Acquiring new customers is five times more expensive than keeping the ones you already have, so customer turnover could be the largest financial burden for your business. By getting to know your customers and learning how to make them feel special, you build up a detailed picture of them and take steps towards retaining their business.

So, what CRM software can you use to help you know your customers better? How can you increase customer satisfaction? And what can you do to make customers feel special?

We’ve recently produced a guide to improving customer loyalty and here our some of our ideas for making your customers feel special.

What is customer satisfaction?

In short customer satisfaction is a measure of how your business meets or surpasses customers’ expectations.  It means retained customers generate long-term business for you, delivering positive feedback and great testimonials. Without it, customer churn increases and reputation risks damage through negative word of mouth marketing. In fact, in our recent customer experience survey we found that one in three consumers would ditch a company for good after just one below-par experience.

How do I increase customer satisfaction?

Understanding what your existing customers want and delivering it to them effectively is the best way to satisfy; meaning you can secure repeat orders, keep and retain your customers and benefit from positive word of mouth. Ways of doing this might include;

Customer loyalty schemes

You can immediately make a customer feel special and valued with a reward or loyalty scheme that offers them perks throughout the year…and they might even tell their colleagues and friends about it too! For example, we gave our lucky SageCover customers their very own VIP area at our recent SageWorld event.  Nice armchairs, trendy bags and tasty cakes all round!

Analysing customer data

Use the data you are gain everyday to find out a little more about your customers – like their propensity to buy at certain times of year or previous products they have bought – anything that might indicate their purchase preferences and behaviours. Then tailor your marketing to fit with the profile you have built up of them – something personalised or highly topical to them is much more likely to get through. Getting the right CRM software, or Customer Relationship Management software, can help with this.

Encouraging customer feedback

Giving your customers a chance to engage in two-way dialogue with you is vital. This could be through feedback surveys, social media, review meetings etc. It shows that you are more than just a business; it shows you have empathy and that you want to develop a relationship with customers – no bad thing! Here at Sage we try to do as much as possible.  We’d love you to hear from you through our Sage UK Twitter feed, our Facebook page or even by commenting on this blog.

Effective complaints management

Customer complaints can be telling, so it’s essential to deal with them efficiently, fairly and ensure the customer receives a satisfactory response and follow up. If a complaint is handled effectively, it can give you important root cause information that may help you to predict future issues or trends.

Improved customer service

Customer service needs to be sincere for it to be effective, so it’s vital to ensure that your staff are trained to fulfil this. If your staff can consistently treat all customers with respect and show efficiency, you will gain customer satisfaction and are sure to retain their business in the long-term.

Iain Ramsay, Small Business Team

Sage Business Partners

In case you don’t know, SalesLogix is our CRM solution that is available either on premise or as a cloud-based CRM system.  Our Business Partners are highly experienced, professional CRM experts who not only know how to install, configure and customise Sage’s CRM solution, SalesLogix, but can help you lay out your CRM plan and strategy.

We’re proud of our Business Partner community; they truly are experts in their fields, and it’s absolutely key that they are kept up to date with the latest information about our products and industry innovations. Our CRM solution lives in a world of innovation and we consistently deliver CRM leadership through our SalesLogix’s roadmap. The new innovations in SalesLogix deliver what customers are demanding in today’s world to help people to take advantage of the modern work world.

So, how do we keep our Business Partners up to date? And how do we make sure that the information our Business Partners glean from customers is fed back into future product development? One way is through our SalesLogix Boot Camp.

Our global CRM community

The SalesLogix Boot Camp is a truly global event that delivers the knowledge our Business Partner’s need to help our customers’ in their CRM journey as well as sharing the latest innovations and customer feedback. I was lucky enough to attend this year’s event in November in Arizona, along with people from Spain, France, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Holland, United Kingdom and America.

CRM – the hot topics

Getting together a group of CRM experts from across the globe gives a great opportunity to discuss not just our roadmap and CRM vision, but also the key topics affecting the community from mobile, to analytics, and of course cloud.

