, or not

Too often, CRM projects fail as the solution isn’t the right one for the people who use it most often. This article from CRM Magazine tells of two companies which got it right and got it wrong:

Got it right - had a CRM project manager in place from the start who created a team from the people who would benefit the most from the new solution.
Got it wrong - had the CIO solely in charge of assessment and purchase decision then rolled it out to the people who would use it.

Getting the right team in place

Who should be in your team? Typically, a CRM project team should include:

Project sponsor.
Senior stakeholders.
Supplier sponsor.
Project manager.
Business analyst.
Technical team leaders and members.
Communications manager.
Training manager.
User champions.

How often should they meet? Well, there’s no hard and fast rule, but the project manager should have a defined timetable with milestones and goals in place that will influence this decision. At a minimum, though, the team should probably meet a couple of times a month.

What should be on the agenda? Progress, timescales, goals, objectives, issues, resolutions and communications.

How should the team share this information with others in the business to increase adoption at launch? Your project plan should include a communications element that covers pre-, at- and post-launch communications to share information and get company-wide buy-in. These communications can include e-shots, posters, newsletters and information days. User champions are also key in evangelising the solution within their teams in the run-up to launch.

Ensuring ongoing CRM success

By ensuring you have an assessment team in place at the start, you maximise the chances of your CRM project’s success. Follow these 15 actions as well to achieve better CRM adoption and engagement, which include:

Building a case for change.
Communicating progress.
Supporting managers who are leading the change.
Providing educational resources.
Rewarding adopters.

For more tips on getting CRM projects right, read our free eGuide: IT Director’s guide: using technology to unite the business.

CRM Intelligence: Do You Know What’s Going on in Your Business? [INTERACTIVE INFOGRAPHIC]

John Cheney — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:30:00 GMT

Here are the top 5 ways to leverage your CRM system for business intelligence and service improvement.

When you manage your own business, it’s easy to feel you’ve lost control. Except that you don’t have to feel that way - because there are a host of reporting options your CRM system gives you which you may not be taking advantage of.

Discover the top 5 opportunities in our Interactive Infographic...

1. Forecast sales

What is the potential income of your business at any given moment?

Which opportunities have your sales team recorded in your CRM system?

Where does your sales team need to focus most on closing sales?

Using this data, your business can accurately forecast potential income and stock requirements, dealing with supply chain issues in advance.

“The fact is that one of the earliest lessons I learned in business was that balance sheets and income statements are fiction, cash flow is reality.”
Chris Chocola, President of the Club for Growth

"If you have to forecast, forecast often.”
Edgar R. Fiedler, American economist

2. Find out who your worst-value customers are

Every business has customers who cost almost as much as they generate. CRM intelligence allows you to see which customers have the most issues, require the most hand-holding and generate the smallest returns. Armed with this information you can decide:

Which customers need account manager intervention to resolve issues
Which customers need to pay more for products and services
Which customers need to be encouraged to buy more
Which customers need to be offered services that are cheaper for you to supply

“You should focus on good customers and try to improve their quality and not just try to get rid of the bad ones. Firms should find cheaper ways to keep low-value customers because they are confusing your competition to your advantage and there's a chance someday that they will become good customers.”
Jagmohan Raju, Wharton marketing professor

3. Monitor sales staff performance

CRM intelligence analysis allows your business to see which sales staff are:

Generating the most quotes
Closing the most orders
Generating the highest value orders

Using this business intelligence, you can then:

Decide which staff need additional resources to become even more productive
Identify positive sales methods that can be shared with other team members
Decide which team members need additional support to improve
Automate common sales tasks to reduce the need for manual intervention

"On average, sales and marketing costs average from 15%-35% of total corporate costs. So the effort to automate for more sales efficiency is absolutely essential. In cases reviewed, sales increases due to advanced CRM technology have ranged from 10% to more than 30%."
Harvard Business Review

4. Cure recurrent operational issues

CRM intelligence also allows your business to analyse customer support calls. This data can then be used to:

Identify issues that are common to all your customers
Fix these issues
Train staff to resolve common issues more quickly

Equipped with this business intelligence, you can:

Cut support costs
Resolve issues more quickly
Raise customer satisfaction accordingly

"The impact on an organisation can at times be subtle and distributed throughout the enterprise... Cost savings and productivity enhancements can be seen in saving a sales person 20 minutes per week in writing activity reports, or answering four times the volume of web-based service requests in the same amount of time."
Mary Wardley, vice-president of IDC's CRM applications research

“Nearly 70% of consumers said they had ended a relationship due to poor customer service alone.”
The Cost of Poor Customer Service: The Economic Impact of the Customer Experience and Engagement in 16 Key Economies - Genesys

5. Segment your customers

With a broad base of information recorded in your CRM system, you can segment customers based on common preferences and purchasing history. These segments can then be used for:

Finely targeted marketing campaigns
Trend analysis to identify future markets and opportunities
Distribution of accounts and leads to suitably qualified account managers

When used carefully, segmentation should help increase turnover through the use of better targeted marketing efforts that are more appealing to your customers.

