CRM: Do you know your Customers?

• The typical business loses 1/2 of its customers within 5 year
• It costs 7 to 10 times more to gain a new customer than to retain one
• 5% increase in retention can result in a 25% to 75% increase in profits

In this report, we team up with leading CRM solution providers Front Range to dispel the myths about CRM and expose the important realities.  As usual, we have developed this report with all size organizations in mind...as you'll see from the next surprising statistic

Do You Know Your Customers?

• 90% or more of dissatisfied customers will not buy again
• Each dissatisfied customer will tell their story to nine other people
• 96% of dissatisfied customers don’t tell their story to you

Source: Fredrich Reichheld, The Loyalty Effect

Benefits of CRM

• Increase your customer base
• Identify and retain your most profitable customers
• Increase your market share
• Take a pro-active “customer view” rather than a “product view”
• Build loyalty through intimate customer relationships

The Benefits Are Clear…

• Companies that successfully implement CRM programs report:
• Sales increases of 51% per representative
• Customer satisfaction rating improvements of 20%
• Cost of sales and services decreases of 21%
• Reductions in the length of the sales cycle of as much as one-third

(Insight Technology Group)

Myths and Realities

Myth: Customers Have Always Been Equally Demanding

Reality: Customers are more demanding than they used to be.

1-    Knowledge is power and customers have access to most of the knowledge you have

2-    If you don’t fulfill their needs, the competition is just one click away

3-    Customers demand choices in the way they communicate with you:

• Telephone requests declined from 79% to 70% from 1997 to 1999 (according to HDI)
• Email requests grew from 8 to 15% in same period (HDI)

Myth: Good Enough Service is Good Enough

Reality: Customers want the best, expect the worst and leave faster than they used to:

• Poor service creates a memorable encounter of the “unpleasant kind” (Joseph Pine)
• Average service will keep the customer only until he or she finds a better price
• You can’t be the best at providing low prices, high quality and outstanding service – decide which one or two of these you will focus on, but not all three
  

Myth: A Good Support System Will Solve Your Problems

Reality: Poor processes will still be poor when you automate them

• Automated systems have not led to an increase in customer satisfaction
• 80 percent of CRM system buyers use only 20 percent of their product’s functionality
• Technology can’t hide your weaknesses; it can only expose them to your customers faster
• All successful support centres are based on best practices in human interactions

Myth: Technology is the Biggest Hurdle in Establishing Great Support

Reality: Biggest hurdle will be finding good people to staff your support centre

• Labour is biggest component of support centre budgets
• Competition for better-than-average people will increase
• Your technology will be a factor in whether quality people will work for you
• Call centre agents need to be trained to juggle many tasks and technologies simultaneously:
• Managing Web chat and collaboration programs
• Updating databases
• Managing call queues
• Interfacing with CRM systems

Myth:The Internet is the Answer