UNIT 1

What Is Customer Relationship Management (CRM)?

Customer relationship management (CRM) refers to the principles, practices, and guidelines
that an organization follows when interacting with its customers.

From the organization's point of view, this entire relationship encompasses direct interactions
with customers, such as sales and service-related processes, forecasting, and the analysis of
customer trends and behaviors. Ultimately, CRM serves to enhance the customer's overall
experience.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 Customer relationship management includes the principles, practices, and guidelines an

organization follows when interacting with its customers.
 CRM is often used to refer to technology companies and systems that help manage
external interactions with customers.
 Major areas of growth in CRM technology include software, cloud computing, and
artificial intelligence.

CRM goals

Improve Buyer's Journey

Reaching customers at the right time is key. Your CRM software optimizes your marketing
efforts and helps you reach customers at the right time.

A clear buyer's journey with an integrated Customer Relationship Management will identify
opportunities for better engagement with your customers. It also helps your sales team identify
new leads.

Let's say you have a buyer's journey mapped out. A CRM goals will help you:

 Make a well-informed decision about your customers.

 Focus on the right leads for your sales team.
 Stay on top of all engagements with your customers.
Additionally, you can create user-friendly dashboards to help salespeople and marketers monitor
the engagement activities with your customers.

A well-designed CRM will also allow you to automate tasks and trigger emails to help you
achieve your goals.

So, how do you accomplish these tasks? Look at the buyer's journey below:

 Determine and track the vision for your buyer's journey.

 Determine which customers are ready to buy from you.

Only then will you be able to:

 Best manage the customer relationship lifecycle.

 Track customer lifecycle activities.
 Identify your customers’ needs.

The ultimate CRM goal is to increase the number of sales. And the easiest way to do that is to
have a detailed buyer's journey mapped out.

Once you have a buyer's journey mapped out, your CRM software should have the capacity to
help you reach your customers at the right time.

Boost Sales Operational Efficiency

No matter what your sales process is, a CRM goals will help you optimize your efforts and
achieve better results. It will also make your jobs easier and help you focus on what’s important.

CRM Goals can help you:

 Manage your customer engagements and track the conversations you've had with your
customers.
 Carry out some simple research to see how your customers are responding to your
messages.
 Take available data from your CRM and use it to enhance your sales process.
A well-designed CRM will help you track your customer interactions and help you get more
efficient over time.

Increase Customer Retention and Loyalty

Keeping your customers is always a good idea. Once you have satisfied a customer, you can
always count on them to return.

A well-designed CRM goals will help you keep track of your customers and their preferences
and help you manage your relationships with them better.

A CRM goals can contain a vast amount of data. From their email addresses and phone numbers
to their interests and hobbies, a CRM can help you collect massive amounts of information. As a
result, it can help you better serve your customers and retain them for longer.

So, how can a CRM goals help you with customer retention?

 Make your customers feel important and feel better about their buying decision.
 Give them some sort of reward or recognition for buying from you again.
 Always be on top of all your customer contacts.
 Track your customer activity trends, so you know what your customers expect from you.

Lower Customer Acquisition Cost

Your CRM goals software can also help you lower your Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC). A
clear buyer's journey, for instance, can streamline your customer acquisition efforts.

A CRM goals can help you:

 Reduce the number of leads you're sending to your sales team.

 Be on top of all your customer activities.

A well-designed CRM goals will help you track all your customers and make sure you don't send
your sales team irrelevant leads.
You can also use your CRM goals to:

 Automate your lead generation activities.

 Eliminate the number of non-paying customers.
 Find out why customers are not buying from you.
 Keep track of your campaign progress and expenses.

Generate More Sales

The CRM goals here is simple. You want to generate more sales leads and increase your
conversion rate.