But our Business Partners agree that the most important part is talking with our customers, and hearing firsthand about the things they want. Overall the feedback was they want an affordable, flexible CRM system that “works the way I do” on “the devices I use” – so we are focussed on enabling our customers to work more efficiently in a way that suits them.

Celebrating success and innovation

We’re an innovative bunch in the SalesLogix team. As a team we’ve introduced the new HTML5 Mobile client which can happily work on a variety of mobile devices such as iPhone, Andriod and BlackBerry. We encourage the same attitude in our Business Partner community and it was great that Europe dominated the nattily named Business Partner Customisation Competition aka Geekapolooza. The winner was Alberto Chiesa from Gianos Consulting (Italy) with an application he wrote over 4 nights, followed by Mark Cooper from Qgate (England) and 3^rd place for Domenico Catrambone also from Gianos Consulting.

What’s in the future for SalesLogix?

So, with all this talk of innovation and customer insight what does the future bring for SalesLogix? The consensus from our Business Partners was that “SalesLogix Version 8 looks cool.” So what’s coming? Well, sorry, you’re going to have to wait and see! Version 8 communications will start early in 2012, but let’s just say our Business Partners are excited and even the English guys were whooping and clapping!

Of course, not all the talk is of CRM at these events. Most of our Business Partners were able to join us for dinner followed by karaoke. They’re a talented lot our Business Partners. Not only can they help you with your CRM system they can do a pretty mean Elvis rendition too! What more do you need?

Check out #slxbootcamp for more of our antics.

Duncan Wood, Sage Saleslogix Expert

Follow Duncan on Twitter

The business partners that came along from our part of the world were (in alphabetical order):

• http://www.bond-solutions.com/
• http://www.cbssolutions.com/
• http://www.collierpickard.co.uk/
• http://www.datel.info/
• http://www.dmcsoftware.co.uk/
• http://www.empath-e.com/
• http://www.gianos.it/
• http://www.managedsaleslogix.com
• http://www.pinnacle-online.com/
• http://www.qgate.co.uk
• http://www.seelogic.co.uk

So, articulating the benefits of a proposition is a key skill. It’s not enough to say “here’s a great CRM tool, where can we make it fit?” It is all about proving where software can make a difference – in terms that really matter:

• increasing revenue,
• avoiding costs,
• or improving service

Returns that can be shown to be objective, detailed and quantifiable.

No, more than ever, is the time to be measurable. How do you make sure you think in terms of benefits ?

Where to start? Understand the current processes in a company. How long do typical activities take to complete? How many steps and people are involved? What does that add up to in time (and money)? How can they be improved – looking not just at direct costs but also the risks of lost or incorrect steps along the way. Now think about CRM tools and how they can improve upon the current situation. What is that worth to a buyer – in terms that really matter – Increasing Revenue, Avoiding Costs or Improving Service?

Shape your conversations to those discussions. Talk about the returns, the money saved or the value created. The return that will “keep on giving” each & every day. Show a tangible return on investment, with real savings that can be measured in months, not years. Help the company commit to a well defined project that demonstrates tangible improvements to current processes. And be sure to engage the “selling part” of the business – find a group of salespeople willing to innovate to achieve for themselves and ultimately, their company.

Be prepared to be measured.

New customers need to be put into your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for sales and aftercare, right? But you also need them in your finance system so you can bill them.  Employees get put in your HR and Payroll solution and then the HRM cost is input separately into your journal? Suppliers in your Sales system and your purchase ledger….the list goes on, as do the associated personnel costs.

Integration Generation

Different business applications manage customer information; front-office employees use CRM applications that support customer-facing activities, such as sales, marketing and customer service. Whereas back office employees use ERP systems that support transactional reporting and compliancy activities, such as invoicing, account receivable, cash-flow management and financial reporting.