“As the blurring of distinctions among firms increases in electronic markets, survival requires identifying your unique role in the marketplace in terms of value to the customer.”
Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B. Whinston: Do or Die: Market Segmentation and Product Positioning on the Internet

“Highly relevant email messages can generate nine times improvement in revenue and 32 times more improvement in net profit over non-segmented broadcast campaigns.”
JupiterResearch

Getting your CRM Intelligence plan underway

So with these potential benefits available to your business, how do you start your new CRM intelligence plan?

Analyse the Opportunities which your sales team have open and score them in terms of likelihood of successful closure. You can then use these figures as the basis for sales forecasting.
Analyse existing CRM and accounts data to identify your most and least valuable customers. If this data is not currently collected, start recording it from now on.
Your sales manager undoubtedly knows who the best and worst performers are in their team. Work with them to create training paths for the sales team to improve overall performance.
Speak to your employees and customers to identify recurrent issues and fix them. Create a culture of continual improvement using business intelligence mined from your CRM system.
Spend the time required to glean new insights from your existing customer database to create segments for future marketing campaigns. The effort will pay off.

If your existing systems do not provide the information you need to complete these tasks, the very first step is to source a CRM platform to help provide the business intelligence insights you need.

For more ideas on improving the service you offer your customers, download our free eGuide Customer Experience Management: a business owner’s guide

Top 5 Ways to Identify and Defeat Accounts Payable Fraud in Your Business [FLIPBOOK]

John Cheney — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:00:00 GMT

Usually perpetrated by a business’ own staff, Accounts Payable fraud often remains undetected for a long time - find out how the right CRM system can help you take control.

Accounts Payable fraud remains one of the most common methods by which a company is robbed. Usually perpetrated by a business’ own staff, Accounts Payable fraud often remains undetected for a long time.

Here are five ways to identify potentially fraudulent accounts activity.

1. Cheque to invoice comparison

One of the simplest ways to defraud a company is to simply issue a cheque against an invoice for more than the billable amount. A casual glance at account balances shows that the invoice is paid and nothing is amiss. However, checking invoice values against the amounts issued on the cheques paying them will quickly highlight fraudulent activity.

2. Identify duplicate payments

Issuing duplicate payments for invoices is quite common. Most honest suppliers will simply return duplicated cheques for destruction. However, fraudsters may be issuing duplicate payments deliberately so that they can be cashed for profit.

3. Analyse threshold payments

Most businesses operate a payment threshold scheme where invoices below a certain value do not need authorisation. As a result, fraudsters will issue fake invoices just below this threshold to prevent suspicions being raised. Your AP team should routinely check invoices with values just below authorisation levels.

4. Benford’s Law

Also known as the “first-digit law”, this statistical observation relates to the frequency distribution of digitals in data. In virtually any data set, the first digit of any number will be 1 about 30% of the time. Each first digit of an invoice total has a similar statistical likelihood. If your invoices have a frequency which deviates from Benford’s law, it is highly likely that something is amiss and you need to do a deeper audit to identify where the problem lies.

5. Invoice volume activity

Regular customers will have received invoices of a fairly regular volume over a fairly regular frequency. If you notice that some clients have started receiving many more invoices than normal, it is possible that their account is being used to channel fraudulent transactions.

Any five of these indicators will show your business where to look should Accounts Payable fraud be suspected. For the best results, however, each of these techniques should be employed routinely to identify fraud or stop fraud even before it is suspected.

What does any of this have to do with CRM software systems?

By uniting CRM accounts and financial data, your business has an additional source of data which can help track anomalies that point to fraudulent activity. CRM software systems typically store information such as:

Full communications history
Values of sales opportunities
Values of quotes supplied

This CRM accounts data can then be compared to the Accounts Payable information to identify where invoice details do not correlate to those on customer quotes, for instance. Additionally, an audit of the communications stored in the CRM software systems can often catch emails traded between less careful conspirators.

Download our free eGuide Where is the value? a finance director’s guide to CRM now!

Marketing and Sales Alignment - Why Does It Matter? [INFOGRAPHIC]

John Cheney — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:00:00 GMT

By integrating sales and marketing data, both teams can benefit from deeper customer insights - helping everyone become more productive.

Using Marketing CRM techniques sounds as though it oversteps the traditional boundary between sales and marketing. However, sales and marketing alignment brings benefits to the business as a whole which cannot be ignored.

Here are just a few of those benefits...

Improved data sharing

Two-way data flow thanks to sales and marketing alignment ensures everyone understands your customers, regardless of pipeline set-up
Shared data in an integrated sales and marketing CRM system prevents the creation of “silos” – data that is kept within business units, inaccessible, unshared and frequently inaccurate
Data sharing between sales and marketing business units paves the way for greater data access across the business

“It's the integration of marketing automation with CRM which creates a complete revenue picture and process.”
Debbie Qaqish, DestinationCRM.com

“Within Best-in-Class companies: 40% of the sales forecasted pipeline is generated by Marketing, compared with 22% among Industry Average companies and 13% for Laggards.”
Sales and Marketing Alignment: The New Power Couple, Aberdeen Group

Better understanding of customers

Integrated sales and marketing CRM systems provide lead return functionality, allowing the sales team to return a lead to the marketing department for further nurturing
Customer segmentation based on preferences and purchase history can create finely tuned marketing campaigns
Historical records of preferences, purchases and communications allow for personalised service offerings in future
Tailored services foster better relationships with customers, helping to create greater brand loyalty