A well-designed CRM goals will help you track your customer activity and behavior, to help you
understand what customer actions indicate that they're ready to buy. Once you've identified these
actions, you can follow up to get more sales leads. You can also segregate your leads into
various buckets based on whether they're in the buying process, ready to make a purchase or
already purchased from you. Once you've identified your leads, you can trigger emails to reach
them at the right time. You can also create lead-scoring rules to identify the right people to
target. To know more about such sales engagement software, check out Outreach.

TYPES OF CRM

1. Operational CRM systems

Operational CRM are designed to help execute sales, marketing, and customer service functions.
They help streamline and manage all the ways your company interacts with customers.

The main goal of this type of operational CRM is improving customer acquisition and retention:
they help generate new leads, nurture them, convert them into customers, and retain them
through ongoing marketing communications and high-quality customer service.

Businesses of all sizes use operational CRM systems and frequently enable time-saving CRM
automations, including:

 Marketing automations. Marketing automation can target specific customer segments

with emails, texts, and digital ads. These can be initiated by triggers, like a purchase or
landing page visit. For longer sales cycles, operational CRM can track touchpoints,
automate follow-ups, and indicate when a lead should progress to a sales lead.
  Sales automation. Like marketing automation, sales automation uses behavioral triggers
to help your sales team automatically provide customers with strategic communications
at specific points in the sales process. They also help you score and manage leads and can
automatically generate sales forecasting reports.
 Customer service automation. CRM customer service automations include self-service
features, live chat and AI-powered chatbots, and automated email responses, which can
help you efficiently handle customer requests.

2. Analytical CRM systems

Whereas an operational CRM system helps get leads into your sales funnel, an analytical CRM
system enables you to understand how your prospects are moving through your sales funnel. 

Analytical CRM systems capture, store, and analyze customer data to provide insights into how
customers interact with your business, allowing you to assess the effectiveness of marketing,
sales, and customer service efforts and adjust your strategy accordingly. You might run a report
on six recent marketing campaigns, analyze the data to gauge their efficacy, and model future
campaigns on the winning example’s tactics.

Analytical CRM can also run performance reports, such as sales history and customer service
satisfaction scores, allowing you to leverage the strengths of high-performing team members and
identify areas for employee development.

Analytical CRM are used by businesses of all sizes and are particularly valuable for those
focused on improving their customer relationship management practices. 

3. Collaborative CRM systems

In a large business, sales, marketing, and customer support teams frequently collaborate on client
accounts. The main goal of a collaborative CRM is to improve customer experience and
streamline business processes by facilitating communication between departments.

Collaborative CRM are particularly popular with large businesses—companies with large
customer bases in which multiple people service individual client accounts. Here’s an example of
how communication between departments might play out over a customer life cycle:

1. A sales team member gathers information on a new lead at an event and uploads it to the
CRM database.
2. A marketing team member inputs the new lead into an automated marketing campaign. 
 3. When your sales team member reaches out with a follow-up call, they can see the
customer’s entire history with your company, from the initial conversation at the event to
their engagement with marketing materials.
4. Your new customer makes a purchase, automatically prompting a customer service call to
thank them for their business.
5. The customer submits a customer request, which notifies a customer service
representative via the CRM. Because the customer service agent has access to the
customer’s entire marketing, sales, and customer service history, they can resolve the
issue quickly.

4. Strategic CRM systems

Strategic CRM are sometimes lumped in with collaborative CRM and provide many of the same
features. The difference is that while collaborative CRM focuses on immediate improvements,
strategic CRM concentrates on long-term customer engagement. Their main goal is to support
customer retention and increase customer loyalty.

Strategic CRM collects information about customer needs and priorities to provide value to your
client base. For example, they might tell you which communications channels specific customers
prefer to use. They’re handy for businesses requiring long-term customer relationship
management, such as an IT company that provides clients with ongoing data management
services.

