Your prospects expect the level of customer care that comes only with a CRM (and it works even better when tied to your website). Many B-to-B’s have to nurture their leads over an extended time period, like 6-24 months. Over that time, your prospects will – or should – receive numerous communications from your company, primarily from Marketing and Sales people. That’s all well and good, unless…
- Communication number “n+2” convinces the prospect that you’re unaware of his/her response to communication “n”;
- Your sales people begin calling too early in the sales cycle, irritating the prospect and de-motivating the salesperson.
- Multiple salespeople call the same prospect (and not by design!).
These problems can be avoided through the disciplined use of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, which can track the nature and result of every interaction with every prospect and customer. But note the use of “disciplined” above: a CRM can only be as good as the information it’s fed, so it’s critical to create an organizational climate where every prospect “touch” – by anyone – is preceded by a review of that prospect’s interaction history, and followed by an update of that prospect’s record with the specifics of today’s interaction.
Why not have your prospects load your CRM for you?
The most popular CRM – by far, among technology-oriented B-to-B’s – is Microsoft Dynamics CRM. For this reason, plus the fact that so many B-to-B prospects start out as a website visit, BCG offers a service that integrates your website with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution. This means that when visitors fill out your registration form, they’ll in fact be populating your CRM database. It also makes tracking the ROI of your various Web marketing activities much easier and more accurate