“The primary reason driving our company to integrate sales and marketing efforts is to have marketing determine who our target customers should be so we can empower and direct our sales team to focus their attention on those opportunities.”
Curtis Fisher, CEO, ProContent

Enhanced automation capabilities

Knowing and understanding customers allows for the creation of automated pipeline triggers and moves prospects along the sales pipeline
Automating sales and marketing functions frees staff to focus on activities which require a human touch
Automating sales and marketing functions often prevents leads from going cold and potential sales being lost

“36% of Best-in-Class companies use sales automation technologies, but the industry average is just 27%.”
Sales and Marketing Alignment: The New Power Couple, Aberdeen Group

“81% of Best-In-Class companies say their number 1 reason for wanting automated sales platforms is to close sales faster.”
Focus Research

Takeaways: what do you get from closer integration?

Closer integration between departments allows your business to share knowledge and experience to provide a better service to customers, new or existing. Keeping customers happy is crucial if you are to generate repeat business from them and their contacts. Or to prevent a bad PR issue.

“90% or more who are dissatisfied with the service they receive will not buy again or come back. Worse still, each of those unhappy customers will tell his or her story to at least 9 other people, and 13% of those unhappy former customers will tell their stories to more than 20 people.”
R.L. Desatnick, “Managing to Keep the Customer”

Combining sales and marketing CRM also has a demonstrable positive effect on your company’s bottom line:

“Best-in-Class businesses that integrate sales and marketing functions noted a 20% average growth in annual company revenue. The industry average was just 7% average growth. The worst performing third of businesses recorded a 4% average decline in annual revenue.”
Sales and Marketing Alignment, Aberdeen Group

For more marketing tips, download our free eGuide 5 ways a marketing director should keep ahead in the ‘Big Data’ world now!

Who Currently Maintains Your Business’ Social Media Channels? [POLL]

John Cheney — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:00:00 GMT

Poll: Who Currently Maintains Your Business’ Social Media Channels?

Just for fun, download our eGuide The 30 most ridiculous sales motivation tips ever now!

Three Easy Social CRM Tricks for Sales Teams [SLIDESHARE]

John Cheney — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:00:00 GMT

Social media has huge potential for increasing your sales – here are three tips to get your team up and running with social media immediately

Need to make sales - now? If your sales team isn’t taking advantage of all the information social media sites have to offer, they’re missing a trick.

Here are three easy techniques you can try today...

1. Profiling

Knowing everything you can about potential customers helps provide the basis for creating more finely targeted sales pitches. Assuming your marketing department has already created social media accounts for your business, you should:

A. Create some saved searches based around keywords relevant to your business such as:

Your products
Your services
Your company name
Your industry sector
Basically, anything that reflects on your business and offers you the chance to engage with people who are showing an interest.

B. Listen! It’s tempting to jump right in and hijack conversations, particularly when people are complaining about your brand – but that’s a customer service issue. Instead, try to gauge what the public sentiment about your business is.

C. After identifying people of interest try assigning a ‘lead rating’ to categorise who needs to be contacted, and in which order.

D. Keep records of your findings particularly new sales leads, in your CRM system. If your platform already has Social CRM capabilities this will be a whole lot easier.

“Success with social in the sales process depends not just on using the tools effectively, but on capturing the results and relationships for long-term benefit to the organization.”

Vanessa DiMauro, CEO of Leader Networks

2. Engaging

Once you have identified and rated persons of interest, and gauged general attitudes towards your business:

Reach out and join existing conversations with people who have shown an interest in your business
Work the leads previously identified carefully to nurture new sales leads
Let the client drive the conversation and continue to listen more than you speak

“Rushing into social-computing initiatives without clearly defined benefits for both the company and the customer will be the biggest cause of failure.”

Gartner.com

3. Socialising

As well as joining conversations, social media offers your company chances to start new conversations too. Social media is about building relationships and two-way conversation, so your sales team should use targeted messages to:

Invite comment on topics which can further interest potential customers
Share company news regularly
Project a more human face for your business
Show that your company maintains an active social media profile, helping to increase customer trust

Over 62% of people polled in the UK held a deep rooted cynicism towards companies and felt that companies are only interested in selling products and services but not necessarily the product or service that is right for the consumer.

Socializing CRM eGuide

Next steps

These three tips can be implemented without any additional software or delay, allowing your sales team to get started with social media immediately. However to streamline the process and make sure that nothing falls through the gaps, a Social CRM system can keep track of interactions and lead ratings to streamline social sales efforts.

Just for fun, download our eGuide The 30 most ridiculous sales motivation tips ever now!

Workbooks Vs. GoldMine: the CRM System Showdown [INFOGRAPHIC]

John Cheney — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 11:00:00 GMT

What does the Workbooks CRM system offer YOU that GoldMine doesn't?

Since the digital revolution, CRM software has evolved drastically, and Workbooks is leading the way in Cloud-based, user-friendly, reliable software. Discover why Workbooks has been a finalist in two recent CRM awards, and why its sales forecasting processing software has usurped older technology - such as Goldmine, which is lingering in a network-based, Windows-only past.