The 3 components of successful CRM architecture

CRM Strategy

 THE RISK:  Without a strategy, data doesn't have a home

Customer relationship management is a strategy that reinforces the continuous nurturing

of customer relationships to increase revenue and profitability. Despite a standard focus on

building customer relationships, every company will have its own slightly different take on what

its CRM strategy should look like. What won’t change is the role of CRM strategy as the high-

level, big-picture outline of a CRM architecture. Spelling out the reason behind adopting a CRM

lays the groundwork for the structure and processes that will help execute on goals. This includes
considering the role that CRM software will play in aiding with customer relationship

management.

CRM Structure

THE RISK:  Without a structure, data is disorganized

If strategy is the big picture, a CRM structure is a more detailed map of the components that

make up that strategy. The structure will be tailored to a company’s sales cycle, customer

journey, and customer profiles to provide a practical roadmap for achieving CRM goals.

In terms of software, a CRM will be structured with specific fields, modules,

and integrations that support customer contact, service delivery, and data collection. The

structure itself will lay out different stages of the customer journey and consider

any marketing or customer service touch points that a customer may encounter along the way.

Having integration with other software will be especially important here to get a holistic view of

a customer.

The structure is also where a company decides on the types of data that it wants to collect, as

well as the logic and structural rules for making sure that the data remains clean (i.e., not

duplicated or outdated). Data that can be used for analysis and recommendations should be

prioritized for collection.

CRM Process
 THE RISK:  Without a process, data falls through the cracks

Processes are the final pieces of the CRM architectural puzzle. Processes outline the more

practical considerations and actionable aspects of executing on customer relationship

management, including the how and when of dealing with customers on an individual level.

Think of these as the “if this, then that” scenarios of the customer journey. Processes ensure that

employees are leading customers along the appropriate journey based on previous actions or

interactions. CRM software aids in this process with the help of rules, triggers, and automation,

which notify employees of pending actions or opportunities to connect with customers. Processes

also ensure that employees are taking the right steps to collect data or record interactions with

customers when necessary. Processes can also apply to lead sourcing and scoring to capture data

before the lead becomes a full-fledged customer. The data collected during this part of the

journey will form the basis for creating customer personas, monitoring sales performance,

and making forecasts of future sales outcomes.

UNIT 2

Operational CRM helps you store customer information, deals, and leads in a unified
repository. It boosts efficiency via service automation, allowing businesses to make the most out
of limited resources.

Sales-force Automation

It helps businesses to automate the entire sales cycle. Sales-force automation identifies new
prospects, keeps track of customer interactions, makes sales projections, and manages
documentation. Sales reps can specify conditions for workflows to optimize time. This allows
them to build lasting relationships with their customers and spend time on essential activities
instead of mundane tasks.

Lead generation is a significant focus of Sales-force automation apart from serving existing
customers. Operational CRM assists you in documenting all communication with prospects and
leads to convert them to customers.

Lead management is a systematic process in which incoming leads are qualified, analyzed, and
nurtured so that they can be converted into new business opportunities. In a typical sales process,
leads from multiple channels enter your lead management system, and the sales-ready leads are
converted into deals. You need to have a lead management platform in place if you want to make
the most of prospects who are interested in your product or service.
Contact management is a means of entering customer and lead data for storage, quick access,
editing and tracking. Contact management can be as simple as a spreadsheet or as complex as
customer relationship management (CRM) software.

By digitizing contact management, you can give your employees access to valuable customer
data. All departments can view the same data, so you speed up communication and streamline
processes. When you make communication more efficient, you can focus less on business tasks
and more on your customers.

In today’s business environment, you must do more than just personalize a sales email with
someone’s name in order to make a sale. Customers are loyal to companies that remember their
specific preferences, and they expect a stellar experience every time they place an order online or
receive a package in the mail. Going above and beyond not only creates repeat sales but also
encourages referrals, which could significantly decrease your overall customer acquisition costs. 

Key takeaway: Contact management is how you enter your customer and lead data for storage,
access, editing, and tracking, so it’s essential for growing and diversifying your customer base.

Field force management software is the obvious answer to these questions. Any industry that
relies on a field force will value digital technology since it keeps the sales and service teams
connected and under observation, which increases productivity and improves efficiency. Your
concerns about managing your sales and service teams’ field activities and enhancing
performance are eliminated by the field force management tool.
Your complete field sales team can be managed with a field force management app, which keeps
track of their activities, travel, meetings, and more. It makes your field force team an effective
one and keeps you up to date on anything you want to know. Features including the ability to
manage their daily schedule, update meeting status, submit quotes and invoices, check on visit
status, and many more can be carried automatically through the field force management app,
improving sales and service outcomes.

What Is Enterprise Marketing Management in CRM?

Enterprise Marketing Management in CRM is a module that helps in providing, maintaining, and
monitoring the structure of promotional campaigns by an enterprise. It is like a marketing
assistant for enterprises.
What exactly is an enterprise?
Enterprises are large organizations that generate $100 Million+ in the Annual Recurring
Revenue.
So, for these enterprises, enterprise marketing management module works as a single platform to
fulfill all their marketing needs such as omnichannel campaign management, campaign analysis,
managing marketing resources and customer experience management. EMM in CRM ensures
excellent customer experience from presales to post sales stages.
Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM) is closely related to Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) , but it supports majorly the marketing related activities. Apart from
maintaining the customer database, it also assists in generating new leads.

What Is Market Segmentation?

Market segmentation is a marketing term that refers to aggregating prospective buyers into
groups or segments with common needs and who respond similarly to a marketing action.
Market segmentation enables companies to target different categories of consumers who
perceive the full value of certain products and services differently from one another.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 Market segmentation seeks to identify targeted groups of consumers to tailor products

and branding in a way that is attractive to the group.
 Markets can be segmented in several ways such as geographically, demographically, or
behaviorally.
  Market segmentation helps companies minimize risk by figuring out which products are
the most likely to earn a share of a target market and the best ways to market and deliver
those products to the market.
 With risk minimized and clarity about the marketing and delivery of a product
heightened, a company can then focus its resources on efforts likely to be the most
profitable.
 Market segmentation can also increase a company's demographic reach and may help the
company discover products or services they hadn't previously considered.

Why Is Market Segmentation Important?

Market segmentation realizes that not all customers have the same interests, purchasing power,
or consumer needs. Instead of catering to all prospective clients broadly, market segmentation is
important because it strives to make a company's marketing endeavors more strategic and
refined. By developing specific plans for specific products with target audiences in mind, a
company can increase its chances of generating sales and being more efficient with resources.

Campaign Management: This module of enterprise marketing management software ensures

that every campaign on different platforms delivers the same marketing communication to create
a continuous flow. It aims at establishing the right touch point to interact with every customer
and prospect at the right moment.

 3. Customer Service and Support:

Customer service is the service or care that a consumer receives before, during and after a
purchase. It’s one of the factors that come in to play when a consumer is determining buying
value, the other is the quality of the product or service that is being offered. Consumers often
must encounter an experience to not only be a satisfied customer, but a loyal customer.

Customer service is a part of that experience. Top notch service will create loyalty and a
returning customer, which is what we all must strive for. Excellent customer service is vital to
businesses today. It’s a component that is often missing, unfortunately. How do you provide
great customer service? Always make your customer a priority.

Greet them in a friendly manner, whether that be via telephone, email or in person. Let them
know you are there to help and that you will take care of them, not only before the sale but after
as well. After all, in a thriving business customers are not optional it’s a requirement for
businesses to survive.
 Contact and Call Centre Operations:
A contact center, also known as customer interaction center, is a central point of any
organization from which all customer contacts are managed. Through contact centers, valuable
information about company is routed to appropriate people, contacts to be tracked and data to be
gathered. It is generally a part of company’s customer relationship management (CRM). Today,
customers contact companies by calling, emailing, chatting online, visiting websites, faxing, and
even instant messaging.

Call Centre worker at a very small workstation/booth, using Call Web Internet-based survey
software, “most companies use statistics from their call center products to track their CSR
(customer service representative) performance, evaluating their performance and compensating
them according to the volume of calls they support.
 UNIT 3

What is Analytical CRM?

Analytical CRM is a subset of CRM in which a company collects data about its customer
interactions, to increase customer satisfaction and customer retention rates. Analytical CRM is
a behind-the-scenes process; the client is not aware of the capture and analysis of their actions and
interactions with the company.

Companies may forecast consumer behavior and recommend goods to which they are more likely
to respond better based on the information collected about customer behaviors, experiences, and
the end effects of these experiences. 

TYPES OF DATA ANALYSIS

What is OLAP?
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) is a category of software that allows users to analyze
information from multiple database systems at the same time. It is a technology that enables
analysts to extract and view business data from different points of view.

Analysts frequently need to group, aggregate and join data. These OLAP operations in data
mining are resource intensive. With OLAP data can be pre-calculated and pre-aggregated,
making analysis faster.
OLAP databases are divided into one or more cubes. The cubes are designed in such a way that
creating and viewing reports become easy. OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing.
How does it work?

A Data warehouse would extract information from multiple data sources and formats like text
files, excel sheet, multimedia files, etc.

The extracted data is cleaned and transformed. Data is loaded into an OLAP server (or OLAP
cube) where information is pre-calculated in advance for further analysis.

Clickstream Analysis

A form of Web analytics (see separate entry), clickstream analysis is the tracking and analysis of
visits to websites. Although there are other ways to collect this data, clickstream analysis
typically uses the Web server log files to monitor and measure website activity. This analysis can
be used to report user behavior on a specific website, such as routing, stickiness (a user’s
tendency to remain at the website), where users come from and where they go from the site. It
can also be used for more aggregate measurements, such as the number of hits (visits), page
views, and unique and repeat visitors, which are of value in understanding how the website
operates from a technical, user experience and business perspective.

Collaborative Filtering

Collaborative Filtering! This is a method of making automatic predictions (filtering) about the
interests of a shopper by collecting preferences or taste information from many users
(collaborating). The underlying assumption of the collaborative filtering approach is that if a
person A has the same opinion as a person B on an issue, A is more likely to have B’s opinion on
a different issue than that of a randomly chosen person. In the more general sense, collaborative
filtering is the process of filtering for information or patterns using techniques involving
collaboration among multiple agents, viewpoints, data sources, etc.

There are two types of collaborative filtering:

Collaborative Filtering [CF] : 
This involves finding the best products to display within a carousel, on a given product page, to
preserve the interest of a customer during their journey in an eCommerce website & enhance
relevant product discovery. The algorithm finds the typical prospective products that a customer
might showcase interest in, based on a source/base product within the same category.
Cross-Product Collaborative Filtering [CP] : 
Same as the above, the only difference being, that the recommendations are done for other
categories that are affine to the source/base category. This recommendation can be shown in a
product page, in the cart page or at the point when an order has been placed. This is analogous to
cross-selling in retail, meant to enhance cross category product discovery & enhanced
customer experience.

What is Collaborative Business Intelligence (CBI)?

The term "collaborative" refers to an organized group of people who work towards achieving a
common goal. Business intelligence, on the other hand, is defined as a process driven by
technology that is used for data analysis and presentation of actionable information that assists
executives, managers, and other corporate end-users to make informed business decisions. 

Collaborative Business Intelligence (CBI) is a concept that involves the integration of Business
Intelligence (BI) and collaborative technological tools in order to support an organization in
making new and improved business decisions. 

