Stagnation is inevitable. CRM takes the fight
Ruin in their heads - this short Bulgakov quotation does not become outdated and is unlikely to become obsolete once. It is worth a little wobble of the economic situation, increase prices or fall in sales, company owners and individuals panic. The only correct action, in their opinion, is to stop buying, collect all the money and hide “until better times.” Thus, they provoke a deeper stagnation, paralyzing business and personal finances.
Remember the parable of the two frogs who fell into the cream pot? One resigned, decided to save strength and went to the bottom, and the second beat her paws, whipped sour cream and got out, tired but alive. Moral: crisis - time to beat paws. It is advisable to automate this process, because with a blender, sour cream is usually whipped faster :).
Stagnation in the company is inevitable, since it is not possible at once to insure oneself against negative market, financial, consumer and macroeconomic factors. The task of the manager and all employees is to make the periods of stagnation predictable and as short as possible. Where does it come from, sometimes against the background of complete well-being?
')
In fact, there are many more reasons, and each company has its own. But in the aggregated state, they all fall into these four groups.
Perhaps for the first time in our 24 articles on Habré, we are turning to the term CRM not as software but as a complex of strategy and software. Because the period of stagnation is the time when the CRM system should not just stand and open occasionally, but work for you and your business, be a strategy, tactics and make money. What-what, and that she can do - as a tool in the hands of a master
The first thing to do is to focus on service , especially if there is no place for technologically companies to grow and competitive ones are homogeneous. Customers are increasingly paying attention to the quality of service and how quickly and accurately the company solves their problems. CRM-system - a tool that can make the service almost perfect.
... this device works remotely and helps me convince you to buy our new product!
We will consider, of course, on the example of RegionSoft CRM - what gets business from the system to improve service:
By the way, we argue not only on the basis of our experience: world studies show the same trend of growing consumer attention to the service.
The CRM system makes it possible to diversify business based on trends : if stagnation is caused by a global downturn in the market, then you need to try to move into a niche that may be near, but now does not stagnate. On the basis of information accumulated in the system, you can see what customers were interested in, why they refused to buy, that they willingly purchased, etc. Separately, you can see who your customers are and whether they may be interested in additional services ( for example, you sell air conditioners, and summer 2017 allows you to do without them. It's time to think about expanding the range by, for example, breathers, and start promote them plus offer paid installation, filter cleaning and other services ). Move in the direction of increased margins - offer services, services, goods with a large margin . Profitability in such conditions should grow. All data for the study of growth points are precisely in CRM.
Another way to use the information accumulated in the CRM system against stagnation and crisis is what is called “grinding up” the client base in the language of commerce : make additional sales, offer services , etc. existing customers. Existing customers are already familiar with you, you are familiar with them, which means that the cost of sales is significantly reduced: you do not bear the costs of attraction and competition. Indeed, the CRM system is indispensable here:
Perfect suggestion: To be honest, this car is great overvalued, it has a terribly huge mileage and it smells like steamed broccoli ... BUT it has dual-zone climate control!
Accumulating data in the CRM system, you get an understanding of all the client's needs due to the fact that the card includes the most detailed information, and data about payments, accepted and unaccepted business offers, discounts, orders, etc. is attached to it. In fact, this is a complete history that allows you to make an accurate diagnosis ( how to analyze and what data - we described in detail).
In general, analytics in the CRM system helps not only in times of crisis, but also in peacetime: you need to analyze data and dive deep into information in order to detect troubles at an early stage and take action. Individual CRM users offer sophisticated dashboards (we have even seen with a weather widget and a lunar calendar), complex OLAP-cubes (more precisely, a bunch of complex tables that are not really OLAP and which you cannot understand without half a liter). Our approach is this: IT tools should be reliable, easy to use and cost-effective. By the way, again, according to foreign studies, 55% of CRM buyers are waiting for ease of use, 27% are scheduled controls (by the way, we implemented this using the RegionSoft Application Server ). Small and medium-sized businesses in Europe like CRM systems: only 21% consider them a painful point among software (for comparison, business intelligence systems lead from 66%, and mail accounts for 13% of a headache). At the same time, 61% are extremely satisfied with the CRM-system, partly - 36% and only 3% are not completely satisfied.
