СRM vs lead-management
It did not happen by chance, there are prerequisites for this, the term “CRM” in Russia is misunderstood and is used to refer to the two most important processes that structure sales. These processes are separated from each other, each of them has its own purpose, its own methodology, its own tools and, therefore, its own term for designation:
Lead-management is a term that defines a sales cycle;
RM - a system of relations with current customers, or rather, with customers (customer).
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“CRM” in Russian is two processes that are confused, spliced together: the process of managing leads (contacts) and the process of working with current clients.
If it were not for the language tradition, there would be no half of the problems. The term CRM is used in Russian (exclusively in the form of an abbreviation) to denote all the processes associated with sales from the search and first contact with the audience who is potentially interested in the product or service to the fulfillment of the terms of the transaction and to stimulate repeat sales.
Lead (lead) - a term usurped by Internet marketers, denoting a potentially interested consumer or his action on a company / brand project. Lida (their number obtained during an advertising campaign) is a metric by which they determine the effectiveness of a campaign on the Internet.
Sometimes the term “lead” is used in sales theory, denoting contact at one of the steps of the sales funnel.
In fact, terminological confusion is a consequence of the lack of a clear business understanding of the tasks that can and should be solved with the help of sales automation.
The solution in the wording: “We need a CRM-system!” - can mean anything. As well as the statement of the developer "We are doing a CRM-system." Experience shows that a business that has made such a decision must first of all automate a more or less long sales cycle. It is important.
If your business is a consumer goods store, where the sales cycle is short , then automation of this kind, namely, the organization of a database of contacts, calls, contact cards, information about the source of customer traffic, the ability to identify the point of contact failure from further interaction, the characteristics of the most convertible contact buyers, a reminder system for sellers, is not at all what is needed.
The business of everyday goods, almost all retail (beauty salons, restaurants), wherever the decision to re-purchase is more important than the first contact and the first purchase - you really need a CRM system. The customer relationship system supports and develops the customer, stimulates the customer with various marketing activities to re-interact, to loyalty, to analyze the customer's experience with the product / service, allowing to remember and understand the entire communication history of the customer and business, work with reclamations and ultimately personalize the offer.
A business with a short sales cycle , most often a large retailer whose success is not determined only by a good territorial location, expectations for CRM systems are much better formalized than those of a business with a long sales cycle.
Companies with a long sales cycle , speaking of CRM, imply something completely different. A business where a customer needs time to make a purchase decision and where a positive supplier decision largely depends on the sales force’s work, it’s not the relationship that needs to be automated but the sales cycle. Such a business, realizing the need to implement CRM, in fact, is in dire need of a lead-management system.
Lead-management is especially relevant for small or medium-sized B2B businesses with a long sales cycle . Or for B2C, where the buyer's expenses are long-term: a house or a ventilation system, expensive insurance or a tour. For the last two examples, however, not only lead-management is important, but also CRM (a set of measures to maintain customer relations for the next year).
About the existence of lead-management, about the term, to determine what many developers of products for the automation of sales under the guise of CRM actually offer - Yandex, for example, knows nothing. This is not a popular request. But American Google is the opposite. In the US, there is a market for lead-management products, the functionality and tools of which differs from the functionality and tools of CRM systems.
Due to the lack of a suitable term for solving specific problems, not only customers can not get to the point, choosing a system that they call CRM. But some manufacturers of platforms that do not have a clear understanding of why their customers need CRM. Developers often try to please everyone and make a strange, complex product either for sales, or to support existing customers, or for everything at once.
A Russian business that studies a lot of proposals, learning about a function previously unknown to it, begins to fantasize and tries to evaluate completely different, but all as one “CRM” products, not as complex as possible for the solution of top-priority tasks to the functional, but by the number of options that seem necessary in perspective, but in fact break, destroy the logic of automation of a long sales cycle.
Everything related to conversion, everything the seller works on before the consumer makes the first purchase is lead-management. RM - the subsequent work with the buyer.
The basis of lead-management is building a sales funnel. The entire lead management is organized around the sales funnel and consists of various activities, tools and tools that increase the conversion of the primary contact into the buyer.
The first block of leadership work is building a database of contacts. Here and the most detailed information about the consumer - who he is, how he found the supplier, the classification of contacts, the history of relationships. The second part is the most precise and responsible work on the pre-sale, at the sales and follow-up stages - subsequent tracking of the contact's actions, regular interaction with him in the decision-making process (refined proposal, mailings, reminders). The third part - analysis of the funnel by type and characteristics of contacts, analysis of the causes of failure, the most convertible stages of the funnel, sales forecast.
All this together is not part of CRM, not part of managing relationships with established customers. Lead-management is an independent process of working with potentially interested consumers, which is necessary for building more efficient sales, for analyzing a business model.
The goals of all lead management are to increase sales by increasing conversion and managing a sales team.
To increase conversion, it is necessary to distribute the attention of the intellectual resource of the seller as accurately as possible, eliminate the emotional concentration of employees on individual, less effective leads, understand which employees sell which product is better, not lose sight of the entire volume of contacts and ensure distributed work with maximum coverage of consumers, potentially interested in purchasing goods / services of the company.
Classification and structuring of leads, a set of tools to accompany and stimulate the movement of contact on the sales funnel - these are the main benefits of automating long sales using a lead-management system.
CRM is the next stage of work, other employees and other processes. If in the process of lead-management a company competes with other suppliers, then CRM is the work on its proposal, “competition” with itself, aimed at supporting loyalty, maintaining and progressing relations with a buyer who has already made a choice in favor of the company.