Read on to find out how the Workbooks and Goldmine CRM systems compare in a range of categories...

Click on the infographic below to view a larger version!

Upgrade to the Workbooks CRM System and guarantee success NOW! Try Workbooks.com FREE for 30 days!

Workbooks.com has launched a new Cloud CRM solution for NFPs and Charities

John Cheney — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 10:00:00 GMT

The Workbooks.com Cloud-based CRM solution extends beyond CRM to support the aims and activities of NFPs and Charities like Coeliac UK and the CABA.

Workbooks.com, a UK provider of cloud-based CRM and business applications, has announced the launch of its next-generation CRM and membership management solution; Workbooks Not-for-profit, as a result of the success of the Workbooks solution in the NFP and Charity sector.

Workbooks Not-for-profit - what is it?

Workbooks Not-for-profit, which has been adopted by a number of NFPs and Charities such as Coeliac UK and the Chartered Accountants Benevolent Association (CABA), is specifically designed to extend beyond CRM to support the membership management and commercial activities of not-for-profit organisations.

John Cheney, CEO of Workbooks said, “We are pleased to announce the launch of a new edition of Workbooks based on significant experience and growing demand in the NFP sector. We feel that we can offer NFPs a comprehensive solution that will enable them to work more efficiently and effectively, and will give them the technology to support business development and income generation activities.”

It’s ‘more than just a membership database’.

Brendan Harris, IT Director at Coeliac UK, a Workbooks customer who moved to Workbooks having previously used Integra from Iris Software, commented “We wanted more than just a membership database, but a platform that would be integrated with our website and support the income raising aspects of our work. It was also important that the new solution could provide the right management KPIs enabling us to make the right decisions for the Charity.”

Cheney continued, “As a cloud-based solution, delivered via software-as-a-service, Workbooks allows for remote access, giving organisations more flexibility and supporting improvement to current practices. There are many benefits of taking a leading flexible cloud based CRM product into membership organisations rather than trying to re-work old membership databases to meet their needs as they continue to grow and move online.”

About Workbooks

Workbooks.com is one of the fastest growing providers of web based CRM and business applications designed specifically for small and mid-size organisations.

Headquartered in the UK, our suite of products enables our customers to accelerate sales growth, improve marketing execution, streamline business processes and improve the quality of customer support they deliver. The Workbooks CRM Edition delivers easy to use sales force automation, marketing management and customer support tools.

The Workbooks Business Edition extends CRM to include the generation of transaction documents, such as customer orders, supplier purchase orders and customer invoices.

Learn more about Workbooks’ next generation Not-for-profit CRM solution and read the SMTA Case Study here!

The Automated Company is Complete!

John Cheney — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:00:00 GMT

How to use CRM to work as one...

Imagine all the departments in your business, working together as one. It isn’t hard to do. At Workbooks we believe in CRM. We really do. We created The Automated Company to show how a well-integrated company could run. It’s stacked with free resources and concrete tips to help you realise the elusive dream.

Let’s have a look from the point of view of each business function. Working together is all very well, but each role needs to be catered for and looked after. A good CRM-integrated company brings all the employees together. Here’s how the Automated Company’s resources are tailored to each role:

Business owners will get on board with it...

Concise and clever docs explain how using a cloud-based CRM system fundamentally works to streamline business activity, and what revenue performance management (RPM) can do to grow and accelerate an organisation. It also shares the story of a large online retailer that used CRM to achieve alignment between departments and a better customer experience.

Marketing professionals will be persuaded by it...

Some great advice about how to get the Sales team onside, as well as solving the perennial problem of dodgy data stores, which get in the way of effective email and database marketing. Not only that, but how to unite CRM and marketing automation software.

Sales professionals will buy into it...

Use lead rating to really pin down how good some leads are compared to others, helping sales representatives to save time and prioritise, focusing their efforts where they are most likely to be effective. There’s even a touch of (very) mild nudity - naughty!

Finance professionals will put their money on it...

Does CRM really save money? Really? We’ve assembled a set of information to show how you could cut costs using CRM. Might even leave you with some spare time to dance the tango. (Inside joke — you’ll understand when you visit The Automated Company!)

Customer services professionals will smile at it...

There’s a touch of comic relief with the infographic showing some of the most bizarre and ridiculous customer service requests. On a more serious note, there’s some great info on how to be a top customer service professional, how to empower the call centre staff, and how to deal with a CRM system that just isn’t cutting it.

So what are you waiting for? Don’t hang around waiting for world peace — the more elusive dream of company unity is here already! Enter the utopian paradise of The Automated Company

Tomorrow People Leaves Salesforce.com in Favour of Workbooks CRM

John Cheney — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:00:00 GMT

Tomorrow People has selected British Cloud CRM provider Workbooks.com to replace its Salesforce.com CRM system after two years of using the Salesforce Professional Edition.

Tomorrow People will use Workbooks to manage its customer details and interactions. The agency will also be using the Workbooks integration with Hubspot, a cloud based inbound marketing tool, thus enabling them to take advantage of all the marketing analytical tools within Hubspot in conjunction with the CRM functionality and automation provided within Workbooks.