It would not be superfluous to reconsider the integration of the CRM system and the forms on the site, from where it takes the information. Maybe you have too many fields or the client’s path to the purchase or order is not optimized - try to reduce it. If your site sells, and CRM integration with the site is not configured, you can lose some potential customers. Configure the integration. This will speed up the reaction time of your employees and formalize their actions. As a result, your customers will be more satisfied with the interaction with your company.
Accelerating the flow of business processes - the first measure that you should take in case of stagnation, and even better before it occurs. In general, work with business processes should begin with self-recognition that the company has a mess in some cases, deadlines for projects are frustrated, managers are nervous. The position “we are stars in the universe and our product will soon sell itself” is not relevant even for world-famousintergalactic corporations. Establishing business processes is best with their automation in CRM - the structure of the process in the system will help you to immediately understand what is important, what is secondary, what documents and reminders should be included at each stage, what time frame should be set, etc. In the future, it will be enough to run an instance of the process so that everything goes on the thumb. But working with business processes always takes time and requires joint efforts of the units. This is the case when it is better to lose a day, then fly in five minutes.
CRM-system allows you to free up staff time by automating routine and standard chains of actions. This is not a reason to reduce staff and save on matches - this is an opportunity for employees to devote more time to service and communication with the client. Many companies have preserved, for example, regulations on the length of a conversation with a customer - if, for example, regulatory 5 minutes 30 seconds are registered, then in 10 minutes or 17 you can lose part of the premium without completing the KPI standard. This phenomenon is in itself a relic of antiquity, but in times of crisis it is simply destructive - you must give the client as much time as he needs. Invest in a time resource relationship, the return will not take long. By the way, a CRM system with customized telephony and call routing ensures another cool service tool - the availability of managers.
The CRM system also solves internal corporate problems, for example, it coordinates relations and controls the circulation of information between departments . When each employee has a clearly organized digital desktop (CRM interface), and all information is stored in a single database, different departments know exactly about their tasks and their place in business processes. Thus, shifting responsibility is eliminated and the level of tension between departments is reduced.
Another bonus associated with CRM is the sizeable increase in the speed of work of managers and even managers. This is due to the unification of information, automation of work and reporting - no need to choose the data by hand or write tasks on a piece of paper and hang it before your nose. Everything is in electronic form, reminds of itself and is transparently controlled. By the way, if we talk about control, then the RegionSoft CRM is very well implemented a self-monitoring mechanism: managers see the dynamics of their KPI performance and can respond to the "subsidence" of work sites.
Thus, the CRM-system gives the company a chance to achieve maximum organizational potential, provides the tools for the front office, helps motivate the staff. CRM (in particular, the universal RegionSoft CRM) unifies part of the corporate IT infrastructure and thus saves money by eliminating other corporate software products.
Regardless of the phase of stagnation or growth, any company always faces potential risks, some of which do not even depend on it. In principle, a set of risks differs depending on the scope of activities, asset structure, management model, etc. - as a rule, they are spelled out in a risk management strategy or simply implied by management. However, there are four groups of risks to which all are exposed.
Strategic risks are caused by industry recessions, market changes and patterns of consumer behavior. For example, the fashion for sensory telephones, which quickly captured all price segments, almost killed push-button apparatuses - this was a strategic risk for telephone manufacturers, they had to rebuild.
But there are imaginary risks, a blind decision to minimize or exclude which may bankrupt the company.
For example, cloud technologies and the SaaS delivery model have emerged - many CRM vendors have stopped developing desktop versions and directed all their efforts to web applications. However, by 2014 it became clear that medium and large businesses, as well as small business respecting their data, are not ready to enter into tripartite relations and transfer their data to the cloud. A little later, the companies considered and understood that SaaS is also more expensive. Look at CRM sites - almost everyone has server versions, and some vendors are actively developing and delivering a “box”. By the way, there were those who could visualize all the minuses of the cloud visionary and continued to focus more (or all) on the desktop - RegionSoft Developer Studio was one of them.
Financial risks - associated with the presence of deviations in cash flow. This could be a receivable, a non-payment crisis, a misunderstanding of the structure of customer profitability (which part of the base brings the most revenue, remember the Pareto principle?).
