If your organization has to schedule resources of any kind—people, equipment, vehicles, buildings, and so forth—it’s a daily chore of your service manager to make sure these limited resources are used to best effect and that customer needs are met promptly. When this dispatching function is performed on paper by multiple people, mistakes that hurt customer service are virtually unavoidable.

Your service manager’s CRM priority: Centralized, intelligent scheduling
The service manager is focused on quickly and cost-effectively delivering services to customers and wants a system that can:

• Show at a glance the availability of every service resource companywide.
• Allow centralized service scheduling.
• Give multiple people access to the scheduling resource from any location.
• Intelligently apply your business rules to service scheduling (for example, “Bob and Sally are our only Xwidget experts”).
• Monitor the use of resources.
• Generate a history of which customers have received which services at which times.
• Automatically record service requests (both open and closed) associated with specific customer records.
   

Questions for your service manager

• Who schedules service appointments today?
• How is it done? How do you wish it could be done?
• How does your scheduler know which resources can deliver a service and when they are available?
• Are the dispatchers a bottleneck in scheduling service for customers?
• What are your most common customer complaints relating to service scheduling?
• What kind of reporting do you need on your service team and on the services you’re delivering?
   

Conclusion

Scheduling services promptly and following through with excellent service when promised can go a long way toward enhancing customer relationships. A CRM solution with built-in service scheduling capabilities that work the way your business works can improve customer service and lower your service costs.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

To effectively design compelling marketing campaigns that present new products and services to customers and new prospects, your marketing manager needs powerful, easy-to-use tools with which to analyze your customer and lead base. He or she then needs a way to quickly and easily pull together targeted lists, launch campaigns, track results, perform follow-up, and pass responses to the most suitable sales people.

Your marketing manager’s CRM priority: Increasing awareness

The marketing manager wants easier, less expensive ways to help your company sell the right products and services to the right people at the right time. To do this, he or she needs to:

• Know which products and services your customers are using and your leads are pursuing.
• Easily segment customers and leads.
• Quickly create new lead lists.
• Send personalized e-mail messages to groups of leads or customers.
• Track which customers have been targeted with past marketing campaigns.
• Quantify new sales associated with various lead sources and marketing activities.
• Monitor the progress, cost, and success of marketing campaigns.
   

Questions for your marketing manager

• How do you manage lead lists today? How would you like to manage them?
• How much work is involved in identifying target customers and prospects for marketing campaigns?
• How do you track marketing campaigns?
• How do you judge whether a marketing campaign has been successful?
• Do you know how much revenue a campaign generates?
• How do you compare the success of multiple campaigns?
• How are new leads distributed to sales?
   

Conclusion

Your marketing staff has probably been underserved by sales automation or CRM solutions you may be using now. A CRM solution with built-in marketing capabilities can dramatically enhance your marketing staff’s ability to reach leads promptly with compelling messages—and up-sell existing customers through new offers.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

When evaluating the technical implications of CRM deployment, remember that CRM is foremost a technology that can help propel your business, instead of a tool that dictates your business processes. Discuss with your IT manager the business value of CRM, and get vital input on the technical corollaries of CRM implementation. The IT manager is your partner in ensuring that your CRM solution is up and running so it can support the business strategy as you planned.

Talking tactics: Your IT manager’s concerns about CRM

The IT manager keeps your organization’s information technologies running smoothly 24/7, and considers the following when evaluating new systems:

• Wants technology that involve minimal interruption in your employees’ work
• Looks for systems that are easy to set up and maintain while offering high availability and performance
• Avoids deploying untried technology
• Seeks scalable solutions that easily grow with the business
• Wants technology that is highly secure and easy to restore after an adverse event
• Looks for new solutions that take full advantage of existing IT resources as well as other company investments
• Wants new technology that synchronizes and integrates well other applications, data sources, and systems.

Questions for the IT manager

Your IT manager can detail the essential technical considerations of a CRM implementation:

• What proof do we have that the CRM system will enhance infrastructure?
• What kind of deployment downtime can be expected?
• How can a CRM system keep IT aligned with business goals?
• What kinds of facts and referrals can assure product benefits and quality?
• What are our data backup policies, and how do we ensure CRM data is protected?
• What type of technical support is need after implementing CRM?

Conclusion

Your IT manager supports business goals by keeping the enterprise running, and by implementing tools that allow the company to pursue new opportunities and protect customer relationships. This guide will help you get the IT perspective on CRM so you can make a technology investment that will reinforce your competitive edge.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

To ensure that sales representatives meet their objectives, your sales manager continually needs information from them about leads and active prospects. Here’s how you can work with your sales manager to find out how CRM can best support sales goals.

