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COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON

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CRM - critical success factors

The first and most important is defining what CRM is and is not.

Customer Relationship Management is not a 'fad' it is a business philosophy that helps to increase revenue, reduce costs and to build and retain a loyal customer base.

But for it to work you must do some basic things right.

Create a customer culture

Get everyone to put themselves in the customer's shoes in everything they do - to be the customer. Getting everyone to think from the customer’s perspective is a challenge requiring a change in most organisations from:

Customer service is what the shop / call centre / front of house do
Customer service is what it’s about and we all contribute to their experience

Many organizations use phrases like "customer-focused" or "customer satisfaction" and they are indicators that CRM is important. However, if there is nothing in place to create a customer culture, you are not likely to move far from the traditional product focus. It is driven, like most things, from the top.

Create a customer friendly structure

Your structure must promote cooperation not silos. Things that help are:

Your own customer language – American Express for example does not have cardholders but Cardmembers and the card says member since ….. Members are clearly more important than just customers.

Treat everyone as a customer internally. That’s EVERYONE! Managers must treat subordinates like customers too. Get each department to have complete service standards for their customer departments that have been agreed by producer and customer department jointly. Have a completely joined up process map leads to better customer service and experience.

Send problems right back to source – it’s amazing how quickly problems tend to get solved when complaints – N.B not ‘issues’ but “complaints” – are sent right to the source of the problem for resolution.

Manage major problems and seasonal peaks with joint task forces – this also gives multiple insights and multiple solution possibilities. Celebrate successes, let everyone know about them.

Move managers around to gain experience and transfer knowledge around the business and to give everyone a wider view of the whole “customer experience” at all “customer touch points”.

Make everyone in the organization speak to customers for a period of time every month. Same principle as the one above!

Measure the right 7 or 8 CUSTOMER KPIs and know how to drill down though each. CUSTOMER information is the cornerstone to successful CRM giving all departments, managers and staff a common CUSTOMER view that can show strategically and tactically what is happening, where it’s happening, why it’s happening etc. Notice the CUSTOMER in front of KPI, information, view – is cash flow or CUSTOMER flow the prime?

A good CRM system that is only put into place when you really have thought through all of the above. CRM systems are mot panaceas and cannot fix poor management. Customer Relationship Management software is there to help companies with their CRM so that they allow staff to provide the service that customers everywhere expect these days, to reduce attrition rates improve advocacy among customers and increase the lifetime value of each relationship to improve revenue and profit. A good CRM system needs to encourage users to interact with the application as well as be in-tune with the business.

To be fully effective at Customer Relationship Management an organisation has to position itself so that the customer is as the centre of their business. True Customer Relationship Management means that the business has streamlined customer management through the integration of all customer 'touch points', such as marketing, customer service and payment in such a way that true customer satisfaction.

Customer Focus

True Customer Relationship Management needs the backing of effective computer software that is affordable.

Technology can give your business a real advantage over your competitors yet many companies rely on a software package to run their business that lacks flexibility and cannot either provide the information or perform the tasks that would make your life a lot easier

Does your business system offer you the following?

1. One System for all tasks – no separate spreadsheets, databases or different software packages

2. Access from anywhere – work from home, remote sites or even customer sites on your live business system

3. Get the Information you want when you want it – easily design your own report as print or spreadsheets and have them automatically e-mailed to you and / or your chosen colleagues

4. Electronic documents – produce everything from quotes to statements as e-mails direct from the desktop

5. Contact & Quotation Information - enable your sales team to use the system to reduce the time they spend on admin and increase the information available to other areas of the business

6. Links with Microsoft Office, Outlook and the Internet to ensure you gain the full benefit of other packages

7. Your own language - all wording & drop down menus can be easily customised to suit your industry

So, is your current business system helping your business develop with a system that has all the advantages noted above?

There has been a great deal of research into how investments in IT have not led to the promised or anticipated business benefits. Many companies have found that software is actually holding back their company growth plan due to unrealistic implementation/ purchase costs or poor functionality

Are you popular?

Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are the first tool that potential customers use to find the products and services they need.

If the customers do not find your website, you have no possibilities of making any sales.

You're probably wondering what the blazes is important about a link! Well, in a word - plenty! Link popularity refers to the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines, and it goes some way to determining the ranking your page gets when keywords are entered into a search engine. So, you're probably wondering, how do I gain link popularity?

Search engines giving ranking to sites that have links to their pages from related, quality sites. Google created the system, and now virtually all the most popular search engines employ it to help to rank your web pages in their indexes.

The more commonly used your keywords are, the harder it will be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly on any search engine. But don't be discouraged; there are tried and true ways of achieving link popularity even for the most competitive keywords.

There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is that just linking up with a large number of other websites will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when linking to websites that are nothing more than "link farms" - pages containing line after line of indiscriminate links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against your website if you are associated with a link farm, so steer clear of them.

The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site to which you are linking. Never link to a page you have reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap. Linking to sites of poor quality may lessen your link popularity, if not completely destroy it as the search engines don't like them.

So what do you need to do to achieve high link popularity and improve your rankings on all the popular search engines?

The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as Open Directory Project and Yahoo Directory. If your site is business-related, you will probably want to be listed on Yahoo Directory, and despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year, it will probably be money well spent. If your site is non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site listed.

You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of appropriate category, and this just takes some common sense. For example, if your company ships "Fine Donkey Wool" from an donkey farm located in the middle of Hotay, do NOT submit your listing to "Retailers from Hotay." Do look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the "Fine Donkey Wool" category.

The next step after you have attained directory listings is to locate other quality sites that will increase your link popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase, but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful to your site's visitors. Let's look at the Donkey Wool site example. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are also greater. By linking to a related site that will be relevant to your website's traffic, you are increasing both of your site's business prospects - and both of your sites' link popularity.

Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have to do some research when you are looking for possible linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think quality customers will also enter to find your own site. Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked, non-competing websites that have a links or resources page.

Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use. Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and determine if your own site would fit in with the crowd.

When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must set out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link on your own links page to their site. This is an essential first step; it shows good faith, and ups your chances significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site. Since this is almost always done by EMail, you want to make sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk mail. So tell them straightaway that you have added a link to their page on your site. A hook like this almost always ensures the reader will read on.

Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that you have actually visited their site, and that their site is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your links page, and ask them to check out the link for themselves. It's a good idea to mention that they will not only benefit from the increased traffic your website will direct their way, but you will also increase their link popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so essential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don't sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on their own links page to your website.

Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and non-competitiveness. After you have EMailed all relevant sites, be sure to check these website frequently to see if they have added a link to your page. Give it up to a month, and if no link appears, try another charming EMail. Then give it another fortnight, and if your site is still absent from their links page, it's time to remove their link from your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a link further than this is if you believe a site is crucial to your link popularity and your business needs. Just remember to keep all your communications complimentary and cordial.

Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search engines frequently to see if your link popularity has improved.

Link popularty is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with such importance.

By the way - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you and be prepared to keep plugging away at this process - it's a marathon not a sprint.

Written by Richard Hill

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