All Sales Professionals have dealt with the connectivity concept continually over the last decade or so. Whatever your company bought you last month has been superseded already.
To be really prepared and stay electronically tethered to every aspect of your sales process, you could show up lugging four or more electronic devices enabling you to be totally connected and available to anyone in the world at all times. You would have your beeper on your belt, your cell phone in your coat pocket, your PDA or smart phone in another pocket and carry your laptop in your black leather backpack to use in airports to document the meetings, and complete your expense report. You would then sync that info with your PDA and may even be carrying your digital projector to display those dazzling PowerPoint presentations you've put together.
Would you believe the true digital sales jockey in 2011 would say that you’re officially old school now? If you said “Hey, I’m finally connected to everything possible!”, then keep reading.
In case you've been living in a cave for the past few years, you probably don't know all about CRM and its relationship to Contact Management Software. A fresh, web-enabled smart phone no bigger than your old PDA, with applications for sales can access all of this from anywhere in the world. It’s here now, and getting more powerful each week.
Writing in How Stuff Works, Leanne Obringer states that “Basically, contact management software was the foundation for what is now Customer Relationship Management, or CRM. There are many software packages available to choose from that are either simply the contact manager portion, or the full-blown CRM version. You can also find programs that are Web-based to enable you to access your information from anywhere at any time.
Regardless of which level your company uses, having some form of contact management software is necessary.” She continues; “CRM is a strategy, process and technology that lets your company make the most of every sale by optimizing revenue and getting a better understanding of the customer's needs. The CRM universe rolls together sales, marketing, and customer service into a single software-driven technology. In other words, it includes the areas of your company that affect the relationships with your customers. Every interaction with a customer is recorded in this single system. That information is then used to manage, measure and track the processes of marketing, sales and customer service as they relate to that customer. Overall, it builds greater customer loyalty and a better customer experience.
“No more will the Sales department blame Marketing for not communicating with them. No more will Customer Service blame Sales for disgruntled customers. No more will Marketing blame everyone else for not implementing their business solutions.” Well, probably not, anyway.
CRM is definitely the way of the future. Companies that don't implement some form of CRM may have a hard time keeping their customers as happy as their competitors who have a CRM system do. Put down three or four of those devices and get into the CRM world. Your best competitors already have!
You can do this!
By K.B. Elliott
K. B. Elliott is a freelance writer for Salesheads.com. Working both sides of sales desks in the Detroit area for over 30 years gives him a unique perspective on the process. To read more of his blogs, please go to Salesheadsblog.com, and be sure to check out the postings for jobs in nearly any industry at Nexxt.
Become a member to take advantage of more features, like commenting and voting.
Register or sign in today!