Alistair Norman, Marketing Director at Tomorrow People commented, “Workbooks is not only far more cost-effective than Salesforce.com, it is also more intuitive for our users and much easier for us to customise. We also like the fact that Workbooks keeps our customer details in the UK compared to Salesforce, who kept all our data in the USA.”

Tomorrow People’s choice to move to Workbooks from Salesforce follows a number of other customers who have made the same move. Workbooks makes it easy to migrate Salesforce data across to Workbooks and the Workbooks team has extensive experience in this area, having employed 2 senior consultants who previously worked in the Salesforce Services and Implementations team.

Workbooks Sales Director Ian Moyse said, “Having used Salesforce myself in the past I recognise it has a lot of functionality, but it also carries a lot of cost not only in the license, but in the 3rd party implementation and ongoing maintenance required. We offer customers a system that is easier for users to adopt and that is often a 1/3rd to a ¼ of the licensing cost without compromising on functionality and features.”

Alistair Norman continued “We were impressed by the breadth of functionality in Workbooks, the fact that we are dealing directly with the vendor, and how easy they have made it to migrate from Salesforce. Like many, we initially opted for a big brand name and quickly realised that it comes with cost and complexity.”

About Tomorrow People

Tomorrow People is the UK's pioneering inbound and content marketing agency, providing online marketing services to a growing number of B2B companies in the IT, marketing and financial services sectors. Integrated services include web design and development, branding, online content strategy, content creation, social media strategy, online PR and digital training.

For more information, please visit www.tomorrow-people.com

About Workbooks

Workbooks.com is one of the fastest growing providers of web based CRM and business applications designed specifically for small and mid-size organisations.

The Workbooks Business Edition extends CRM to include the generation of transaction documents, such as customer orders, supplier purchase orders and customer invoices.

Download our eGuide 'Shared Success – Guaranteed Results' now to find out how we can guarantee a successful CRM implementation in your business.

In Your Opinion, Which of These Has the Most Power to Make Sales Forecasting Better? [POLL]

John Cheney — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 10:00:00 GMT

Poll: In your opinion, which of these has the most power to make sales forecasting better?

Read our eGuide How to avoid CRM backlash to identify more ways to improve your results.

See the Future with Your CRM

John Cheney — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 10:00:00 GMT

Now we know that you’d like to see that kind of growth and improve your sales forecasting processes and with the right CRM solution you can.

Forecasting is by no means a new tool that businesses use but the digital revolution means that the information that informs it and how it is calculated can provide a much more accurate picture of what’s going to convert down the line.

The Aberdeen Group’s 2012 ‘Better Sales Forecasting Through Process and Technology: No Crystal Ball Required’ report discovered that of the companies surveyed, the best-in-class averaged 17.8% year-over-year revenue growth using sales forecasting technologies, compared with 8.4% for industry average companies and just 0.2% at laggard companies.

Be Realistic

Does Your Sales Forecast Need Some Work? discusses the results from a recent study, which found that sales teams are a tad over-confident when it comes to their pipelines. More than 14,400 closed opportunities with sales cycles of 75 to 250 days were reviewed over the course of five years and it was found that, on average, it takes sales teams 22% longer to win an opportunity than they had expected it to.

The Aberdeen report also found that among the ‘best-in-class’ companies (the ones that enjoyed much higher growth than everyone else):

81% use performance dashboards to track goal vs. actual sales data
78% have a formal definition of progressive sales stages used to weight sales forecasts
75% add external social media content to the forecasting process

So by being more realistic and using a CRM solution that joins up sales, marketing, finance and customer service and automates their processes, your business can have a sales pipeline forecast that really does convert when you thought it would.

How To: Better Forecasting

1. Sharing

Providing cross-functional access to the sales forecast was cited as one of the most important steps that businesses need to take in order to improve its accuracy. If senior management in other departments have more information available they can make better decisions. The right CRM system allows all departments to access full customer data so they can see exactly what happened before and what’s happening now to make more informed forecasts for the future.

2. Analysing

Analysis of ‘deal velocity’ is another way to get better at forecasting. This just means looking at the extent to which individual sales opportunities remain in sales stages too long, then working with marketing to improve the nurturing and selling processes for those accounts, regions or sectors. With a CRM system that tracks a customer life cycle from lead to invoice to support, getting hold of this data is simple. And it provides powerful insights.

3. Pacing

Proper pacing for effective business-to-business selling can transform results as it helps to establish where extra support or attention needs to be applied in order to close a sale. The Aberdeen report showed that only 12% of laggard companies analyse sales stage activity to identify which deals were dawdling or racing through the process.

In contrast, 32% of ‘best-in-class’ companies and 41% of ‘industry average’ firms used this approach and benefited from better overall sales results and more accurate forecasts by monitoring the sales cycle more closely. Guess what – the right CRM can reveal the length of sales cycles and what marketing communications have been used throughout them at the click of a button.

Read our eGuide How to avoid CRM backlash to identify more ways to improve your results.

How to Be a Customer Service Superstar [FLIPBOOK]

John Cheney — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:00:00 GMT

Many businesses outsource customer service provision as a cost-cutting measure but sadly not all of them ensure that the external agents have access to everything they need to keep the customers happy.

Online CRM solutions mean external customer service agents can deliver the service your customers expect as your data is central, secure and available for them to access no matter where they are located.