Your sales manager’s CRM priority: pursuing revenue

The sales manager is focused on moving your product and targets the following CRM evaluation issues:

• Supporting sales staff’s efforts to secure business
• Avoiding the disruption of a complete systems replacement
• Obtaining personalized vendor support for new systems
• Providing the data necessary to support sales goals
• Integrating new solutions with existing data systems
• Tracking leads with minimal data entry and paperwork
• Helping sales force accept and adopt new CRM processes

Questions for your sales manager

Get the details you need on how CRM can support revenue-generating activities:

• What kinds of sales history and forecasting data are now available?
• What kinds of new CRM tools would help the team sell?
• How much training do you foresee your team needing?
• How are we currently tracking the competition?

Conclusion

The sales manager is your best ally for initiating a CRM project. Champion the CRM selection process with sales input to gain compliance when the sales division uses the new tools. Investing in the right CRM solution supports your sales team’s best practices, resulting in the optimal outcome: closing more deals.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Successful Accounting Partnerships

Trusting your accounting processes and information to an ‘outsider’ is a big step for any small and medium sized business owner.  After all, the ability to track inventory, place orders, send out bills, and collect and managing cash is core to every business and something that every business owner should take very seriously.

But, you’re at the point where your ‘in-house’ accounting option – be it spreadsheets, QuickBooks, or other – just isn’t meeting the needs of the business any more.  You’re exploring options and some of those options include subscribing to accounting software.  How do you make sure you don’t get ‘stung’ by your accounting software partner?  Here are eleven things to look out for as you narrow the choices and make your decision:

1. Know your requirements:  undertaking an evaluation of accounting solutions and potential partners can’t be done casually.  At least have a good grasp of your high-level requirements for tracking and managing your business, customers, and cash.

2. Experience:  determine what types of projects the potential partner has done in the past. Have they done any accounting projects that are similar to your business; and, who from their team will be working with you?

3. Solution options:  seek out those potential partners that have multiple solutions available for evaluation.  Your business has some unique characteristics that may not ‘fit’ into a single solution.  Also, look for solutions that are configurable, open to changes, and have migration tools for ease of setup and transition.

4. References:  require that any potential partner provide references for their solutions, their company, and their people.  Make sure that you’re able to determine the ‘good, bad, and ugly’ before you make a decision.  Remember, whoever you end up choosing, you’ll be partners for some time to come.

5. Partner characteristics:  get the company details.  Length of time in business, office locations, employees, employee experience, number of customers, industries served, best successes and worst failures.

6. Delivery successes:  determine the processes that the potential partner uses to increase success rates.  Find out how often the potential partner has been successful.  Don’t use the potential partner’s success criteria;  judge success by the customer’s criteria.  Become confident that if the partner undertakes your project, they will be able to deliver — on-time and on-budget.

7. Automated tools:  does the potential partner have automated tools that will smooth out, speed up, or lower the cost of your transition and implementation?  Or, is most of the work going to be done by people?  What are the limits of their tools and what is their overall plan to fill in the gaps to successful project completion.

8. Hidden costs:  find out up front what the potential ‘hidden costs’ of the solution are. Are they in the assessment, configuration, implementation, testing, roll-out, support, additional licenses, or other items?  Strive for a ‘no surprises’ environment when understanding the cost of the solution, before, during, and after the implementation.

9. Business impact:  every time a business adopts new technology or undertakes a new project there is an impact on the business.  Ideally, the impact is minimal.  Find out from the potential partner what they expect from you and your people through the process.  Determine the time, information, and technology impact to your business ahead of time and calculate the financial cost.  Remember that the cost of the accounting solution is only one part of the cost.  A disruption in your business is also a cost to be considered.

10. Risk mitigation:  every project has risks.  Ask the potential partner their process for mitigating risks such as project slippage, cost escalation, and data loss.  Make sure they have your success at the heart of the project.

11. Partnership/communication:  Remember that the potential partner is in full ‘sales mode’ at the beginning.  Once they have your business, make sure they continue to value you as a customer.  Understand their communication methods, vehicles, problem escalation path options, who you will be dealing with, and how you can remain a priority to them.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Texas

Today competitive advantage increasingly depends on how organizations manage their customer relationships—and not simply on how well they design and build their products. Companies must implement strategies that enable them to be more customer-centric in a world where customer expectations will continue to escalate.

This guide can help you to plan discussions with your customer service manager to make informed decisions about how you can implement business processes to meet customer expectations.

