Monday, March 8, 2010

Using a Customer Centric Purchasing Process when Purchasing a CRM Software System for your Company.

In the present business conditions, business owners, business owners have a lot more requirements 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 unfavourable decisions. That's exactly what may happen when rushing to put a new "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 "Customer Relationship Management" system before you buy.

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Up front, a glaring disconnect for some companies is a tendency to over-focus on "what and how" they want to sell. To get the new CRM system right, they really need to acquire a deeper understanding of "what, why and how" their customers want to work with them, and even more important, how their customers want to buy from them.

"The company's focus should be to have a keener understanding the gap between their customer's/prospect's 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 requirements first requires each of us to look beyond how we interact with, deliver value to, and attend to 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 gist 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 larger understanding of your customers' buying process and now build the new CRM system to fit your customer's asserted needs.

Ask the following questions:
What do they need from us in their buying process?
What do they need us to do next?
Who else is envolved in their decision process?
How can we enable them to take their next step in their buying process?
What does our clients need from us once the purchase is made?

(This list can go on and on and on……)

Building a vendor-client partnership is grounded on working together with our customers toward the common goal of giving them the support they need to better serve 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 stand 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 has identified what the customer's requirements are within the new CRM system, it is the responsibility of the inside CRM system champion to assert leadership in aligning the company's new CRM system's functionality with the identified customers' buying process and clearly acknowledged support requirements.

In simple conclusion: The spirit of a true partnership is working together toward a familiar goal or objective.
 
This is a post from: CRM Software Free Trial