Customer service has changed!

Social media and digital marketing means that:

Data needs to be captured from lots of different places
Responses to feedback and queries have to be given in multiple new formats
Customers expect everyone they speak to at the company to know exactly what interaction they’ve already had and how to resolve their problems

It’s been recognised that Cloud CRM solutions are needed to improve customer service as they are continually developed to take advantage of the Big Data explosion. Cloud CRM can:

Help businesses to achieve better performance by using customer data and behaviour patterns to identify opportunities or churn
Allocate leads for further nurturing or sales follow-up, dependent on the prospect’s behaviour
Enable faster provisioning and better scalability
Deliver significant cost efficiencies
Keep track of all the different touch points a customer has, ensuring consistency of messaging and service

But make no mistake. Success in customer service today is not just about technology; it’s about people. Your entire organisation needs to ensure that it really delivers in these key areas:

1. Apologise

Knowing when to say sorry for an issue is vital. Even if the customer isn’t always right, they should always feel like they are. So if they feel something has gone wrong, apologise for it.

2. Communicate

Keeping in touch and nurturing customers converts them more easily. Track every communication to make sure you don’t overdo it, and analyse the results to personalise the service in line with your customer’s engagements.

3. Listen

Without good listening skills, agents won’t deliver good service as they won’t have a clue what the customer said.

4. Anticipate

Customers don't just buy products or services, they buy good feelings, good relationships and solutions to problems. By anticipating what their behaviour and problems reveal, you can deliver the right solutions.

5. Appreciate

Making the customer feel like you appreciate their business will keep them coming back for more. Customers that don’t feel appreciated will definitely be hot-footing it over to your competitors.

6. Learn

Seek feedback on all customer touch points to identify what’s working for your customers and what’s not, then change it. As without your customers you don’t have a business.

7. Educate

Help your customers to understand your products and services – if they feel unsure or confused about any element of it, they’ll be slow to invest and quick to complain. Deliver the collateral and conversations they need to get what you do.

8. Agree

Does a customer have a reasonable recommendation on how your products and services could be improved? Is the idea achievable and able to deliver more benefits? Then say yes to doing it! Customers that feel they can influence product development are the happiest kind.

Read our eGuide Don’t put it off! Five reasons why you shouldn’t defer your CRM project to ensure your CRM plans help your business succeed.

Motivate Your Sales Team with CRM Lead Rating [SLIDESHARE]

John Cheney — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 10:00:00 GMT

Using CRM lead rating to motivate salespeople yields larger returns and profits.

Lead What?

“So, what is lead scoring? Simple, it's a relative ranking of one prospective lead against another.” – Steve Gershik, The Innovative Marketeer.

You set a list of criteria, to help you figure out which customers are hot prospects and worth additional sales efforts. Essentially, you identify who is most likely to make a purchase from your company.

Why lead rate with CRM?

CRM lead rating, or scoring, is useful because it:

Identifies customers likely to make a purchase
Identifies customers unlikely to make a purchase
Allows efforts to be focused and prioritised based on these rates

“Companies that get lead scoring right have a 192% higher average lead qualification rate than those that do not” – Aberdeen Research.

And then?

That’s lead rating sorted. What about the motivation promise?

From the point-of-view of your salespeople:

Wasted sales effort is demotivating
Constant refusals are demotivating
Knowing in advance that a customer is likely to say ‘yes’ is motivating
Knowing there is a good chance of closing a sale means there is a greater chance of making commission – great motivation!

Sound good? Download the eGuide How to avoid CRM backlash to find out more.

What is Your Main Motivation for Using Marketing Automation Software? [POLL]

John Cheney — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:00:00 GMT

Poll: What is your main motivation for using marketing automation software?

A Match Made in Heaven: Marry Your CRM and Your Marketing Automation Software [INFOGRAPHIC]

John Cheney — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:00:00 GMT

Sales and Marketing were named the ‘New Power Couple’ in an Aberdeen Group report. Marketing automation is transforming how marketing teams work. They aren’t just generating, scoring, nurturing and preparing sales-ready leads. They are also now integrating these with CRM to deliver better sales and marketing alignment.

What is marketing automation?

CRM Buyer goes into more detail here but in brief it’s a software solution that increases the ROI your CRM delivers by automating marketing activities such as:

Segmentation
Campaign management
Data capture and integration
Lead scoring and nurturing

Businesses that use marketing automation have been shown to deliver 50% more sales ready leads

Why should it integrate with the CRM system?

Because the 2011 study ‘Lead Generation & Marketing ROI’ revealed that the connection between CRM and marketing automation in delivering and proving ROI is critical. This year the Marketing Sherpa Lead Generation report showed that out of the CMOs surveyed:

52% want to achieve or increase measurable ROI
51% want to optimise the sales and marketing funnel
51% want to gain greater audience insight

The data gathered and shared between your marketing automation solution and your CRM system can enable you to do all of that. That’s why you should integrate.

How can marketing automation integrate with CRM?

It can capture data directly from web-forms, and populate new contacts in line with naming conventions and standard fields
It can automatically score and allocate leads that are tracked in the CRM system
It can capture the source of leads and the associated marketing campaign that generated it, enabling you to keep track of and prove your lead generation activities.

