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Use Customer Relationship Management software to help make the sale
Sales Moves
By Jeffrey Gitomer
Are you using some form of database management to “control” your customer data?
Customer Relationship Management has been around in one form or another for nearly 20 years. But in the past five years, it has become more sophisticated, more of a sales necessity and more competitive.
The main multiple-user programs include salesforce.com, Siebel and a new player, Dovarri. Programs-in-a-box include Goldmine, ACT! and saleslogix. There are also large enterprise solutions that include Oracle and SAP.
Since I am often asked which one I recommend, it was best to develop criteria for what I think needs to be included in a CRM.
Logging onto a CRM application goes to an opening desktop screen. At a minimum, there must be an eyeful of “now.” Salespeople want to see hot prospects, top proposals, a forecast, their report card, today’s appointments, a quick path to contacts and calendar, and maybe a motivational quote.
From there, it should be one click to new leads, current accounts, opportunity accounts, activity lists, phone book, Outlook e-mail, Outlook contacts, Outlook tasks, a pipeline report, a won-loss report and a lead analysis report. You should also be a double click away from account details and a sales plan to close each deal.
New to CRM is sales coaching. Coaching helps the salesperson make the sale either internally with product knowledge or externally with sales answers by means of online coaching when you demand it.
If I am a salesperson using CRM, I want to have access to better questions, a way to follow-up, pathways to decision makers and strategies to close my sales as I progress through each sales cycle.
Monitoring a sales cycle is one thing—that is what databases are designed to do—but assisting salespeople with each step in the sales cycle is the future of CRM.
With the domination of e-mail communication to single and multiple customers, PDF proposals and Web site click throughs, a new dynamic has emerged in CRM: Monitoring activity of sent e-mail and tracking who opens the e-mail and when.
The tragic flaw in CRM is that salespeople avoid entering sales data, even though it could help them, because it takes time.
One of the reasons online coaching is so powerful is that the salesperson can use the program to get sales answers and thus is more likely to enter sales data along the way.
Salesforce.com, was the first to offer sales materials with their program. They were also the first to offer a lower cost online solution for the small- to medium-sized business.
The larger players, saleslogix and Siebel, offer robust software for large installations but are slower to update and innovate.
Goldmine is in more direct competition to salesforce.com, and smaller companies can use lighter versions or go to a predecessor of saleslogix, ACT!
While Outlook can perform many of the database functions of a CRM, it lacks the bells and whistles. Also, every major CRM is Outlook compatible.
I was test-driving the new Dovarri, and in addition to being well-designed, I found an entire suite of e-mail, Web and eZine tools. Not only can you send e-mail, but you can also get alerts that let you know when the customer opens them.
Dovarri also seems to be ahead of the curve in coaching. The others all have a resource library, but Dovarri has it tied to a specific sales function or place in the sales cycle.
Me? I look for what I need and the user-friendliness of the application.
Me? I look for what I use every day and how efficient it is.
You? Do the same as I do. Figure out what is best for you.
But do something. If you do not have a CRM application, get one.
If you don’t, you will find yourself at a technological and informational disadvantage. And in sales, that is no place to be.
Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible and The Little Red Book of Selling, is the president of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer. E-mail him at salesman@gitomer.com.
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