What are you doing in CRM lately? Idea no. 6 is as old as me

You have the latest in sales tools, you already are tracking your customer’s social activities, you have a well-defined service process, and you are super focused on marketing your brand/product/service on every channel you can find.

So, what’s next?

Does this mean that you have reached CRM nirvana? A state from where you have nowhere left to go, but maintain status quo?

Think again. And, think critically both in terms of how you are regarded by customers, and by your employees.

1. Sell more without selling #

How effective is your selling process? Do you always find yourself shouting from tree-tops and roof-tops about features of your product?

How about leading your potentials/customers to think about a requirement, identify a need, and make them understand how your solution gives them everything including the kitchen-sink for that problem?

If you have visited the ICICI bank recently, you would have noticed that the staff have become a bit “chatty”.

I was in the bank to get a Demand Draft and pay my taxes, when the nice lady on the other side started a conversation on delivering the demand draft to my door step. Within a span of next 5 minutes, she is talking about how ICICI bank house loans compare to loans from other banks. Small talk - yes, will it lead to more business and enhanced interest - hell yes.

2. Are you correlating stuff? #

Have you identified patterns in your customer behavior? Who calls you and when? Why do some customers only chat instead of calling you? What customers email but they have tried reaching you through other channels first?

What was the most recent upsell? Do your users really use system-guided upsell or cross-sell?

Collect data by all means, but do identify the endless possibilities and patterns hidden in the data.

3. What have you done to nurture fans? #

Everyone loves see someone similar to them on how they resolved a common problem. Dentists like to see other dentists talking about how they provided a system for online appointments, insurance agents like to hear about how successful insurance agents have been tracking leads over years – you get the picture.

It is really important to rally up your customers towards promoting you. Delight them, serve them better, and see them build passion around you.

Uber does that well. They had their fans support them through thick and thin on the social media and forums - a more recent example was the tax change legislation brought upon by companies like Uber in CA.

Encourage communities to be built around your brand. Facilitate conversations amongst fans.

4. Have you “mobilised” your field force? #

Even with so much focus on mobile, it is surprising just how many applications are truly mobile-enabled. Being mobile, and being on multiple devices is a given. If you have any personnel on the field, or have a possibility of the work force being remote, you just cannot afford to have solutions that are not geared well enough in the mobile space.

Do a mobile audit for all your applications that need to be available for the remote work force.

5. Reward the givers! #

No one likes to “give” all the time – provide data, invest effort, and share things just for the benefit of management, or towards the purpose of building a better organization. They need to see benefits getting out of it.

You register on the portal and enter all information in your profile to watch a movie free (TataSky had this promotion sometime back), use the mobile app to order and get Rs. 100 discount or get special coupons (e.g. SnapDeal’s promotion for using their mobile app) .

Give something back in exchange for data/effort from your employees or customers.

6. Finally, have you integrated well enough? #

Have your employees or customers enter data in more than one place? Are you asking them to narrate the information verbally even after confirming information through IVR?

Does your marketing department who are giving out freebies to a fan vs. a commoner? How many times do your employees *really* identify who they are speaking to?

Make sure that every system you have will talk to every other system, and to the hapless human. Have your design commandments spell it out clearly – no double entry anywhere (other than in your accounting system of course).

So, what are you doing in CRM?