Why should you care?

Because businesses that get sales and marketing aligned and use automated lead nurturing programmes alongside their CRM see 31.6% average year-over-year growth in annual company revenue.

To find out how you could be benefiting, download our eGuide 'Don’t put
it off! Five reasons why you shouldn’t defer your CRM project' now.

RPM – Not Just Another Three Letter Acronym

John Cheney — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 07:00:00 GMT

Revenue Performance Management (RPM) takes CRM to the next level

What is RPM?

Revolutions per minute? No, not in the context of Customer Relationship Management or business methodologies anyway. According to Bob Thompson at CustomerThink.com,

“RPM is a technology-enabled strategy to increase total revenue productivity. Period. It's not any more complicated than that.”

RPM gives your business an overview into its overall revenue productivity. Unlike traditional metrics available through CRM, finance and ERP systems, which focus on particular departments or business units, RPM looks at the effect of joined-up sales and marketing efforts on the company as a whole.

Breaking the barriers between departments

Despite efforts to create “joined-up” business, most departments retain their own data stores or “silos”. Some software platforms allow data sharing between a couple of departments, but RPM seeks to completely demolish internal barriers between sales and marketing in its goal of total transparency, creating a seamless team.

At the same time, RPM methodology allows each department to focus on its own responsibilities.

“When marketing takes a larger share of responsibility for pipeline generation and uses lead nurturing and lead scoring to help sales focus on the hottest leads and opportunities, it frees sales to focus time on productive activities such as selling.” Jason Miller – Marketo.

More than just CRM software

Although CRM software plays its part, RPM goes beyond software.

“Revenue Performance Management is a set of ideas about how companies can grow and accelerate revenue growth by taking advantage of these very broad changes in the way buying and selling takes place in our economy.” - Phil Fernandez, “Revenue Disruption”.

What can RPM do for my business?

Despite being a relatively new kid on the block, RPM is already turning out some impressive statistics:

Companies employing RPM achieve (on average) 102% of their revenue target. Businesses employing other techniques achieved 76% of their targets.
Companies employing RPM close 40% of their sales qualified leads. Non-RPM businesses managed just 25%.
Sales staff spend 72% of their time actually selling, in organisations where RPM is used. Elsewhere, the proportion of time spent selling averages at 57% as the boundaries between sales and marketing are blurred.

Source: 2012 Marketo RPM Benchmark Survey

Where do I start?

There are a number of issues to consider when creating your own RPM strategy, but the key question to answer is:

“What are the best practices of the companies which demonstrate the highest growth and most productive revenue engines?”

Answer that, and your business is well on the way to leveraging Revenue Performance Management for enhanced profit and greater efficiency.

Why not download the How to avoid CRM backlash eGuide from Workbooks.com for further advice and guidance?

Make Your CRM Pay Its Way [FLIPBOOK]

John Cheney — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 10:00:00 GMT

How CRM can join-up departments and enhance the customer life cycle

Would your finance team like a more complete view of customer information?

We’re pretty sure they would.

Keeping them informed throughout the entire sales process means finances are simpler to manage cash flows are easier to control.

With the right CRM the finance team are kept in the loop
They know what marketing is doing to generate and nurture leads
They can see exactly who’s dealing with what, when the pipeline is due to convert and are automatically informed when sales close
Customer service issues are accessible, so invoices don’t get chased up in the middle of a complaint

With the right CRM processes everything is more efficient

Integration with accounts systems means invoices are issued and logged just once

Orders, credit notes, new accounts and invoice information can all be synchronised and distributed at the click of a button

Everyone can see who’s paid and up-to-date, and who’s not, so all conversations are better informed

85% of businesses that invest in a CRM get the wrong one

The right one brings finance into the process where it belongs
Full lead to cash visibility means it’s easier to establish the true cost of a sale
There’ll be no more manual invoicing and data gathering from different teams and systems

With all departments working as one big team sharing all information in an online CRM system results can improve dramatically:

Sales and marketing costs can be cut by 23%
The length of the sales cycle can shrink up to 24%
Each sales person’s revenue can grow by 24% or more
Customer retention can be improved by 27%

With figures like that your finance team can easily prove the ROI of the CRM investment

Download our eGuide Don’t put it off! Five reasons why you shouldn’t defer your CRM project to find out more.

The Cloud is Your Airbag [SLIDESHARE]

John Cheney — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:00:00 GMT

According to research carried out at the Cloud Computing Expo in New York, Disaster Recovery (DR) plans are one of the biggest drivers behind the adoption of cloud storage, with 55% of organisations using it because it provides off-site data protection.

Is your business prepared for unforeseen disasters?

Floods, fires, snow, power cuts and strikes are just some of the reasons businesses are moving data storage to the cloud.

But don’t just move it there, use it there.

Did you know the right CRM enables your whole business to operate from the Cloud?

So even without an expensive DR plan in place, your data is safe and accessible, meaning your staff can work from anywhere, at any time, on any device

Marketing, sales, finance and customer service can continue, disaster or no disaster

Isn’t the customer truly the focus of everything you do?