Operational risks - associated with problems within the company: a mess in business processes, sabotage of employees, massive layoffs during the period of stagnation and crisis, failures in the control of indicators, incorrect planning and failure to comply with KPI. Such situations can develop spontaneously at the junction of several minor problems or consciously come from employees and even the management itself, which decides without a difficult period of stagnation to “brighten up” by tightening the screws.
Reputational risks - caused by problems with customer service. As companies and analysts have repeatedly assessed, a dissatisfied customer quickly spreads negative reviews to 2-4 of their acquaintances. Social networks only exacerbate the situation.
These risks need to be monitored and managed; then you can anticipate a period of stagnation and minimize potential losses. Competent automation in this is a smart and reliable assistant. Pay attention to how the CRM-system market is growing (fact + forecast) - even in crisis years it did not have a recession, since automation has long been considered one of the main tools of crisis management.
In general, during stagnation, there is one rule. More precisely, it is timeless: always invest in the development of the company. Imagine that one donor constantly provides blood to one or more recipients, and this donor is not fed. Do you think he would live long? We doubt. If a commercial project earns solely on the satisfying life of the owners or even workers, sooner or later he will die. And if a part of the earnings goes back to the project, he lives, multiplies what he received and gives the owners even more.
Invest in your business - and most importantly, in automation . It will allow you to engage in development, not accumulation. Development ensures compliance with each point in time and market conditions. Conform - earn. The circle is closed.
While writing the article, the idea arose to find out, how about us? Therefore - a few simple questions on the topic.
Remember the parable of the two frogs who fell into the cream pot? One resigned, decided to save strength and went to the bottom, and the second beat her paws, whipped sour cream and got out, tired but alive. Moral: crisis - time to beat paws. It is advisable to automate this process, because with a blender, sour cream is usually whipped faster :).
Stagnation is inevitable. Stop panic
Stagnation in the company is inevitable, since it is not possible at once to insure oneself against negative market, financial, consumer and macroeconomic factors. The task of the manager and all employees is to make the periods of stagnation predictable and as short as possible. Where does it come from, sometimes against the background of complete well-being?
')
- The limit of the company's capabilities, technological ceiling, etc. have been reached. This happens - and many IT and non-IT companies felt it for themselves: it is impossible to increase production, it is difficult to change the technology to cheaper and advanced, modernization takes time, investment and, most terrible, production downtime. By the way, in the service sector the same thing - adaptation to changing needs is needed. The most painful points in this situation: time and money. You need insurance, a “financial pillow,” to survive a time of modernization or reprofiling.
The recipe is to diversify a business, to create conditions for its scaling through a partner network or a network of representative offices, to enter foreign markets. Those. search for options for further development.
In the window: "Bob & Joe pillows with glass filler."
“I don't know, Joe, maybe we use some kind of fig glass? ...” - Few potential customers, narrow or saturated market. A company may operate in a narrow segment and at some point realize that the market is oversaturated. The company can work in the widest segment and realize that "everyone has bought everything." Such a story overtook cellular operators in large regions around 2010 - cellular penetration in Russia exceeded one, and in 2016 already 164% in regions and 233% in capitals. By the way, we all could have noticed how the operators got out - first, at the expense of VAS (content, beeps and other Anti-AOL), and then at the expense of the mobile Internet. Actually, this is the secret to overcoming the stagnation of this type.
Recipe - adjustment, diversification and development of new market segments. - Systemic macroeconomic recession is the saddest stagnation. At first glance (and the second and even after a couple of weeks of analysis) it may seem that the company is powerless: driven by fear of the economic situation in the country and the world, customers “sit on the money” and completely refuse to consume everything that seems unnecessary to them. In a strange way, both equipment, software, and good employees who are ready to beat off big salaries fall into excesses.
However, the crisis with customers (individuals or businesses) is new headaches and problems. Your task is to understand and tell how you can solve them. During a crisis, the worst is to push, the best is to be honest and help the client choose the right solution.
