Automation of work with current customers. Account Management. Choose a CRM system. Part 3

Account management is the process of managing relationships with existing customers.

If you analyze any business model, then the main profit of the organization arises precisely when repeat sales to existing customers .

It is much easier to sell additional services and / or products to someone who already bought something from you and was satisfied with the purchase than a new potential customer.

You have already spent money on attracting and converting a client, which in a modern economy is a huge cost and is the main reason for the bankruptcy of most businesses.
')
It would seem that we spend money on advertising, attract customers, sell something to them, but do not develop anything and this is repeated again and again.

Competitors come to your market segment and also start spending a lot of money on advertising and marketing, and now several companies earn nothing.

In many niches, the cost of attracting a client is not only not covered by the profit from the first transaction, but sometimes it comes to the fact that profit can be obtained only on the 5th or 6th transaction.

That is why managing the repeat sales process becomes a key factor in a successful business model.

The client will usually not consider other alternative suppliers if the price you offer is in the comfort range of the price / value ratio of your offer.

The main advantages of properly built work with repeat sales are:

• Lack of investment in attracting new customers;
• More, a short transaction cycle;
• The minimum cost of sales operations.
• The possibility of selling more marginal products;
• The possibility of transition to a business service model;

But to properly manage this process, an appropriate sales automation system is needed, which can be implemented either with the help of a CRM system or consist of several systems.

Depending on what functionality the CRM system has, you will be more or less successful in developing long-term relationships with your customers.

But let's understand everything in order!

First, here you need to apply a classification scheme for your transactions.

Describe mainly which deals you have:

1. These are small purchases that are more associated with the emotional component, when the cost of the transaction is not high, the risks of purchasing goods are also not very high. (As a buyer, most often individuals or companies that do not purchase serious goods and services from such purchases of goods or services).
2. Or you sell expensive complex solutions or services, goods in large quantities in a single transaction, where the decision depends on several people in the company. Where the procurement team gathers, when your competitors are invited to the competition, you rework your offer several times, you are severely priced and the procurement procedure can take more than a year or several years. Such sales are mainly found in the corporate sector in the b2b market, where it is very important to manage the decision making process and where the share of the emotional component is minimal. In the segment of individuals, similar transactions also occur, mainly due to the purchase of expensive durable goods, yacht cars, real estate, the choice of a contracting company for the construction of a country house, etc.)

Decided in which segment you are working more?

Often companies can operate in two segments. It is an understanding of your sales process that will allow you to correctly formulate a requirement for a CRM system.

What is important for the segment of small transactions!
For small transactions, when the customer is very difficult to personalize, if he does not want it and does not leave his data in exchange for a loyalty card or a coupon for a discount.
For example, retailers, sellers of household appliances, cosmetics, clothing, furniture, etc. (all that we call FMCG).

Basically, for these purposes they use special loyalty systems, all kinds of savings cards, bonuses, etc.

The main processes that the CRM system should automate are:

• Collect and record contacts of current and potential customers;
• Customer base segmentation;
• Analysis of customer purchases;
• Organization of personalized communications (e-mail, sms, chat bots, etc.) and sending special offers, information about promotions, bonuses, etc.

If you work more in the b2b market, but the amount of the transaction is not high with minimal risks and is emotionally impulsive in nature, then the requirements for a CRM system will differ from those of large retailers.

What are the main processes to automate the CRM system in this case

• Maintain a single customer base;
• Segmentation of customers by categories and industries to better understand the potential consumption of your goods or services. Maybe you can sell these customers much more, for example, in other departments of this company there are similar tasks, or you can expand your portfolio of goods and services or establish a partnership with someone.
• CRM system should be able to maintain contact persons in the organization of the customer assigning roles and statuses to them. It is also important to track the movements of your customers 'employees, many are moving to other companies, most often competing companies, and your customers' competitors are your potential market, which is primarily worth paying attention to.
• And if you or your sales team maintains constant relationships with people, then moving to a new company can open up a new market for you.
• The possibility of flexible and automatic scheduling of contacts with current customers, clarification of needs, assessment of budgets and sales planning.
• Control of sales managers on the implementation of the tasks of constant contacting with customers.

What else should CRM help us?

Qualification of client base by categories (about the importance of qualifying leads and clients, we have already written in one of our articles).

Assigning different categories we can streamline and reduce the cost of the process of interaction with customers:

• For the most promising clients, you need to use phone calls, personal meetings, joint trips can (especially personal non-formal relationships are good help in large transactions).
• For other customer categories, an information letter (about company news about new products, special promotions, etc.) will be enough.

If you conduct business in the segment of large corporate transactions, the CRM system should be able to:

• Maintaining contacts of your clients, tracking their career movement, tracking their status in the company, and the impact on your business and transactions (the so-called agents of influence);
• The system should allow to take into account all interactions with the contacts of your customers, control your sellers so that they do not forget to call and learn about new projects, procurement budgets, etc.
• But the most important thing is tracking the actions of your competitors, what they sell, what shares in the budgets of your client they occupy, how they sell it and at what price all this information should be tracked and maintained for each transaction, for each client.
• The system should allow forming a sales forecast for customers, when managers can make a forecast of the consumption of goods or services by your current customers for the next reporting period. In addition, it helps to plan the business as the system closes transactions, the system should allow to track the percentage of forecast realization and the accumulated information should allow increasing the quality of sales planning.

As an example, an important functionality of the industry CRM system for the automaker or car dealer is the accounting of its customer’s fleet, the sales manager keeps track of what other cars they buy from competitors, understands the overall need to update the fleet, track their age, and when they need to update. issue special offers and prepare the ground for crowding out competitors.

Or, for example, in Pharma CRM, the important functionality is to track the potential and loyalty of both doctors and health facilities and the understanding of the actions of medical representatives that led to changes in these indicators.

In general, in order to correctly formulate the requirements for a CRM system as an automation tool, you first need to understand:

• in your own sales process;
• the type of transactions that take place in your company;
• marketing tools to attract customers;
• customer acquisition cost;
• re-sales management processes;

Without a description of these processes, the implementation of a CRM system may not achieve its goals.