Other advantages of including BI in your CRM are:

 Appraisal and pricing: With the help of big data resulting from interactions with
customers, companies can more accurately price products and services. BI would
contribute to the management of dynamic prices looking for increases in income,
supported by the review of real-time inventory and supplier data. All together it would
provide better financial forecasts and customer behavior trends.
 Decision making: By processing a larger volume of data, BI can distinguish various
trends around marketing such as shopping behavior analysis, preferred hours, favorite
trends, and industry influences. With this, a CRM can better interact with its customers
and influence their opinions in favor of the brand.
 Better segmentation and customer engagement: with the results obtained from the Big
Data processing of BI, a CRM can recognize customer behavior. This allows a better
differentiation, segmentation, and identification of those market niches that are still
unexplored. Likewise, it is also possible to interact proactively with customers through
emails, calls, sales meetings, and therefore providing enough valuable content. All this
has a positive impact on the customer’s experience with the brand.
 Optimization of customer service: with the huge volume of data processed by BI,
multichannel marketing strategies can be implemented with personalized messages and
outreach programs. This increases interaction with customers, improves their experience,
and increases sales and audience retention.
 Loyalty programs: A CRM can take advantage of the information offered by BI to
recognize which are the most profitable customers for the company. With that
information, you can work on building your relationship with them and provide loyalty
benefits. This has a favorable effect on customer satisfaction which improves retention
rates and increases the possibility of being recommended to other people.
 UNIT 4

Customer Relationship Managemen t is a necessary part of all business these days.

You all must be aware that CRM helps in increasing the sales of a company and guarantees
first-class customer experience.
Apart from that, it plays another major role in monitoring the performance of all the business
processes.
CRM tools are smart software’s with all the features required to make a business successful.
There are many ways in which CRM helps to monitor the performance. Let’s discuss them in
detail:

Direct Feedback from Customers

We all know CRM helps to maintain open communication with its customers.
Therefore, getting feedback from the customer’s using CRM is also easy.
Through emails and social media, consumers can openly share their opinions with the
company’s and suggest new amendments that can be made. 

Time to Revise Policies

A lot of processes are automated using CRM, due to which a lot of time is left with the
employees to go through the existing policies and procedures and introduce new changes
which may improve the revenues. 

Monitoring Sales of the Company

A right CRM consists of features to prepare sales reports on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly
basis.

These reports are generated automatically in the system to compare the sales statistics and
prepare future for the company.
Therefore, CRM helps in monitoring the sales of the company which can further shape the
future of the company.

Check on Clients Needs

Using the right kind of CRM, you can get to know the needs of the customer according to their
previous activities.
All these processes are automated, and you can get the attention of your consumers with very
little effort.
It not only makes them happy but also earns a lot of profits for the company and hence
production is enhanced

What is CRM project management?

CRM project management essentially describes combining the functions and tasks — and in the
case of software, features — of customer relationship management with those of project
management. This could touch several areas, such as communication, task ownership,
operations, and more. Most commonly, we see it in the collaboration between sales and
marketing teams. Since these teams often rely on things like customer feedback, conversion stats,
and other data, it makes sense that a CRM platform with project management solutions is a
natural meeting point. However, many teams are working in silos via separate tools, which then
leads to inconsistencies in workflows, information, and more.

Benefits of combining CRM and project management

Let’s quickly sum up some benefits of a CRM project management approach:

 Better data management with everything in one place

 Improved deliverables, i.e., the people creating a product or service can also see
customer feedback
 Time and money saved on using one tool and reducing time spent on inefficient
communication
 Cross-department alignment with access for everyone

CRM BUDGET

1. Invest time in gathering your requirements

Before selecting your CRM, you need to understand how the technology will function within
your small business. Investigating your requirements is a vital step in minimizing purchasing
risks and other costly mistakes that might do an organization more harm than good.
As well assessing tools and functionality, it’s important to think about how your potential new
CRM system aligns with your company values and long-term strategic goals.
Begin by identifying problems that exist in your current situation, for example, poor workflow or
inefficient processes. Through establishing what outcomes, you wish to bring about first, you can
work towards gathering a list of requirements.