Your customer service manager’s CRM priority: customer care

The customer service manager, who is responsible for cultivating advantageous customer relationships, considers the following when evaluating new systems:

• Providing the customer service team with tools for making informed decisions
• Creating cross selling and up selling opportunities
• Keeping customer care at the center of business
• Integrating new solutions with existing data systems
• Measuring service performance

Questions for the customer service manager

Your customer service manager has know-how for maintaining service efficiency and customer satisfaction:

1) What are the current barriers to good customer service that CRM technology might alleviate?

2) How much training do you foresee your team needing, and what suggestions can you make for accommodating training?

3) What does current survey data on customer satisfaction imply about our need for new tools?

4) What information do service representatives have difficulty or delays in accessing?

5) What is the company organized around? Customers, product, or service?

6) How can we make doing business with us easier for our customers?

Conclusion – How to Choose The Right CRM Software

Your customer service manager knows that customers are at the center of your CRM selection process and that technology solutions should accommodate customer service instead of customer service bending to fit the technology. The talking points in this article can help you get the information you need to keep your CRM decisions service-focused. The right CRM solution doesn’t just make your life easier—it helps you succeed because it simplifies doing business with you.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

To ensure that finance meets its objectives, your CFO needs information about issues like total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI). Here’s how you can talk to your CFO and get the information you need to make fiscally sound decisions.

In the rush for revenue, businesses often forget the customer.  The focus is on the invoice or transaction and the time it takes, instead of the relationship and ‘lifetime’ opportunity of a particular customer.  Such behavior can lead to poor business predictability, lowered customer loyalty and satisfaction, and (ultimately) lowered profitability. 

Businesses of all sizes, especially SMBs, can benefit from keeping track of their customers.  Doing so leads to greater profits for the business.  Traditionally there are three ways that this is done, each fraught with its own perils:  1. Salespeople keeping track in their heads or on spreadsheets,  2. Accounting keeping track by invoice, or 3. Internal ‘contact management’ software serving as a central clearing house for prospect/customer contact information.

A fourth way to keep track of your customers, for profit, is through the adoption of customer relationship management solutions and procedures.  Below are eleven ways CRM will benefit your business – bringing additional profit opportunities:

1. Faster, Fact-based Decision Making:  Because you will have your customer financial data at your fingertips, you can quickly adjust your offer(s), pricing, terms, and quickly assess any impacts.  You will be more responsive to market conditions.
2. Knowing Where to Invest:  By understanding your customer’s purchases and your costs, you can automatically identify the profitable customers for further investment.  At the same time, you can identify customers that actually cost you money, taking appropriate actions to mitigate loss.
3. Predicting Business:  By understanding customer purchasing habits and any associated cyclicality, you will be able to anticipate demand more accurately – allowing you to manage down your business costs.
4. Driving Up Marketing Impact: Through deep insight into the characteristics of the most profitable customers, you can identify new prospects that share the same characteristics – increasing the probability of sales success while lowering your cost of sales.
5. Regular, Consistent Communication:  Your relationship with your ‘certified proven spenders’ will be improved through automated use of mailing and emailing lists to constantly keep in contact with your customers.  This can lead to deeper and more solid relationships and the closure of incremental business.
6. Automated Invoicing/Billing:  With the ability of your CRM system to integrate to your accounting systems, accurate, timely, and automated billing will drive down your cost of business and drive up collections.
7. Tighter Marketing and Sales Integration:  CRM systems contain capabilities that allow you to track specific marketing/campaign investments to leads, opportunities, and closed deals – allowing you to know what works and doesn’t work – lowering your cost of marketing while increasing revenues.
8. More “Home Runs”:  Through integration of your customer into your product/service planning and/or decision process, you can increase the successful introduction and adoption of new products or services you bring to market – lowering your chance of failure and poor investment.
9. Higher Customer Loyalty/Satisfaction:  Because you will see every customer, their needs, and any unresolved items, you can instantly improve your businesses response rate to your customer – thereby increasing loyalty and satisfaction – leading to new up sell or cross sell opportunities without an expensive sales process.
10. Improved Sales Effectiveness:  Let’s face it.  Salespeople are asked to manage more relationships than they have time for.  CRM helps them work more effectively by managing priorities, follow up responses, opportunities, communication, and territory management.  The direct result is a lowered cost of sales with a greater return on sales investment.
11. Your ‘Institutional Memory’ Continues to Grow: pointing the way to new opportunity. You don’t lose critical customer information when sales or service people turn over, allowing you to speed productivity of new sales or service people without having your customer’s experience skip a beat.

Lastly, businesses that subscribe to an outsourced CRM profit even more!  In Addition to the advantages described above, CRM subscribers don’t have to make any added technology investments in hardware or software, nor do they have to manage the system through additional IT resources.  Subscribers to an outsourced CRM have the best of both worlds – all the benefits without the capital outlay.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner