CRM 100 Success Secrets - 100 Most Asked Questions on Customer Relationship Management Software, Solutions, Systems, Applications and Services. Gerard Blokdijk

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СКАЧАТЬ preferred CRM application because it does not jive with some parts of your business. This is the hard part of choosing pre-designed CRM applications and it is caused by the fact that the CRM application developer did not have your own business in mind when the product was being developed.

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      Because of this, all you can really hope for from an out-ofthe-box CRM application is to make sure that you can apply it to most parts of your business, and that it can be flexible enough to be customized for those parts that the developer did not think would need to be part of his original product.

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      Analyzing the Intense Competition

      among CRM Companies Today

      To sum up a complicated situation like the state of the CRM

      Development Industry, it can be safely said that the market for proprietary CRM solutions has already been saturated. If your organization is thinking about competing in the proprietary CRM

      solutions arena, then you ought to think twice because you will get creamed by the cream of the crop. It is a far more prudent strategy to go the open source route to introduce your CRM application to the market instead.

      Why make an open source CRM product? Open source, for

      those who do not know, is software that is created using an opensource license (but that does not automatically mean that the open source CRM software is a free software product.) The point behind making an open source CRM product is so that the product can be evaluated by more people and feedback can be returned to the developer so that the product can be continuously refined and upgraded to the point that a superlative CRM product can be made.

      It should also result in a less expensive (though not totally free) product that prevents consumers from being confined only to the pricey proprietary CRM products available on the market today.

      If you pursue the open source route to developing your

      product, you need to get the appropriate opensource license to be able to ethically market your CRM application as such. Otherwise, you risk confusing consumers everywhere about what kind of CRM

      software application you came up with in reality.

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      Using CRM Comparison Results to

      Make Better CRM Products

      Any CRM comparison research will show that there are some CRM product developers who are running ahead of the pack, in terms of the quality of their products, how they introduce these products into the market and how well-received the CRM products are. Generally, CRM applications may either be open source applications or proprietary CRM applications. The difference between

      the two types is that the open source ones allow the user to gain access to the source code to amend it, while a proprietary product has a source code that only people authorized by the company that owns the code will be able to amend.

      To succeed in the CRM product acceptance by consumers

      aspect, the product has to be user-friendly (meaning, your average non-techie user can find his way around the features of the product with relative ease), allows for integration into the existing system of the user, and permits customization for the system of the user when needed.

      One company that has been relatively successful in the CRM

      field is Microsoft and they succeeded because they offer the consumers intelligent choices. For instance, you can get to choose the style of payment, which user interface will go with your product, and if the CRM product is to be a hosted product using the Internet as a platform or an on-the-premises type of product. Microsoft also seems to understand that CRM products may differ as to how they are treated.

      One last factor may affect the creation of different CRM

      products in the near future and that is the spate of mergers and acquisitions in the CRM industry. If the wave of acquisitions in

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      crease, the types of new CRM products we can see out there will probably change too as the business philosophies of each company are to be meshed, mixed and matched.

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      Certain Things Any Credible CRM

      Consultant Should Know

      Before you hire the first CRM consultant recommended to

      you, you ought to bear in mind certain aspects of the CRM products and the industry itself that will affect (or should affect) your choice of CRM systems to avail of.

      First of all, CRM product applications should not be perceived as a business cure-all or magic bullet that will raise sales figures to the level that your organization becomes the leader of the pack. By definition, a CRM application is a software program that is used to manage contacts, prospects and current customers so that the people in your sales team and organization can handle the same information but for specific needs by users.

      Your ideal CRM application should have features categorized as, respectively, contact management, automation of marketing management, automation of sales force management, and lastly, service management. It might also have other features added into it like, e-commerce, knowledge management, business intelligence, help desk and call center functions.

      With this in mind, you should realize that CRM application use does not translate automatically to better operational or business performance. When implemented the wrong way or for the

      wrong reasons, CRM can even hamper business or operational performance.

      Some vendors now offer CRM packages that are tied up to or integrated with enterprise-wide solutions. This helps tie together the front-line work of sales teams with back-office functions that

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      should really be able to work together to assure that the entire enterprise will function cohesively.

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      What Results a CRM Consulting Session

      Should Produce for Your Organization

      CRM consulting should be considered a process of change

      for your organization rather than just a simple shopping trip for buying the next great CRM solution that might work for your organization. CRM consulting is a process because there are different stages your organization has to undergo while under the guidance of a reputable CRM consultant.

      First you need to identify why you are looking for CRM solutions in the first place. This means being able to understand what you are planning to use CRM solutions for, what constitutes a perfect or ideal CRM application for someone in your situation, how you believe the CRM solution can increase your revenues as well as profits and how it really can do those things for you, and how to determine instances of customer loyalty and how these can be produced at will through deployment of the right CRM solution.

      You should also take advantage of a good CRM consulting

      session СКАЧАТЬ