Barbequing in Western Michigan and Customer Relationship Management

This weekend my wife and I were invited to a barbeque at a friend’s house in West Michigan. We were treated to some great steaks, string bean casserole, and baked potatoes. We brought wine and dessert. We spoke of life in West Michigan and how it compares to Long Island. One of our friends is a transplant like us so we had a lot of stories to share. We also spoke of the differences in conducting business between the East Coast and West Michigan. There are many differences, but common to both is the necessity of managing customer relationships since as the saying goes “The Customer is King”.

In today’s tight economy, each enterprise must optimize its IT investment. Perhaps one of the most valuable investments is CRM as it enables the enterprise to maintain comprehensive control of customer data. With the advent of cloud computing, the investment may be significantly reduced, given that the majority of the costs can be expensed.

Many people still believe that Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM) are applications which manage leads and basic customer information. This may have been the case 10 years ago but today CRM Systems manage the complete customer relationship. Customer data is integral to any enterprise and must be treated as a corporate asset. CRM Systems today can provide:

• Management of the customer contact information, beginning with the management of leads through the life cycle of the customer’s relationship with the organization. Customer information may be provided by customer service representatives, customer’s portals and business partner’s portals. Leads may come through customer service, linked from the organization’s own web site or other sources through the Internet.
  


• Work Flow Management to ensure that all resources (personnel and computer) involved in supporting the customer are in the loop and nothing is lost. This may even include interfacing with the existing ERP systems.
  


• Pipeline Management which enables the sales team and management to have a realistic view of sales. This information, when linked to the ERP system, allows the Supply Chain to better optimize its manufacturing and distribution plans and schedules.
  Forecasting which utilizes historical data, outstanding orders as well as estimates from the sales force and marketing departments.
  


• Dashboards which display sales and marketing metrics along organizational structures (intermixing corporate hierarchy and product line management).
  


• Marketing Campaign Management which enables the marketing department to have the ability to design and track campaigns. Utilizing tools provided in the CRM package, it can disseminate and maintain control of marketing material.
  


• Call Center Management which allows the customer or inside customer service staff the ability to track the life cycle of support issues. Call Center Management may include a customer portal, knowledge database, and technical personnel assignment/tracking. It can also automate billing and warranty tracking.
  

In order to effectively select the best CRM solution, implement it into production, customize it to best support the business and ultimately interface it with the business systems, an experienced CRM consultant is required. Mark Shurr, Vice President and Principal Consultant at Ada Business Technology, has over 15 years of experience in CRM system implementation and integration. Please contact Mark at (616) 805-7402 or on his mobile phone at (631) 742.5178. Email Mark at mshurr@AdaBusTech.com and visit his web site at http://www.adabustech.com/.