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Three Ways To Guide Your Business Through A Tumultuous Economy

 

Today’s economy, to say the least, is a mess. With the effects of the pandemic still in our midst, we are also facing inflation and skyrocketing interest rates. Consumer spending is becoming more conscious and businesses are fighting for these sales. Forbes council member Gadi Shamia shares an interesting article explaining that despite all of these hurdles, there is still hope for businesses to grow. Below are three steps that Shamia encourages every entrepreneur to take today to get through all of this economic uncertainty intact and position themselves to grow.

 

  1. Double down on customer service. With the way customers rely on online research and shopping – now more than ever thanks to the pandemic – it is imperative to focus on customer service and retention. Shamia explains, “The most important thing to remember right now is that your customers are everything. Retention should be top of mind at any time, but it matters more than ever when the economy is in such a state of flux. This means you can’t afford to make cuts to customer initiatives or other programs that support and serve your buyers right now. If anything, it’s time to invest more into keeping your customers happy, which starts with strong customer service.”
  2. Focus on making strategic changes. Today’s economy tests the resilience and adaptability of a business to stay open. Shamia suggests to focus and prioritize strategic changes to your business model. “As you consider the changes you need to make in your business, start by zeroing in on efficiency. While you might be open to pursuing new marketing methods or investing in a new product during times of abundance, become more efficient by dedicating your efforts and resources to what’s been proven to work. Specifically, what impacts your pipeline and revenue the most? You may need to pare down on tangential marketing tactics that increase brand awareness, for example, and reallocate that into sales drivers.”
  3. Explore how technology can help. Now more than ever we rely on the digital world for our every day needs. Businesses who aren’t online in this economy are missing out. “Another consideration is to invest in a go-to-market platform in order to become more efficient and get richer data that helps you make more informed decisions. In addition, your marketing technology may also be overdue for an upgrade. Choosing the right software can mean having myriad options for automating many aspects of your business that do not require human oversight, therefore saving time and money while allowing your team members to stay focused on their true areas of expertise.”

 

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10 Best Practices in Recruitment CRM

An integral part of ensuring business success these days is making sure your company has a recruitment customer relationship management (CRM) in place. Customer satisfaction more than ever is the key competitive advantage. Happy customers establish brand loyalty and retention, bringing more profit and brand awareness. CRM expert Paige Reeve shares an article on Business 2 Community explaining with recruitment CRM, you can provide value to your target market by always keeping them engaged and informed throughout the whole sales funnel. This builds trust and credibility which leads to more projects and more clients. Reeve says using CRM may be simple, but it’s important to keep in mind these 10 best practices to fully maximize your software.

  1. Set your goals and objectives
  2. Get all the customer details right and complete
  3. Make sure everything is cloud-based
  4. Update and monitor progress daily
  5. Automate tasks as much as possible
  6. Keep communication transparent and consistent
  7. Learn from analytics
  8. Watch out for trends
  9. Train staff
  10. Invest in a scalable recruitment CRM

Reeve concludes that you have to consider the growth of your business and the direction you want to take it. Your recruitment CRM must have the necessary features and capacity to adjust accordingly and propel company growth in the foreseeable future.

 

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How to Choose the Best CRM for Your Business Needs

Back then, customer relationship management (CRM) was used to track sales. Not much of this software was actually used to track customer relationships. Today, CRM has grown to fit into its name. It is a tool to assist your business to build stronger customer relationships.  “Smart business leaders know that relationships are the business, and CRM software is the tool that allows you to manage, measure, and grow those relationships at scale.” So, how do you pick the right CRM software for your business? While there are many to choose from, it’s important to choose the one that best fits your needs. Sarah Olsen at Business2Community shares advice on how to choose a CRM. The following are a few factors to consider:

