Welcome to a multi-part series on how to succeed with CRM.
By now, most of you reading this have or are using a CRM right now. It could be Salesforce.com, Microsoft CRM, Sugar, Zoho, Pipedrive, etc. My guess is that most of you are NOT getting the value you thought you would get from your CRM. Maybe you are asking yourself: “What’s the point of shoving all of this information into a massive filing cabinet?”
Keep reading to find out and learn more about CRM from a Customer Service point of view.
Often, when a company launches CRM, they initially start with the sales department. Over time, they may begin to roll it out to the marketing department. But where does the Customer Service department fit in with CRM & why bother?
Let’s have a look:
- Continuity: Simply put, every customer “touching” role should be sharing the same “filing cabinet”. By doing so, the sales team and customer service team will be aligned on what each has/is discussing with the customer and what’s next.
- Nothing Falls Through the Cracks: There is nothing worse than calling Customer Service, have someone promise you something and then nothing happens. By using CRM, Customer Service can create a “ticket” (or case), sync emails, schedule follow ups (for themselves or others … even sales) and run reports to ensure completion.
- Metrics: What kinds of issues are customers having? What are the best solutions? How long are we taking to solve things? These, an many other questions, can be answered with good CRM usage through basic reporting.
- Process: Set a customer service process for the team to use. Customize your CRM to match. Then use reports to confirm it’s happening and where to improve.
- Coaching: Most people don’t know their own gaps, so a good Customer Service manager uses the data in CRM to dig into the data to uncover the story.
- Customer Experience: Every customer just wants their issues resolved effectively, efficiently and without them having to chase. CRM will do that.
- Resource Transitions:People in customer service come and go. CRM means you get to re-assign customer service issues to another or a new customer service rep in 30 seconds. But more importantly, the new CSR in turn gets to view and read all the history, notes, emails, and opportunities with that customer. Just imagine that!
If you are a Customer Service Manager, above are 7 different areas of your department that CRM impacts directly. Let’s get going!
