I read an interesting white paper today by a company called Innoveers solutions and the title of the white paper is “CRM & the Economy” and it can be found here
The article paints an interesting picture and has a positive approach to the current economic downturn. As a positive person I found myself agreeing with the many of the points in the paper. I found it very interesting and encourage you to read it, it’s only seven pages long and won’t take you a minute.
The paper highlights the importance of CRM and by improving the efficency of your CRM systems you can not only increase efficency but more importantly you can focus on retaining the customer base you have already worked so hard to build up.
Improving your CRM systems is not only something you should do in a growing economy but it becomes even more important when the economy is contracting because in many ways this is the time you need to be operating at your most cost effective and where benefits will seem even greater.
The idea of increasing the effectiveness of your marketing and improving your current customer service is vitally important when money is at a premium.
It reminds me of a Zig Ziglar story I heard recently when he mentions a salesman was trying to sell to someone who had just crashed his car, burnt down half of his house in a fire and other misfortunes. The man was trying to sell him a smoke alarm package for 300 pounds. The fellow said “listen boy I am down about 30000 dollars and I can’t afford to buy from you”. The salesman said “sir, the way I see you have already lost a lot and another 300 dollars won’t make much difference but if you lost what you have left to a fire then you have lost everything, I can’t see how you can’t afford not to buy this smoke alarm”.
The point I am trying to make is, when things are going well people can afford not to buy CRM systems because things are going well but when things are going bad and they need to get into shape and become efficient then they this is the time they really can’t afford not to improve and buy CRM systems.