  1. Your customer experience – “Customers are going to come to you from many different channels so you want to have a CRM that is ready and able to handle customer interactions wherever they show up.”
  2. Your pain points – “What are the pain points or roadblocks that keep you from providing the best experience for your customers? These are the problems you should be trying to solve when choosing a CRM platform.”
  3. Your existing software – “Your CRM solution needs to be flexible enough that it can be integrated with your existing platforms.”
  4. Your long-term vision – “When choosing a CRM, you should look for a solution that’s scalable over time.”
  5. Your workflow – “CRM software can be a powerful workflow engine, surfacing the right customer information at the right time to the right person.”
  6. Your CRM implementation – “When looking for a cloud-based CRM, you need to evaluate both the product and the implementation process. While on-premise CRM software is an option, it tends to have steeper costs in terms of implementation and ongoing maintenance.”

 

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5 ways CRM helps the small retailer

Small business owners understand the importance of serving their customers. Small to mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) should look to customer relationship (CRM) systems to aid in their business dealings and customer relations. According to RetailCustomerExperience.com, a CRM can help your business better understand the needs and concerns and be more precise and deliberate in nurturing those relationships. Take retail, for example. With a CRM system in place, retaining purchase histories, tailoring a marketing strategy to a customer’s interests and retaining valuable information about a client’s wants and needs can all be done under one program. There are powerful features that can give your SME the competitive advantage and continue to grow. Here are 5 ways to use CRM systems:

  1. Improve customer service – One way to improve customer service this is through a CRM helpdesk ticketing system, which allows internal teams to prioritize customers where managers can assign accounts to team members.
  2. Track team efficiency – Most CRM solutions have an integrated field service management feature, which enables you to know what customers your sales representatives have visited with real-time tracking and check-ins.
  3. Manage inventory – SMEs that have inventory needs but lack internal resources can utilize a CRM to manage purchase orders, customer product orders, and even monitor all inventory in multiple warehouses.
  4. Make better decisions – SMEs, just like any other business, have many factors that impact the overall company performance and a business dashboard developed in a CRM presents these factors in easily understood data visualizations.
  5. See the whole company picture – Few CRMs available today also include Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software built into the solution. ERP is a powerful CRM addition that integrates all departments and functions across a business into a single system, while still serving each departments’ specific needs.

With proper implementation and guidance, CRMs can be the secret weapon your SME needs to stay competitive.

 

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How to Find the Best CRM for Your Franchise

Entrepreneur.com’s latest article by Hayden Field shares a few tips on finding the right customer relationship management (CRM) system that will keep you and your customers satisfied.

Prioritize Ease of Use — for Yourself and Customers.  While it seems like every new company these days is in the technology sector, it doesn’t matter if you’re a franchise, a small business, or a nonprofit – customers still expect good service. a CRM will grant you access to customer information that will help your relationships. In her article, Field suggests, “In today’s world, it’s all about ‘smarketing’ — salespeople market, and marketers sell, so if your CRM isn’t easily integrated with your marketing packet, it can get a little gnarly. Two features to ask about [if your company is in sales]: lead intelligence and lead notifications.”

What to Ask About. When committing to a CRM software, consider the following:

    • Time-cost savings – Calculate how much time a product is saving compared to its cost.
    • Communication – Although technology makes our work easier, it still comes with problems. Customer support and service representatives are important considerations tied to CRM programs.
    • Test-drive – Ask for a 30 or 60 day trial to test the software. This will help greatly in your decision-making.

Unexpected Success. A CRM’s data analysis tools can help a firm reevaluate budget dollars being used on customer acquisition versus retention, and increase efficiency up to 50 percent.

 

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7 CRM Trends That Will Dominate 2019

Before the rising popularity of the internet, products and services were market centered. Then came the internet, and it was a game changer. In the early 2000s, the customer became more educated and aware of things that the demand for better value for the price was key. The internet introduced quicker competitor comparison, increasing customer choices. This trend has continued to evolve to today’s society, which is the era of relationships. Businesses listen to customers and try to meet their needs. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has played an indispensable role in helping businesses achieve optimal relationships. CRM works on two frameworks – operational, which concerns the automation of business processes to build long-term, profitable relationships with specific customers, and analytical,  which focuses on analyzing customer characteristics and behavior to decide how to allocate resources to the most profitable customer group. Both these frameworks will get a boost in the coming years. These frameworks will encourage the following CRM trends that will dominate 2019.