The recipe is the development of a local marketing campaign adapted to a specific economic situation. It should be temporary until macroeconomic indicators are restored. It must be balanced so that you do not give away your goods or services for free. There are people who earn it on crises. For example, if you buy a property in a crisis time at a greatly reduced price, in the future, when the situation recovers, you can realize it with a significant profit. Be flexible, adapt to the external environment. - Strong competitors dumping in the market. For companies in the XXI century, competition comes from where they did not expect. For example, in the same CRM market among players there is an IP telephony operator (and not one) and a federal mobile operator. Of course, their programs are far from CRM, but which of the users will go to understand - it was simply beneficial for the offices to open such a complementary service purely for marketing purposes. But, by the way, the story is not powerful, these guys, even with their huge client base, will not be able to with classical CRM in any segment of the market.
The story is brighter. Do you think Nokia or Blackberry have seen a competitor in Google? But he appeared, developed the Android operating system and in fact redrew the market towards other manufacturers - already experienced, but more affordable and flexible. Again, it is indicative of how well Apple survived under these conditions and how Microsoft got into the pool with the microphones. But this, of course, is a separate discussion about technology, marketing, and the role of the individual in history.
The recipe is trend tracking and marketing analysis. See how your potential buyers will react to possible improvements in your products or services. Conduct a survey. Get the best from your competitors and improve. - Force majeure - stagnation caused by temporary or systemic circumstances of insuperable force. For example, ice cream and water sellers in central Russia this summer are not as free as last or hot summer of 2010.
The recipe is the same as in a systemic decline.
In fact, there are many more reasons, and each company has its own. But in the aggregated state, they all fall into these four groups.
CRM to the rescue
Perhaps for the first time in our 24 articles on Habré, we are turning to the term CRM not as software but as a complex of strategy and software. Because the period of stagnation is the time when the CRM system should not just stand and open occasionally, but work for you and your business, be a strategy, tactics and make money. What-what, and that she can do - as a tool in the hands of a master
In the company-client coordinate system
The first thing to do is to focus on service , especially if there is no place for technologically companies to grow and competitive ones are homogeneous. Customers are increasingly paying attention to the quality of service and how quickly and accurately the company solves their problems. CRM-system - a tool that can make the service almost perfect.
... this device works remotely and helps me convince you to buy our new product!
We will consider, of course, on the example of RegionSoft CRM - what gets business from the system to improve service:
- full picture of work with the client - with one click you can bring up the entire history of interactions and view the client profile;
- personalization of any offers - having a pool of customer information, you can offer an individual offer based on his needs, and not on the needs of a group or segment;
- customer segmentation for mailings and other activities (by the way, mailings can be done directly from the interface of the CRM system);
- productive telephone communication - thanks to the client's pop-up card, your managers will immediately contact the customer by name, as if they only did that they were waiting for his call;
- CRM records all conversations with customers - which means you can monitor the quality of work and train managers with the best examples;
- three schedulers (regular calendar-scheduler, group and three weeks) along with reminders ensure that all appointments, transactions and calls take place at the agreed time;
- the whole loyalty system - with discount cards, discounts, markups, etc;
- and even a ticket system for customer service or technical support.
By the way, we argue not only on the basis of our experience: world studies show the same trend of growing consumer attention to the service.
Customer service in charts - some researchWe chose some fresh graphs from various studies on the service, translated and redrawn them. So, Tech News World interviewed 500 organizations that are implementing CRM-systems and found that entrepreneurs expect to get from automating customer relationships. 74% of respondents expect first of all to improve customer service, and 66% - to increase customer satisfaction. By the way, other goals also coincided with our vision of how and for what you can use a CRM system.
ClickFox has figured out how companies can keep customers from the customers themselves. So, 33% prefer to get an exceptional service 24/7. To be honest, it is surprising for us that 12% voluntarily agreed to exclusive offers and 11% to personalized products. By the way, the study of Inside CRM showed that more than 75% of the effect of improving the service accounted for an increase in sales and an increase in the number of customers.
But in the same survey it turned out that the jokes with the customers are bad - news about your worthless service will spread actively. Social networks in the survey, only 16%, but we think that in Russia this figure is clearly higher.
Investigation of The Rockefeller Corporation showed that the main reason for leaving the customer is inattention to them.
In general, the service is extremely important and you should avoid leaving the client - at least because of your fault, since it is more difficult to deal with a number of other reasons.
