The leading Linux and open-source network solutions provider in Dubai & UAE

By: Arindam Baruah, Consultant-Business Solutions, NGIT, Dubai

Do you believe that customers are “GOD” to any organization? Whether its yes or no we will analyze later.

Its a hard coded truth that a company becomes big, huge or large on the amount of revenue it earns over a span of time. A lot of factors are involved in making any company successful. It involves hard work, focus, market knowledge, well defined strategies and of-course a dedicated team who has got the zeal to make the company a successful one and also make themselves successful. A blend of all these makes a company a successful company, a profit making company.

We talked about efforts and we talked about strategies. To make a company successful we also need to create a awareness about it. We do it by various indirect marketing activities like newspaper advertisements, TV commercials, Pamphlets distribution etc. We also do direct marketing activities like sending text messages to mobiles of customers, we send e-mails to them and we also do telephonic calls to make them aware of our company and our products. After all these back breaking efforts we earn the most important asset of our company – THE CUSTOMER.

Once we earn a customer by selling our product or services we tend to retain that customer for future business. What do we need to do for achieving that. Only one thing – Keep him happy with the services. But its noticed that once a product is sold to a customer we always tend to look for a new one( Sales Guys have to finish their targets … you see!!!) and the process follows because we feel that new business means only from new customers. Now by saying that I don't mean every company does that. Its just a mind set that prevails but otherwise who would not like to do business with their old and loya customers rather than going out in the market again and again. But most of the companies fail to do that because they don't have a complete history of the customer in an organized way because of which a sales guy cannot define a strategy for doing business with that customer.

But the question out here is what steps do we take to retain our old customers. We spend money to get new customers ( a lot of money rather...) and we can justify that. But will we spent money to retain our old customers? If you ask this question to any company the answer will be “ We have properly managed spread sheets and we keep track of everything “, EVERYTHING???? Its a fact that spread sheets cannot be your life line for managing your customers and trust me they are not!!! Companies define budgets for activities which will bring customers but when it comes investing in something which will help them retain customers its like asking something BIG( even though the money required is much less).

We need to understand that a spreadsheet will not allow you to trap everything about a customer. From the time you earn a customer there are so many activities done with the customer which is never recorded anywhere. These records help us to understand about a customers whole life cycle in a company and define strategies to bring in more business from them . But please don't expect this from a spreadsheet. What you need is a proper system which keeps track of the whole life cycle of a customer in an organization and also keeps a track of all the activities that has been done for the customer. A system that can help us capture leads, work on those leads, capture all the activities, see the opportunities in those leads, keep a record of the business done with them and so on. No doubt a company spends a lot of money on generating these leads but this kind of a system will always help them to manage those leads and convert them top customers in strategic manner retain them and do repetitive business with them since they will know their customers in and out. The system I am talking about is called Customer Relationship Management(CRM). A Customer Relationship Management system is never a liability where you have to pump in your crucial revenue to manage it, rather it is a system which actually helps you to do a focused sales and marketing activity to generate more business for an organization.

Todays CRM systems are not only restricted to capturing leads rather it can be used as an all in one system for a sales department. It will help you to track all the activities,transactions and business done with the customer or in other words it helps you to provide a 360 degree view of the customer. Other than that it helps any organization to track the whole sales team's activities- pipelines, sales forecasts, individual sales person's performance, business done till date, revenue earned etc. etc. Its will help any organization to actually have a focused approach to its sales and marketing activities. Now when I say marketing a typical CRM today has got in built “campaign modules” which will help to launch various web based campaigns with minimal effort. It can also help you to do mass mailing activities without much of a effort. So overall a CRM today helps you take a organized and focused approach towards Sales and Marketing and also managing customer relationship( that's what a CRM is supposed to do if we go by its name)

Now we need to see the options available in the market because I need to prove that a CRM system is not a liability but an asset which can help bring in more business and it will also depend on what CRM you choose. If you do a “google” search about CRM you will be able to find hundreds of products listed but which one is best for you that you need to decide. As you can see I work for an Open Source company so I have hundreds of reasons to say that an open source CRM would be the best option but that doesn't mean that a proprietary software is not good or not suitable. Any CRM you choose to implement it will need minimal customizations before you can start using it. If you want the CRM to work exactly the way you want it then you need some major customizations in it. So when decide on a CRM you have to check how flexible the product is in terms of customization. Other than that you might it to get integrated with some of your existing systems so you need to check its integration capability and flexibility with your existing applications. Almost every CRM (whether its proprietary or Open Source) will have flexibility for customization but if we talk about any open source CRM it will always give you better flexibility options plus it will also give you cost benefits. We will discuss this in my next write-up in details.

If a company with proper guidance and consultation implements a CRM it never becomes a liability for a company, rather it will be one of your most loved software which will help you manage and retain your loyal customers and generate business from them. And finally I think for any company, the customer is their GOD and why not manage them in a proper way and become a successful and profit making company!!!!