We live in an age of instant response. If we want something, we want it NOW - not next week.

We live in an age of instant response. If we want something, we want it NOW - not next week.


My work with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) over the last 15 years has taught me the importance of a fast response to enquiries to ensure that prospects turn into customers.

I'm the first to hold up my hands and say that I don't always do it right, but I try my best!

I remember, back in 2000, listening to a presentation by one of the key global specialist in CRM. She described how mystery shopping was one of the roles they undertook on behalf of major corporate clients and laid out some of the results.

Now remember that this was in 2000 when the use of the Internet was substantially lower than it is now.

Her company ran an exercise responding to advertising that actively encouraged potential customers to contact them via their website by really making a big thing of their web address.

Back then the results were pretty appalling, with plenty of no-replies or replies that took more than 7 days. Both of which would have probably driven the potential customer to seek out an alternative supplier.

Things changed dramatically in the following 10 years and the value of web enquiries and an understanding of the need for rapid response has been understood. The value has even filtered down to micro businesses with a poor response being a rarity now.

10 years on and new ways of attracting customer response has emerged with the likes of Social Networking.

Many businesses, large and small, have clearly identified the potential provided by access to the communities created within networks like FaceBook and Twitter.

They have been building their pages and creating content, all of which generates interest and possibly enquiries too.

So if you, as a potential customer, read interesting stuff on FaceBook and would like to talk more about it, what would you do?

Would you go and find their website and fill in a contact form, call them or email them direct?

Or would you send them a FaceBook Message?

It's the last option that I took recently with a major business in Norwich - simply because it was so convenient within FaceBook at the time.

Did I get a response? Well, 2 weeks on and I still haven't heard from them and I've moved on.

10 years on and we haven't really progressed, it's just that the problem lays in a different contact area - oh dear....

If you actively market your business through social networking do you have a solid response mechanism to react quickly before you loose a sale?

Why is CRM important to your business?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is critical to all businesses. Why?
Here's the answer in just 4 sentences:

> Turning prospects into customers doesn't happen just by accident

> Attracting your target prospect into a potential customer is demanding

> Losing a prospect to your competition is annoying

> Losing a customer to your competition is devastating

Working with a good CRM software makes selling and repeat selling a whole lot easier. It helps make sure that those prospects and customers don't get swallowed up by your competition.

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Thanks is always appreciated isn't it?

Those of you who know me well also know that I really get a kick out of helping others and, like most people, I feel good if someone thanks me for it too.

Working in business networking circles it's just part of life that you would sincerely thank someone for giving them a referral, great advice or some old fashioned help. I wouldn't even dream of doing anything else and most of the business people I know work in the same way.

It's a shame everyone doesn't think like that.

Here's three situations that have arisen over the last six months. I'm sure you won't have been guilty of these but it's easy to let them pass by without realising the effect on the other party.

> I changed my car towards the end of last year and it had previously been fitted with a bluetooth mobile phone device that tapped into the radio. When I changed my mobile phone in February I just couldn't get it link despite internet searches and re-reading the manual.

The next day I saw a van in the traffic queue next to me advertising the system fitted to my car, so I jotted down the phone number. I called them and spoke to a guy out on a job. He was obviously busy but within just a minute or two was able to tell me how to fix it. I thanked him, apologised for disturbing him and told him how appreciative I was.

I was delighted when the fix worked and I'm connected up now. So I found them on the web and sent them a message telling them how helpful their man had been and how grateful I was. In return I offered to find a way of promoting his business within my networking contacts with no charge simply to repay their kindness.

And the result? Nothing, zilch, zero. Not even a 'Sorry we're out' message. My positive feelings towards that business have all but drained away now.

> I have an offline spam filtering system that sends me a message each morning with a list of, and a link to, all of the trapped emails from the previous day. Most of it is of course rubbish but one came through early in the week that looked like it was genuine but was markered as having a virus.

Now this is important to know if you are the sender as you don't want to be either sending out a mail with a virus in it or having most of your mails binned before it reaches the recipient. So I took the trouble to investigate the mail without jeopardising my own security and sent all the details to the sender (a genuine company with a good product to sell). There were some other issues with the email that would potentially stop it working for them and offered some sound advice to overcome them.

And the result? Nothing, zilch, zero. Not even a 'Sorry we're out' message.

The third example I'm not going to go into detail as it involves me helping a member of my extended family who I helped with a business opportunity. Don't really see or speak that often, but I was happy to help and use my contacts to make things happen.

And the result? Nothing, zilch, zero. Not even a 'Thanks for helping' message.

It doesn't take much to maintain contact and you never know what it might lead to.

Getting sales when times are tough

If times are tough where do you look for extra business. Is there a secret, untapped, vein of potential revenue that you can try?

Maybe there is a vast community of potential customers that you've never even come across before that are just crying out for your solution?

Sad news folks - the reality is that it's unlikely. So best you look elsewhere.

It's widely accepted that most businesses fail miserably when it comes to looking after, and selling to, past satisfied customers. Why is that? These people are probably the most receptive to your offer of further products and services.

But, beware, if you haven't contacted them at all since you made your last sale, don't just blast them with a sales pitch. That will go down like a lead balloon.

So what can you do?

Try regularly keeping them informed about things that are related to your product but are helpful to them. It could be tips on how to use your service or product better, changes in legislation that affect them or research progress that could help them in the future when they are considering replacement. The objective is to be their helpful friend in your sector.

By all means add a small piece at the end of your connection to remind them about what you have to offer, but don't make it an all out sales pitch.

The easiest way to do this of course is by email. That way the process is much simpler and cost effective. If you haven't been keeping in touch in the past, don't expect a huge rush of orders from your first mailings. But if you seed links back to appropriate parts of your website for more information, or a phone number to call for help, you could end up with some leads you might have otherwise lost to your competition.

Managing an on-going email campaign such as this can be difficult without the right tools.

There are two providers I use regularly, aWeber - probably accepted as the industry standard, and SendFree - not quite free if you want the emails to look right, but still inexpensive.

If you would like to go down this route and need some help and guidance, please contact me through my site Alloy CRM site where I help businesses increase sales, revenue and profit.

http://alloycrm.aweber.com/
http://www.sendfree.com/affref/105448/