A Cloud-based CRM that manages your entire customer process helps to keep them there, no matter what happens

Leads can be generated and allocated
sales meetings can go ahead
invoices can be issued
customers can be given support

Gartner said that CRM was the #1 technology-enabled investment focus for 2012

That’s because the right CRM system is so much more than just a CRM system.

It’s a business and data management tool that enables your company to deliver the best service across all departments

Even if disaster strikes

Read our eGuide How to avoid CRM backlash so you can rest assured your CRM delivers what it needs to, when it needs to.

Who is Responsible for Data Quality in Your Organisation? [POLL]

John Cheney — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 10:00:00 GMT

Poll: Who is Responsible for Data Quality in Your Organisation?

Read our eGuide Don’t put it off! Five reasons why you shouldn’t defer your CRM project to ensure your organisation’s plans are watertight.

Get Your Data Squeaky Clean – Our Tips [INFOGRAPHIC]

John Cheney — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:00:00 GMT

Forresters’ recent "The State of Customer Analytics 2012" report revealed that the vast amount of customer data now available to organisations is making data management, quality control and integration very challenging.

Spend on data management and analysis has been growing faster than the budgets allocated to creative and integration. That’s because we all know that without the right contacts to send it to there’s not much point in doing any of the other stuff. Follow these tips for cleaning up your data and you’ll see your campaign results transformed.

1. Housekeeping time

As tedious as database housekeeping undoubtedly is, it’s a chore that really can pay dividends. Did you know that 14% of job titles submitted in forms are fake? Regular checks and culls of your lists can weed out the ignorers and the fakers and ensure that you’re communicating with the people that are more likely to engage.

2. Sorting time

Once you’ve got it clean then you need to get it consistent so use:

Naming conventions (that have to be shared with everyone that adds data to the CRM system)
Standardised job titles
Clearly defined profiles (use this template to create them)

Making and sticking to these rules can not only help you keep your data clean; it can help you segment your lists more effectively as well, so you get better results from your campaigns.

3. Maintenance time

Your lists are now clean, consistent and delivering results. To keep them that way you need to put in the maintenance time. Allocate responsibility or quality will slip again. Capscan’s 2012 Data Quality Insight report revealed that in the organisations surveyed, 10 different roles were cited as including responsibility for data management. So no-one was doing it as they all thought somebody else was!

Workbooks CRM Blog

Seven Steps to Heaven: Marketing Automation with a CRM System [INFOGRAPHIC]

Here are the steps you can take to automate your marketing, improving your customer service and your profits in the process...

Step 1. Automate (or offload) data cleansing and updating:

Step 2. Aggregate all of your customer data into one repository for ease of use and better analytical options:

Step 3. Generate a complete picture of every contact for better lead nurturing and targeted customer communications:

Step 4. Use analytical tools to automatically segment members based on interests for marketing efforts:

Step 5. Move customers through the sales pipeline:

Step 6. Automate email and mass mailings to keep existing customers “warm”:

Step 7: Heaven

To do list

How Much Pipeline Do You Need to Make Your Sales Number? [POLL]

Transform Your Sales Team with Software: 5 Tips [FLIPBOOK]

Want better sales results? Of course you do!

Not convinced yet? Read on for our top 5 reasons for investing in a Cloud CRM solution...

Reason 1. Save Time

Reason 2. Improve Customer Service

Reason 3. Increase Revenue

Reason 4. Improve Opportunity Management

Reason 5. Manage Sales Teams Better

Watch out for Fake Cloud [INFOGRAPHIC]

Real Cloud CRM

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Fake Cloud CRM

Why it matters

Real Cloud CRM

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Fake Cloud CRM

Why it matters

Real Cloud CRM

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Fake Cloud CRM

Why it matters

Real Cloud CRM

v

Fake Cloud CRM

Why it matters

Real Cloud CRM

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Fake Cloud CRM

Why it matters

Real Cloud CRM

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Fake Cloud CRM

Why it matters

Takeaways

Get the Right People Behind You in Your CRM Assessment [SLIDESHARE]

The sad fact of CRM failure

Why CRM projects don’t work

Making CRM a success, or not

Getting the right team in place

Ensuring ongoing CRM success

CRM Intelligence: Do You Know What’s Going on in Your Business? [INTERACTIVE INFOGRAPHIC]

1. Forecast sales

2. Find out who your worst-value customers are

3. Monitor sales staff performance

4. Cure recurrent operational issues

5. Segment your customers

Getting your CRM Intelligence plan underway

Top 5 Ways to Identify and Defeat Accounts Payable Fraud in Your Business [FLIPBOOK]

Here are five ways to identify potentially fraudulent accounts activity.

1. Cheque to invoice comparison

2. Identify duplicate payments

3. Analyse threshold payments

4. Benford’s Law

5. Invoice volume activity

What does any of this have to do with CRM software systems?

Marketing and Sales Alignment - Why Does It Matter? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Here are just a few of those benefits...

Improved data sharing

Better understanding of customers

Enhanced automation capabilities

Takeaways: what do you get from closer integration?

Who Currently Maintains Your Business’ Social Media Channels? [POLL]

Three Easy Social CRM Tricks for Sales Teams [SLIDESHARE]

Here are three easy techniques you can try today...

1. Profiling

2. Engaging

3. Socialising

Next steps