While front-office applications have historically been developed around the idea of cross-organisational collaboration, back-office applications, by contrast have been insular in nature. This may possibly be  due to the legacy of the systems or perhaps the need for increased security within finance operations that has lead to reluctance in opening this data up to the rest of the business.

The lack of cross pollination of data from front to back office has historically lead companies to run business applications that have struggled to address key business needs. This is particularly true where  customer related processes cross from front to back office processing such as sales order processing and supply chain management, leading to silo’s of information, administrative inefficiencies and process duplication.

Today’s CRM and ERP systems have gone someway to address these common problems experienced in medium and large sized businesses –enhanced integration, workflow management, exceptions monitoring, mandatory fields and data moving from one part of the application to the other have all provided capabilities that increase front to back office integration, for example:

• Consistent data across ERP and CRM applications.
• 360 degree customer visibility, regardless of whether the customer data originated in the ERP or CRM.
• Straight through processing – which enables a user to initiate a transaction, and then automatically trigger all the business related processes.

The Sage integration advantage

I’ve been lucky enough to work within the team at Sage that looks at these challenges and develops solutions, such as Sage ERP X3 to address them. Front-to-back office integration is essential for companies – regardless of their size – to bring together disconnected employees, applications, data and develop business processes in order to help drive revenue, serve customers more efficiently and reduce cost.

Our approach to assimilating business management software is to focus on improving and simplifying the integration experience for all of our users. This is achieved by developing ERP products that, out-of-the-box, are compatible with market leading Sage CRM solutions. We also have our own integration contract. This technology, known as SData, is a common interface that enables desktop, server and web-based applications to communicate with each other and is used across the Sage organisation around the world.

The Sage ERP advantage

Using SData, our flagship ERP products now provide out-of-the box integration with Sage CRM solutions.  This equips businesses with a low cost, low complexity solution that in the short term gives the user consistent customer data across their front and back office environments, provides straight through processing and a 360 degree view of the customer. And in the long term will provide a decrease in administrative costs, increased customer satisfaction and the opportunity to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

Julia Commons, Sage ERP Team

Visit our ERP pages for more information.

It has been around for years. Whether you’re accessing Facebook, Amazon, Hotmail, YouTube, Sage CRM OnDemand or Sage One, you’re using cloud computing. You tap in to huge banks of data through some very complex programs, each of which are hosted on various forms of physical hardware, located elsewhere in the world.

The term “cloud computing” incorporates all of the clever networking, languages, programs and environments that allow us to do this. It refers to our ability to link to computer technologies globally through our modest internet connection.

Why the big fuss?

Whilst types of cloud computing have been around for years, the ability to link to these technologies has only recently started to mature. IT investment is expected to focus on this area in the coming years. Where certain technologies were once out of reach for particular businesses, they are now accessible.

Take software, for example. Traditionally, it came on a disc and you loaded it on to your hard drive. In a larger business it was stored on local servers, where the IT department would have needed to buy and install the software, as well as set up and maintain the servers it ran on.

More recently, however, software that we access through our web browser has become more popular. This is known as ‘software as a service’ (SaaS), and is one of three components classified within cloud computing. Sage One and Sage CRM On Demand are examples of software we host and provide using cloud computing.

‘I’ve heard of Saas, but what else is involved with cloud computing?’

I’ve introduced you to the first component of cloud computing, SaaS. There are two more. The second component is ‘platform as a service’ (PaaS). While SaaS allows access to software through a browser, PaaS offers much more than just buying and installing the software. It allows an organisation’s IT department or IT supplier to:

(i)      Source or build and maintain the platform for the users to work from.

(ii)    Customise the software to fit the organisation’s processes.

(iii)  Develop software for its users.

This can be a complex process. PaaS providers allow their customers to build software and make changes to it using a simple internet connection in an environment they have built, support and manage.

The third component is ‘infrastructure as a service’ (IaaS). Data, hardware, servers and networking components require ongoing maintenance. Providers offer to host products in a central location and provide access to them through a secure internet connection. Huge buildings full of hardware exist worldwide, with masses of virtual and real-life security. They are there to ensure that no one can access those servers but the customers using their internet connection thousands of miles away. This service is IaaS.