2. Build in contingency for unanticipated costs

No matter the scale of the project or how meticulous your research is prior to implementation,
there could be unforeseen expenses. For example, with some CRM systems there are
implementation fees, and the costs rise if your CRM requires fine-tuning to better fit your
business needs. However, there are options available that you can easily customize yourself and
where implementation and support are completely free of charge.
Training is another area often overlooked when it comes to future-proofing your finances. Often
these costs are unavoidable so it’s best to plan for them from the outset or find a CRM that
is easy to use and where you can train your team in minutes.
For small businesses it’s rare you would need to bring in a CRM consultant. This is unlikely to
be a cost-effective solution. But you might want to think about budgeting for an in-house
member of staff to manage CRM admin, if you feel it’s warranted.

3. Consider the need for continued user training

User-adoption rates are integral to the success or failure of a CRM implementation project.
When selecting a CRM, establish if there are any learning resources provided by the vendor.
Look out for live training webinars, videos and on-line chat to help.
There should be a plan in place to fund continuous learning from onboarding for new employees
to refresher training. Even a small number of staff need to be provided with the optimal support.
Regardless of the size of your workforce, users should have access to the tools they need to fully
embrace your CRM system.

Key Account Management (KAM)

Key account management (KAM) is the process of planning and managing a mutually beneficial
partnership between an organization and its most important customers. Key accounts are
significant to an organization’s sustainable, long-term growth and require a substantial
investment of both time and resources. Salespeople must develop a clear strategy and program
structure to serve and grow these strategic accounts.
Key Account Management Strategy

1. How transactional your current sales process is.

2. If your product has upsell and cross-sell potential.

 3. Your ability to ‘land and expand.’

4. The competitive landscape you’re facing.

5. Company capacity and resources.

Despite the potential benefits of key account management to your bottom line, it's not a good fit
for every organization.

Consider the following points before you go all-in on a key account strategy.

1. How transactional your current sales process is.

If your sales cycle is relatively short and your sales reps have minimal interactions with
prospects, key account management probably isn't the right choice. Key accounts require
consultative selling techniques — and it will be hard to teach your salespeople to adopt entirely
new processes for just a few clients.

2. If your product has upsell and cross-sell potential.

There's little point in continuing a relationship with the customer after the sale if they're not
going to buy more. (Obviously, you still want to provide excellent customer service and support
to promote word-of-mouth marketing and high retention rates.)

3. Your ability to 'land and expand.’

The above rule has an exception: If you can get your foot in the door of the prospect's company
and then grow the account by selling to other departments, offices, subsidiaries, etc., a key
account strategy may be a good investment.

4. The competitive landscape you're facing.

A key account program can serve as a competitive advantage. For example, imagine your
customer has narrowed down their choice of vendor to you and one another company. If you can
promise to make them a key account — and your competition can't do the same — you're likely
to win the deal.

5. Company capacity and resources.

Successful key account management depends on company-wide support, executive buy-in, and a
dedicated key account team. You'll also need enough runway for an investment that might take
12, 24, or 36 months to recoup.

What is CRM’s return on investment?

By managing each stage of the sales lifecycle more efficiently, a typical CRM system provides a
high return on investment. Of course, you can get by without making that investment. You may
be able to cobble together a CRM customer data repository using spreadsheets and email. It’s a
safe guess that anywhere between 30 to 40 percent of marketers do. But as you grow, you’ll
quickly discover the law of diminishing returns and realize that you need a CRM system.

ROI measures the efficiency of an investment. Even though it can be expressed in dollars, it’s a
ratio—a ratio of income earned to the cost to finance the CRM investment. The goal is to have
the ratio be more than 100% to avoid losing money. ROI figures can be calculated for nearly
anything into which you can make an investment and measure an outcome. The outcome of your
ROI calculation will vary depending on which figures are included as revenue and costs. If you
don’t sell more, your return will be much lower. To calculate your ROI, you first need to
determine what incremental revenue your new CRM system will bring in. And to do that, you
need metrics.