  1. Data Mining Will Gain Prominence
  2. Social CRM Will Boost Relationships
  3. Companies Will Go Beyond Expectations
  4. Response Times Will Come Down
  5. CRM Adoption Will Increase
  6. CRM Will Become Easier to Use
  7. Cloud Will Stay a Popular Platform

It’s 2019 and customers have more power to shift the market and trends. They are calling the shots about which products and services that the marketplace should offer. And businesses are adjusting their business models to keep up, all thanks to CRM. For the businesses who embrace this software, they will gain better relationships with their customers in years to come.

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Catering to Millennials by Improving Those Outdated CRM Models

Millennials have good judgment when it comes to evaluating emerging technologies. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) across major industries are working to change their ways to reach the millennial generation better as they are the majority consumer market. Millennials grew up in the age of digitization, apps, and a high-speed work style. Balancing this fast paced life with a targeted CRM approach requires appealing to their productivity, convenience, and time-saving necessities.  A key target of improving CRM for millennials is to have a user friendly interface. Travel applications, such as Airbnb, focus on removing much of the tediousness associated with booking hotels, and focused on a simple, straightforward and convenient interface, thus the company being valued at $31 billion thanks to the acceptance of millennials. CRM has become a core component for brand building, and CRM and marketing that has transitioned to platforms primarily dominated by millennials has become greatly in demand. Balancing the pros and cons of catering to a generation of millennials brings many challenges and innovations. Improved CRM and user experiences will assuredly evolve towards more convenience and better customer services, but evaluating the cost of doing so needs to remain relevant.

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How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing ERP

Since Artificial Intelligence (AI) was introduced more than 60 years ago, it’s become more utilized in today’s business efficiency and productivity. AI can be applied through inventory control, logistics, and personal assistance to name a few. Here are just a few departments in an organization that AI is changing a company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP).

  1. Warehouse Management
  2. Financial Management
  3. Customer Service
  4. Human Resources
  5. Sales Automation

There are great benefits in applying AI to ERP systems, though with still some risks to overcome. Additonally, the infrastructure behind AI is always evolving to meet the conditions of today’s technological and competitive business world. But there is no doubt AI and ERP integration will continue to work together to increase business efficiency.

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Six CRM best practices for sales managers

Chris Peterson, President of Vector Firm, stated that “if there is one thing all sales people can agree upon, it’s that most companies have a poor Customer Relationship Management (CRM) process.” The root of this problem can be fixed by the sales managers. While helping security companies improve their sales and digital marketing performance, Peterson has shared some best practices to help companies fully utilize a CRM system.

  1. Don’t expect a CRM system to solve your sales problems
  2. Become the champion user
  3. Remember what CRM stands for
  4. Commit 100 percent or 0 percent to integration
  5. Get in the field
  6. Use the CRM system to facilitate personal discussions

CRM, when used right, will see an increase in both sales and customer satisfaction.

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Driving enterprise growth with AI-enabled ERP systems

Today’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) has gone beyond its scope of simple smart phone usage into the innovative enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology. AI gas optimized system operating models and transformed business processes across the digital world. With past technological and financial woes with this technology, AI is being incorporated into ERP software, and IT companies are studying AI-ERP integration closely. AI enabled ERP software can streamline routine tasks, reduce operating expenses, and eliminate human errors. Additonally, AI-enabled ERP systems free employees from routine and often time consuming or mundane customer interactions, acting as a digital assistant (DA) their customers, using information gathered from their database to provide personal customer experiences. With AI’s data mining and self-learning capabilities paired with ERP automation, this union can bring incredible growth to any enterprise.

 

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