One of the most important aspects that keeps a company alive is how well it deals with its customer or client relationships and that is the focus of CRM or Customer Relationship Management. 

The goal of CRM is to enable the company to get a good view on who their best customers are, and what they tend to purchase or avail of in the company, what products or services they do not like and what comments or reactions they have to the other services, products and marketing moves that the company makes.  

On paper that may all sound really complicated by the trick is to use a dedicated database software that keeps track of all these and will allow company employees to easily access the data for future references and internal analysis. Understanding the customers is what keeps a company alive.

The issue with CRM is that it is not just a database.  CRM software will allow the employers and the employees of the company to create unique dynamic reports and lists to help them perform different analytical studies on the data.  There are numerous databases and software used for CRM and CRM reporting but the one true software utilized today is Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

There are a lot of reasons why Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the go-to software; it integrates tightly with the Microsoft Office applications that pretty much everybody is familiar with (Outlook, Word and Excel) the cloud infrastructure is the most modern means of network connectivity, and it is the only CRM tool that completely integrates an email system and active communications system.

For example: via Microsoft Dynamics CRM reporting where a group of employees create a study table of all the products that customers buy, how customers value these products purchases and how long it takes before the same customer purchases the same product will be the key to determine which are the most profitable consumers that the company has.

This is one of the most essential reports that CRM delivers; it is important for a company to know who values the company the most.  

Another good example of productive Dynamics CRM reporting is when the company pools out the data from the database to study which products coming from the company receive the least amount of error reports or complaints and then those that receive the most.  From these reports the company can properly assess what production designs they need to change and can make a forecast on how these changes can affect their sales.

It is vital for a company to identify what makes them sell, what the customers like and don’t like and what the public is saying and CRM tools are the gist of getting that information sorted out, analyzed and then manipulated for the company’s assets.

Why resort to old-school systems like paper case studies (or manually putting the information into Excel) when you can analyze all the data coming directly from your company and the clients with the Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM reporting tool? 

This white paper describes a step by step approach to building business intelligence (BI) capabilities starting with reports and ending with a combination of dashboards, what if analysis as well as automatic alerts when certain key conditions arise.

To read this white paper click here. 

So many companies do a great job of capturing information in their Microsoft CRM system but are awful at being able to use that information to make better decisions faster.

What about you?

Are you quickly able to quickly segment your data base to execute a new marketing campaign so that it is targetted just those customers who have purchased a certain product in the last 18 months?

Are you able to identify the characteristics of your most profitable customers such as

* SIC Code
* Zipcode
* Company Size
* Position of purchaser
* Is company in growth mode or decline

* Etc

so that you can intelligently purchase a new list of prospects?

Do you know what the average lifetime value of a customer is along with the margin rate?

Do you understand the behavior of a customer who is growing discontent with your product or service BEFORE they stop being a customer?

If you use your website to either conduct sales or generate leads do you know things like:

* How many unique website visitors it takes to generate a lead
* How many leads it takes to set an appointment
* How many appointments it takes to generate a sale?

The point is to be able to successfully grow your business you must know your numbers (commonly called metrics).  If you do, then you are in a position to make better decisions faster.

To help you get started, we are offering you a free 60 minute Business Intelligence Quickstart consultation.  This offer is valued at $250, is limited to the first 8 companies that request it and expires on July 8, 2011.  Sorry, but this offer is limited to US based companies who have over 25 employees.

If you would like to take advantage of this offer, please contact us at 858-431-1820 or by email at info@rbdata.com and we will set up a mutually convenient time for your free Business Intelligence Quickstart consulation.

Microsoft is referring to it as "Actionable Intelligence". 

But what is it and why should you care?

For many organizations, perhaps I should say most, putting information into their CRM system is like putting it into a black hole.  You know it is there but it can be tough to find.  More importantly, it can be darn near impossible to use that information to quickly make sound business decisions.

Sound familiar?

Virtually all businesses can be made more profitable if the management team know their essential 5 to 10 core business drivers, or metrics, and can instantly access that information.

These core business drivers vary business to business but some common ones include:

Year to date sales compared to this time last year.

Sales pipeline opportunities with an 80% likelihood of closing in the next 30, 60 & 90 days broken down by region and sales rep.

Sales quota versus actual sales broken down by region and sales rep.

Which marketing activities have been successful and which have duds with hard numbers to back up those findings?

Which marketing activities have produced the highest number of closeable leads and what was the cost of per lead?

What is the average lifetime value of a customer?

Number of open support tickets.

Number of open support tickets that have been unresolved for over 3 days.

What are the top 5 support issues along with the solutions?

Again the key is to know what your key business metrics are and to be able to quickly access that information.

The most common starting point is reporting.  Many organizations need to improve reporting whether this means speeding it up, making it more flexible or reducing the reliance on internal or external IT experts to provide this information.

This white paper describes a step by step approach to building business intelligence (BI) capabilities starting with reports and ending with a combination of dashboards, what if analysis as well as automatic alerts when certain key conditions arise.

To read this white paper click here.