In the present business environment, business owners have a lot more demands because of the hi-tech world we live in. The goal for making new investments in their company is to hold on to that edge they have over the competition. As a result some decisions may be rushed into which actually may become poor decisions. That's exactly what may happen when rushing to put a Customer Relationship Management system in place. So how do you prevent the wrong decision from being made? It's easy; ask your customer what they need in your new CRM System before you buy.
A glaring disconnect for many companies is a tendency to over-focus on What and How they want to sell, when they really need to develop a deeper understanding of What, Why and How their customers want to work with them and how they want to buy from them.
“The organizational focus should be on understanding the gap between the customers'/prospects' current state of how they do business with us and their desired future state of how they want to do business with us.”
Learning to look at your customer’s business first requires each of us to look beyond how we interact with, deliver value to, and serve our own customers. We have to begin to think about how our customers, in turn, interact with, deliver value to, and serve their customer, whoever they may be. Only then can we truly begin to see ourselves the way our customers see us and understand how the products and services we bring to market can impact and add value to our customer’s world.
The real essence of the situation is the customer is paying for the new CRM system, so the obvious conclusion is; build the new CRM system to fit the customer’s needs.
What is needed is a deep understanding of your customers' buying process and build the new CRM system to fit your customer’s declared needs:
What do they need from us in their buying process?
- What do they need us to do next?
- Who else is part of their decision process?
- What can we do to enable them to take their next step in the buying process?
- What do they need from us once the purchase is made?
(This list can go on and on and on……)
Building a vendor-client partnership is based on working together with our customers toward the common goal of better serving their customers. We do this by helping them to deliver higher-quality products and services, faster and more cost-effectively than their completion.
We need to walk in their shoes to identify how we can build a CRM system to fit their needs. The development of the new CRM system needs to be thought of as a partnership with our customers.
Once this process is completed, the inside CRM system champion needs to assert leadership in aligning their company's new CRM system’s functionality with their customers' buying process and clear support requirements.
In simple conclusion: The spirit of a true partnership (our client and us) is working together toward a common goal or objective.
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