The CRM system makes it possible to diversify business based on trends : if stagnation is caused by a global downturn in the market, then you need to try to move into a niche that may be near, but now does not stagnate. On the basis of information accumulated in the system, you can see what customers were interested in, why they refused to buy, that they willingly purchased, etc. Separately, you can see who your customers are and whether they may be interested in additional services ( for example, you sell air conditioners, and summer 2017 allows you to do without them. It's time to think about expanding the range by, for example, breathers, and start promote them plus offer paid installation, filter cleaning and other services ). Move in the direction of increased margins - offer services, services, goods with a large margin . Profitability in such conditions should grow. All data for the study of growth points are precisely in CRM.
Another way to use the information accumulated in the CRM system against stagnation and crisis is what is called “grinding up” the client base in the language of commerce : make additional sales, offer services , etc. existing customers. Existing customers are already familiar with you, you are familiar with them, which means that the cost of sales is significantly reduced: you do not bear the costs of attraction and competition. Indeed, the CRM system is indispensable here:
- segment customer base - and offer narrow segments and individual customers what is right for them, conduct mailings;
Jim left the lemonade business and decided to target the smallest, most profitable segment. Be careful with segmentation. - conduct surveys - all questionnaires are attached to the client card and stored in the CRM system;
- process customers who have not passed the sales funnel and have postponed the relationship with you "to think", "to see everyone", "compare prices", "expensive", etc. For them, it is worth preparing proposals that are different from those with which they are already familiar. A small note: before-sales must be really necessary and useful for the customer. It’s not worthwhile to offer shoelace with a pink kitten for men’s 17,000 sneakers, but Minecraft for the network monitoring software.
Perfect suggestion: To be honest, this car is great overvalued, it has a terribly huge mileage and it smells like steamed broccoli ... BUT it has dual-zone climate control!
Accumulating data in the CRM system, you get an understanding of all the client's needs due to the fact that the card includes the most detailed information, and data about payments, accepted and unaccepted business offers, discounts, orders, etc. is attached to it. In fact, this is a complete history that allows you to make an accurate diagnosis ( how to analyze and what data - we described in detail).
In general, analytics in the CRM system helps not only in times of crisis, but also in peacetime: you need to analyze data and dive deep into information in order to detect troubles at an early stage and take action. Individual CRM users offer sophisticated dashboards (we have even seen with a weather widget and a lunar calendar), complex OLAP-cubes (more precisely, a bunch of complex tables that are not really OLAP and which you cannot understand without half a liter). Our approach is this: IT tools should be reliable, easy to use and cost-effective. By the way, again, according to foreign studies, 55% of CRM buyers are waiting for ease of use, 27% are scheduled controls (by the way, we implemented this using the RegionSoft Application Server ). Small and medium-sized businesses in Europe like CRM systems: only 21% consider them a painful point among software (for comparison, business intelligence systems lead from 66%, and mail accounts for 13% of a headache). At the same time, 61% are extremely satisfied with the CRM-system, partly - 36% and only 3% are not completely satisfied.
It would not be superfluous to reconsider the integration of the CRM system and the forms on the site, from where it takes the information. Maybe you have too many fields or the client’s path to the purchase or order is not optimized - try to reduce it. If your site sells, and CRM integration with the site is not configured, you can lose some potential customers. Configure the integration. This will speed up the reaction time of your employees and formalize their actions. As a result, your customers will be more satisfied with the interaction with your company.
In the "company - employees" coordinate system
Accelerating the flow of business processes - the first measure that you should take in case of stagnation, and even better before it occurs. In general, work with business processes should begin with self-recognition that the company has a mess in some cases, deadlines for projects are frustrated, managers are nervous. The position “we are stars in the universe and our product will soon sell itself” is not relevant even for world-famous
CRM-system allows you to free up staff time by automating routine and standard chains of actions. This is not a reason to reduce staff and save on matches - this is an opportunity for employees to devote more time to service and communication with the client. Many companies have preserved, for example, regulations on the length of a conversation with a customer - if, for example, regulatory 5 minutes 30 seconds are registered, then in 10 minutes or 17 you can lose part of the premium without completing the KPI standard. This phenomenon is in itself a relic of antiquity, but in times of crisis it is simply destructive - you must give the client as much time as he needs. Invest in a time resource relationship, the return will not take long. By the way, a CRM system with customized telephony and call routing ensures another cool service tool - the availability of managers.