Cloud computing gives IT buyers access to technologies, without the constraints of large upfront fixed costs, space, power or extensive setup times. As technology continues to improve and develop, the ability to access the best products and services from anywhere in the world is also improving and evolving.

‘Does Sage offer any Cloud applications?’

Yes – we have partnered with a major provider of cloud technologies, Amazon EC2, to host our business relationship software, Sage SalesLogix on the Cloud.

Most hosted software only offers what is known as ‘multi tenant’ software. While this means you can access your own data, the core of the software is still shared by all users of the service, so it can’t really be customised to suit a business’s processes.

We are offering a more extensive application – leasing our customer their own servers (with backup) on which they can host their version of Sage SalesLogix. Sage Business Partners can also access the software remotely and customise it if desired. This can be done from anywhere in the world, using a web browser.

Sage provides hosted relationship management software, services and support through Sage CRM On Demand, ACT and E-Marketing to small and medium sized businesses. You can contact us on 0845 111 99 88 if you would like to find out more.

Chris Coulson and Simon Campbell, Sage SalesLogix Team

CRM expert, Duncan Wood (middle)

I feel like I have been on a long journey since last June when I applied to run London Marathon 2011 for Guide Dogs. So I felt compelled to write a blog article about it and how what I have learnt can apply equally to implementation of a customer relationship management (CRM) project as running a marathon.

I have broken out some of the key points that helped me achieve what I set out to do and hope they may help you if you are interested in CRM or running, or both!

1. Start with an end in mind!

Decide what your high level goals are. For me this was twofold: 1. raising some money for charity; 2. be more healthy. The next trick is to make those goals measurable, actionable and optimistically realistic (don’t be afraid to reach high). The way I did that what was to apply to run the London Marathon 2011 for Guide Dogs, this meant that I had to run 26.2 miles and raise £1500 – definitely measurable. At the time, I did not know how I was going to do either but I knew they both had to be possible. In business, exactly the same applies; you might want to improve profitability by 3% or grow revenue by 10% next year – at the time you are not quite sure how you will do it but you feel that it is possible somehow.

2. Eat the Elephant – bite by bite

At first a big goal can seem very daunting. Many others have referred to this as the “eating the elephant” analogy which seems impossible at first inspection but can actually be achieved over a long period of time by eating a little bit every day. The easiest way to do this is to come up with a plan. For me, somebody bought a book on how to run a marathon with a ready-made plan inside, I read it and I did it – it was almost that simple. Every day I woke up and I followed the plan whether that was resting or running 10 miles – except when I could not, read on for more on that topic. In a CRM project this will involve coming up with a strategy and plan, for example, mapping out the business strategy, user engagement sessions, software selection and finally project implementation plan and rollout.

3. Get the right support

You need the right tools and people on board to achieve the tasks you have set out in your plan and therefore achieve your goals. I needed to get the right running gear. I needed a supportive team of friends, relatives and sports professionals to help when I needed help, for example, raising money, giving advice on running, treating injuries and emotional support when things got tough. In a CRM project the team is everyone affected by the CRM project in the organisation and any outside help required to boast the skills for the project. Getting the right people around you is critical and getting them to understand what you are doing and why makes all the difference. I had an amazing experience both running and fundraising – the people that helped me where wonderful and constantly surprised me with their wisdom, generosity and humanity. Ask questions and really listen.

4. Stuff Happens – Be flexible

It is all very well having the goals, the plan, the tools and the team in place for success. However, life has a funny way of moving the goal posts on you when you are not looking! I managed to pick up two injuries since last June when I embarked on this journey. One was through bad advice and the other through bad luck. The point though is that when circumstances change the “bury your head in the sand approach” or “carry on regardless approach” does not normally work very well. You need to take a good look at your plans and goals and decide on what you can optimistically do. In my case, I was able change my training plan to incorporate enough rest to recover from my injuries and still complete my goal of running a marathon but it did require me to change my plans and rethink a few things. Sometimes however you might have to revise your actual goals – don’t do irreversible damage to you (running) or your business (CRM project) if things have radically changed.