Lead-management is a term that defines a sales cycle;
RM - a system of relations with current customers, or rather, with customers (customer).
')
“CRM” in Russian is two processes that are confused, spliced together: the process of managing leads (contacts) and the process of working with current clients.
Background
If it were not for the language tradition, there would be no half of the problems. The term CRM is used in Russian (exclusively in the form of an abbreviation) to denote all the processes associated with sales from the search and first contact with the audience who is potentially interested in the product or service to the fulfillment of the terms of the transaction and to stimulate repeat sales.
Lead (lead) - a term usurped by Internet marketers, denoting a potentially interested consumer or his action on a company / brand project. Lida (their number obtained during an advertising campaign) is a metric by which they determine the effectiveness of a campaign on the Internet.
Sometimes the term “lead” is used in sales theory, denoting contact at one of the steps of the sales funnel.
Unformalized demand for CRM-systems
In fact, terminological confusion is a consequence of the lack of a clear business understanding of the tasks that can and should be solved with the help of sales automation.
The solution in the wording: “We need a CRM-system!” - can mean anything. As well as the statement of the developer "We are doing a CRM-system." Experience shows that a business that has made such a decision must first of all automate a more or less long sales cycle. It is important.
If your business is a consumer goods store, where the sales cycle is short , then automation of this kind, namely, the organization of a database of contacts, calls, contact cards, information about the source of customer traffic, the ability to identify the point of contact failure from further interaction, the characteristics of the most convertible contact buyers, a reminder system for sellers, is not at all what is needed.
The business of everyday goods, almost all retail (beauty salons, restaurants), wherever the decision to re-purchase is more important than the first contact and the first purchase - you really need a CRM system. The customer relationship system supports and develops the customer, stimulates the customer with various marketing activities to re-interact, to loyalty, to analyze the customer's experience with the product / service, allowing to remember and understand the entire communication history of the customer and business, work with reclamations and ultimately personalize the offer.
A business with a short sales cycle , most often a large retailer whose success is not determined only by a good territorial location, expectations for CRM systems are much better formalized than those of a business with a long sales cycle.
Companies with a long sales cycle , speaking of CRM, imply something completely different. A business where a customer needs time to make a purchase decision and where a positive supplier decision largely depends on the sales force’s work, it’s not the relationship that needs to be automated but the sales cycle. Such a business, realizing the need to implement CRM, in fact, is in dire need of a lead-management system.
Lead-management is especially relevant for small or medium-sized B2B businesses with a long sales cycle . Or for B2C, where the buyer's expenses are long-term: a house or a ventilation system, expensive insurance or a tour. For the last two examples, however, not only lead-management is important, but also CRM (a set of measures to maintain customer relations for the next year).
About the existence of lead-management, about the term, to determine what many developers of products for the automation of sales under the guise of CRM actually offer - Yandex, for example, knows nothing. This is not a popular request. But American Google is the opposite. In the US, there is a market for lead-management products, the functionality and tools of which differs from the functionality and tools of CRM systems.
Due to the lack of a suitable term for solving specific problems, not only customers can not get to the point, choosing a system that they call CRM. But some manufacturers of platforms that do not have a clear understanding of why their customers need CRM. Developers often try to please everyone and make a strange, complex product either for sales, or to support existing customers, or for everything at once.
A Russian business that studies a lot of proposals, learning about a function previously unknown to it, begins to fantasize and tries to evaluate completely different, but all as one “CRM” products, not as complex as possible for the solution of top-priority tasks to the functional, but by the number of options that seem necessary in perspective, but in fact break, destroy the logic of automation of a long sales cycle.
CRM or Lead-management?
Everything related to conversion, everything the seller works on before the consumer makes the first purchase is lead-management. RM - the subsequent work with the buyer.
The basis of lead-management is building a sales funnel. The entire lead management is organized around the sales funnel and consists of various activities, tools and tools that increase the conversion of the primary contact into the buyer.
The first block of leadership work is building a database of contacts. Here and the most detailed information about the consumer - who he is, how he found the supplier, the classification of contacts, the history of relationships. The second part is the most precise and responsible work on the pre-sale, at the sales and follow-up stages - subsequent tracking of the contact's actions, regular interaction with him in the decision-making process (refined proposal, mailings, reminders). The third part - analysis of the funnel by type and characteristics of contacts, analysis of the causes of failure, the most convertible stages of the funnel, sales forecast.
All this together is not part of CRM, not part of managing relationships with established customers. Lead-management is an independent process of working with potentially interested consumers, which is necessary for building more efficient sales, for analyzing a business model.
The goals of all lead management are to increase sales by increasing conversion and managing a sales team.
To increase conversion, it is necessary to distribute the attention of the intellectual resource of the seller as accurately as possible, eliminate the emotional concentration of employees on individual, less effective leads, understand which employees sell which product is better, not lose sight of the entire volume of contacts and ensure distributed work with maximum coverage of consumers, potentially interested in purchasing goods / services of the company.
Classification and structuring of leads, a set of tools to accompany and stimulate the movement of contact on the sales funnel - these are the main benefits of automating long sales using a lead-management system.
CRM is the next stage of work, other employees and other processes. If in the process of lead-management a company competes with other suppliers, then CRM is the work on its proposal, “competition” with itself, aimed at supporting loyalty, maintaining and progressing relations with a buyer who has already made a choice in favor of the company.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/149885/
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