The CRM system also solves internal corporate problems, for example, it coordinates relations and controls the circulation of information between departments . When each employee has a clearly organized digital desktop (CRM interface), and all information is stored in a single database, different departments know exactly about their tasks and their place in business processes. Thus, shifting responsibility is eliminated and the level of tension between departments is reduced.
Another bonus associated with CRM is the sizeable increase in the speed of work of managers and even managers. This is due to the unification of information, automation of work and reporting - no need to choose the data by hand or write tasks on a piece of paper and hang it before your nose. Everything is in electronic form, reminds of itself and is transparently controlled. By the way, if we talk about control, then the RegionSoft CRM is very well implemented a self-monitoring mechanism: managers see the dynamics of their KPI performance and can respond to the "subsidence" of work sites.
Thus, the CRM-system gives the company a chance to achieve maximum organizational potential, provides the tools for the front office, helps motivate the staff. CRM (in particular, the universal RegionSoft CRM) unifies part of the corporate IT infrastructure and thus saves money by eliminating other corporate software products.
And about the risks - even without stagnation
Regardless of the phase of stagnation or growth, any company always faces potential risks, some of which do not even depend on it. In principle, a set of risks differs depending on the scope of activities, asset structure, management model, etc. - as a rule, they are spelled out in a risk management strategy or simply implied by management. However, there are four groups of risks to which all are exposed.
Strategic risks are caused by industry recessions, market changes and patterns of consumer behavior. For example, the fashion for sensory telephones, which quickly captured all price segments, almost killed push-button apparatuses - this was a strategic risk for telephone manufacturers, they had to rebuild.
But there are imaginary risks, a blind decision to minimize or exclude which may bankrupt the company.
For example, cloud technologies and the SaaS delivery model have emerged - many CRM vendors have stopped developing desktop versions and directed all their efforts to web applications. However, by 2014 it became clear that medium and large businesses, as well as small business respecting their data, are not ready to enter into tripartite relations and transfer their data to the cloud. A little later, the companies considered and understood that SaaS is also more expensive. Look at CRM sites - almost everyone has server versions, and some vendors are actively developing and delivering a “box”. By the way, there were those who could visualize all the minuses of the cloud visionary and continued to focus more (or all) on the desktop - RegionSoft Developer Studio was one of them.
Financial risks - associated with the presence of deviations in cash flow. This could be a receivable, a non-payment crisis, a misunderstanding of the structure of customer profitability (which part of the base brings the most revenue, remember the Pareto principle?).
Operational risks - associated with problems within the company: a mess in business processes, sabotage of employees, massive layoffs during the period of stagnation and crisis, failures in the control of indicators, incorrect planning and failure to comply with KPI. Such situations can develop spontaneously at the junction of several minor problems or consciously come from employees and even the management itself, which decides without a difficult period of stagnation to “brighten up” by tightening the screws.
Reputational risks - caused by problems with customer service. As companies and analysts have repeatedly assessed, a dissatisfied customer quickly spreads negative reviews to 2-4 of their acquaintances. Social networks only exacerbate the situation.
These risks need to be monitored and managed; then you can anticipate a period of stagnation and minimize potential losses. Competent automation in this is a smart and reliable assistant. Pay attention to how the CRM-system market is growing (fact + forecast) - even in crisis years it did not have a recession, since automation has long been considered one of the main tools of crisis management.
In general, during stagnation, there is one rule. More precisely, it is timeless: always invest in the development of the company. Imagine that one donor constantly provides blood to one or more recipients, and this donor is not fed. Do you think he would live long? We doubt. If a commercial project earns solely on the satisfying life of the owners or even workers, sooner or later he will die. And if a part of the earnings goes back to the project, he lives, multiplies what he received and gives the owners even more.
Invest in your business - and most importantly, in automation . It will allow you to engage in development, not accumulation. Development ensures compliance with each point in time and market conditions. Conform - earn. The circle is closed.
While writing the article, the idea arose to find out, how about us? Therefore - a few simple questions on the topic.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/331416/
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