5. Enjoy it – every minute or most of them!

I cannot recommend enough running London Marathon – I had the best time, from the time I filled in the application form to the time I crossed the finish line on Sunday. I have to admit there were hard times and I did not particularly enjoy yesterday – had you seen me walking up my stairs you may have been amused – it was quite a sight. Today, I am better. I achieved my goals and I feel great! I raised over £3.2k and ran 26.2 miles in 3 hours 56 minutes and 22 seconds. You can see my finishing picture cuddling Molly (13 week old Guide Dog puppy) – what a brilliant 10 months of my life http://www.justgiving.com/DuncsDogRun. In the end the final day (running the marathon) was just part of the whole experience.

So whether you are taking up running, swimming, canoeing or embarking on a CRM project I hope some of my reflections on the last 10 months will help you!

In summary:

Decide on your goals and define them in an actionable and measurable way

• Running – maybe this is a half marathon, marathon, or improving your 5K time by 5 minutes in 3 months (try www.parkrun.com free 5k trails in your local area)
• CRM – look at what your business goals need to be, for example, growing revenue by 5%, improving customer satisfaction by 10%

Come up with a plan

• Remember don’t be daunted by a “big” goal – break it down into achievable chunks and tasks set out on a timeline

Get the help you need

• Build the team you need and get the advice and tools required to deliver on your plan

Expect change and adapt

• Things do change – hopefully you can adapt your plan to cope with the new circumstances and still achieve your goals. If not, don’t do permanent damage – come up with new goals (there is always next year).

Enjoy it

• CRM or running is all about the experience – don’t forget to also enjoy and celebrate the smaller achievements along your journey.

Duncan Wood, CRM Expert (and marathon runner)

www.twitter.com/SageUKCRM

www.justgiving.com/DuncsDogRun

It’s remarkable how many good ideas die on the kitchen table or how company’s sales and marketing executives run around like headless chickens looking for new customers whilst totally ignoring their existing client base. These they leave to the mercies of other predatory organisations that will offer them love and support at the time when they need it most.

Roger Foster, South East Regional Director

New business does not necessarily mean new customers.

In these difficult times be sure to love and nurture your existing customers, make them feel special. Reward them for their loyalty and be sure that you quantify that reward to them, subtly. But most of all be sure that you have identified all possible opportunities within them. Only then should you go prospecting for new customers.  Remember it’s up to ten times more expensive to gain new customers than to extend your trading with existing friendly ones.

By embracing the five marketing areas below you’ll significantly improve your chances of success with your existing customers and it will give you a framework for prospection for new ones.

• Segment your existing customers and apply your findings to new ones
• Ensure your brand values and positioning is applied consistently in all communications with existing and new customers.
• Review your channels to market and ensure you have all possible outlets covered
• Produce an integrated communication plan to embrace all these areas.
• Most importantly ensure that you continually train your staff to respond to changing commercial and economic conditions

You’ll be surprised how much success you’ll gain and, if smartly applied, you’ll see improved profits.

The customer is king but money talks

The customer is king but it’s money in the form of profit which rules. That’s why you are in business. The Chartered Institute of Marketing in partnership with Sage CRM Solutions is running an event The customer is king but money talks where we will clearly explain how to get more profit from social networking sites and intelligent application of CRM. We’ll also have a representative from Lloyds bank to explain how to get the most out of your bank. Paul Fifield will demonstrate the strategic approach to marketing for profit and Robert Craven, from the Directors Centre will give ten tips on how to improve your company’s profit.

You’ll leave the event invigorated, enthused but more importantly with a toolkit that you can implement immediately which will improve your company’s performance and profitability. The event will be run at the National Self Build and Renovation Centre in Swindon on the 31st March and there will be plenty of opportunity to look round the centre and network during the day.

