A great way to get important information about your products and services from your customers and prospects is to use surveys.  You can allow them to respond anonymously or you can provide them an incentive such as a drawing for a free iPod, PDA or laptop.  I recently offered reduce consulting fees for a certain period.  Your questions should be focused around a single topic with no more than 5 questions.  If you send too many questions, you will lose people’s attention.  Look for a 1-5% response rate.  Offering an incentive people want can increase that to 10% or more.

There are a few companies that offer this service.   I used SurveyMonkey and was very pleased with the ease and functionality it provided.  It also provides good reporting so you can statistically see how well the survey did along with all the responses.

You should feed your responses back into your CRM solution so you can easily share the information with different teams in your organization such as sales and R&D.   If you cannot automate that process, you can do a manual import into your CRM solution.  While the responses will give you great insight into what your customers need and how well they feel you are doing, it is also important to know which customers or prospects care enough to participate.

Doing surveys are a great way to get the information you need to ensure your product, services and customer support are aligned with your customer needs now and into the future.

Tags: crm, Marketing

Sales & Marketing Business Brief offered 4 selling strategies to focus on in 2010 given the state of the economy.  While they seem obvious, I thought it was worth restating.  Times are tuff and being remaindered of certain strategizes never hurt.

1. Maximize your lead pipeline: Now is the time to perform an audit of your sales from the past two years to determine who your high-probability buyers are now (based on SIC, region, executive title, etc.). I would also evaluate who were you most profitable and highest revenue clients in the past.   Once the audit is complete, frontload your pipeline with those leads to give salespeople the best opportunity for success.
2. Sell value over price: Many companies try to win buyers back by offering one-time discounts and bargain-basement prices. That short-term strategy does little to promote customer or brand loyalty. Now’s the time to reinforce the long-term benefits of doing business with your company — and keep salespeople talking to prospects about the return, rather than the investment of doing business with your company.
3. Embrace new marketing channels/modes of communication: Cell phones, e-mail, social networking, web marketing, text messaging, BlackBerrys — they have all changed the way prospects communicate. Sales organizations that capitalize on them will be in a position to gain an edge over competitors. Some companies use Twitter to maintain contact and promote new offers. Others use Facebook or LinkedIn. Many salespeople ask prospects how they prefer to communicate upfront, so there is no confusion about the best way to contact them.  The key is to find small, low-cost ways to use technology and new modes of communication to improve your relationships with buyers.
4. Differentiate your offer: Right now, there are more companies competing for fewer buyers, which mean it has never been more essential for salespeople to convey what separates your offer from competitors’. Sales organizations should be developing their own competitive analysis in light of the fact that prospects now have instant access to competitive prices and low-ball offers thanks to the Web. Creating and regularly updating your own competitive analysis allows salespeople to control the process. It also keeps them on top of what other competitors are offering, as well as where an incumbent supplier may be coming up short. One other approach: Create a sense of urgency by quantifying the cost of not doing business with you.

Tags: crm, Marketing

This past weekend I experience what I am afraid is becoming more of the norm. I have gone to this same bagel store for many years. I would get a toasted bagel with whitefish salad. I loved it because the salad had large pieces of whitefish perfectly blended with herbs and just the right amount of mayonnaise.

I guess due to a drop in business they changed the preparation of the salad. Now when you order it you get this pile of pureed slop on the bagel. Gone are the chunks of fresh whitefish. Gone is the right mix of mayonnaise and herbs. They are trying to take the same amount of fish and create a lot more salad from it. They added a lot more mayonnaise and put everything in a blender. But they thought giving more would make up for the near soup they put on the bagel.

It seems a lot of companies think that people would rather have more of a bad thing than less of a great thing. Is this true? I know I will never go back for that sandwich. I believe most people would be fine (or not even notice) a little less salad per serving. Getting so much more of something fair diminishes the quality and value we expect from American business. But worse than that for companies is that it erodes their customer loyalty. I will no longer go to the store and when the economy turns around again and they can go back to making the sandwich the way they always did, I will have found an alternative.

Customers understand the difficulties vendors are under. I don’t believe getting a few ounces less for the same price while this crisis’s is in place would be an issue. Organizations need to be very careful not to alienate their best customer base by implementing changes to save money. There are many ways to get to the numbers you need.

CRM is great for not only understanding your customers buying habits and key issues but a great way to communicate with them easily. Let your customers know beforehand the cost cutting changes you are putting in place that might affect them. Some might choose another alternative in the short run but will value your integrity and caring for them. As soon as you can provide the same level of service again they will be back. Mass mailings are an easy way to get the message out to individuals. They will be happy to know you are doing your part to stay in business and maintain profitability. They need you around.

Tags: crm