Roger Foster, South East Regional Director, CIM

Roger will be taking part in the The customer is king but money talks on the 31 March in Swindon.

CRM expert, Duncan Wood

I have been recently working with Dan Ogden of Swiftpage on our presentation “CRM and eMarketing – the targeted marketing dream to create more qualified leads” for next week’s Technology for Advertising and Marketing (TFM&A) exhibition and thought it would be good to share some of it here; of course it’ll be even better to pop along and see it in person on 1^st March at 3pm in the CRM Theatre!

Customer Relationship Management and Enterprise

Customer Relationship Management, or CRM as it is more commonly referred to, is a pretty well understood term and business strategy. However, CRM software can be somewhat of a battle to implement within the enterprise especially if it is only about one particular aspect of the business. The simple truth is that people only naturally champion things that they believe in. The challenge for any CRM project is to find the business objectives of people across the enterprise and provide the tools to make it easier. I think the combination of E-marketing and CRM is a highly potent cocktail of business value that can deliver such tools.

Why CRM?

The main reason people use CRM is to help them manage and improve relationships with both current and prospective customers and suppliers. Once CRM is embedded into an organisation’s integral business processes then a highly illuminating insight is revealed about what works and what doesn’t work in a business strategy. Hopefully with reflection on these insights an organisation can achieve its CRM goals which normally centre around increasing revenue, higher profitability and increase customer satisfaction. The improvement normally comes down to changing and tuning business processes in one or all of the Sales, Marketing, Customer Service areas of the business.

Why E-marketing?

The E-marketing toolset is a fabulous, low-cost way of creating and nurturing relationships within your marketplace. One of the historic problems with Marketing has been cost, potentially stifling creativity and the ability to learn from the audiences responses. E-marketing changes all of that. It allows you to deliver on the theory of best practice Marketing by designing, testing and measuring your ideas on specific target segments of your audience – all done quickly and at very little cost. The solution provides a fantastic way to find profitable relationships and deliver the content a customer is actually looking for in a timely fashion.

Why together?

I love the phrase “data is just data until you do something with it”; CRM and E-marketing together create a mutually beneficial relationship which is why our CRM software, Sage CRM, Sage SalesLogix and Sage ACT! all integrate with Sage E-marketing provided by Swiftpage.  From the CRM point of view E-Marketing helps both the Sales and Marketing departments work closer together and more efficiently – overall it could be one of the key benefits that makes the difference between the CRM project being successful or failing. From an E-marketing point of view CRM provides the critical insight and data to making successful targeted marketing campaigns.

In summary, having a single place where both CRM and E-marketing live provides benefits to the whole ecosystem both inside and outside the organisation using it.

If you’re interested to hear more, and why not register for TFM&A for free online and say “hi” to Dan and I.

Duncan Wood, CRM Expert

It’s the busiest time of year for the world’s leading gift distributor (no…we don’t mean Amazon). With lists to check (twice), worldwide flights to arrange and a busy team of helpers working flat out right up until Christmas Eve there’s some pretty smart software keeping everything running like clockwork.

Santa's SalesLogix CRM

Our customer gets requests via letter and, these days, email and has to manage a vast database of information including names, addresses, ages, delivery schedules and the all important naughty or nice lists. So it’s important that he has a hard-working customer relationship management system, Sage SalesLogix, to help his festive workers fulfil all their orders in time.

Purchase lists, product information and gift history are all centrally recorded in one constantly updated system. And there’s a mobile link, so it’s available wherever and whenever it’s needed to make sure there are no hiccups with deliveries.

Now this particular customer is well known for carrying out his business without attracting too much attention to himself, but we did manage to get a few words from him: “Ho, ho…every year, more children and more gifts, it’s a big old responsibility, but things have never run so smoothly. Now I know exactly who has asked for what and when I can deliver it. So everything’s ready for December 24.”