Customer relationship management (CRM) is just as important a part of your business as a financial plan, business plan, or marketing plan. Despite this, many businesses implement a business or financial plan — some even have a mission statement — but few companies take the time to develop a written, comprehensive plan for dealing with customers. However, this is one of the most important things you can do for your business. Developing a strategic and written plan for dealing with customers helps ensure that every member of your team knows exactly what to do when dealing with a customer.

Developing A CRM Philosophy for Your Business

First, develop a relationship marketing plan. One way to do this is to imagine that you remove your company name from your CRM plan. If someone familiar with your business looked at your plan, would he or she still be able to tell the plan came from your business? If not, you need to start researching the competition. What services or customer service additions can you offer that your competition cannot? What special services or considerations can you offer that your competition has not been willing to provide?

Next, determine responsibilities. Who will be responsible for gathering customer testimonials? Who will be responsible for dealing with irate customers? How long will it take for someone to get back to an unhappy customer after a complaint has been sent to the company? Figure out all the working pieces of your CRM plan – do you need to have a plan for gathering leads, another plan to covert leads to paying customers, and another plan for providing superior customer service? Brainstorm on a large sheet of paper all the parts that would go in to creating an ideal customer relationship management system. Then, figure out where each part fits. Perhaps one department can take care of billing issues, while another department can take care of turning leads into paying customers.

Make Your CRM Plan work

It’s important that you write down your CRM plan and post it everywhere where your employees are working. It’s nice to have a mission statement or a general philosophy, but your CRM has to be something functional. For example, your workers — and even your temporary employees — should be able to look at your CRM plan and be able to know exactly what they are expected to do when dealing with customers. Beyond this, consider the following tips when developing your plan:

1. Make sure that each member of your team understands what his or her role is, and can implement exactly what you expect of them. For example, if you hope that your billing department can take care of customers who are unhappy with billing mistakes; make sure that members of your billing department have access to the financial records or files they need in order to resolve issues. In Relenta CRM, you can assign a number of files to your financial department, which would allow them to access customer history payments with the click of a mouse.

2. Measure the results. Part of your CRM plan should involve testing the program. For example, you might want to have periodic surprise reviews of your employees, to make sure that they are implementing strategies outlined in your CRM plan. You can easily do this in Relenta CRM, since the administrator can access all e-mail exchanges and e-mail histories. This allows you to see when a customer complaint has been responded to, and how your employees have been interacting in e-mail with your clients. You can also conduct customer satisfaction surveys that measure how happy customers are with your company.

3. Make sure that your CRM plan is easy. Word it well, and use flowcharts or graphs to show your team members what they’re expected to do in specific situations. For example, you might want to have a flowchart that takes your employees step-by-step through process of dealing with a new lead. You can certainly make things easier with Relenta CRM. You can assign tasks to individual team members in the calendar, send e-mail reminders, and automate responses and newsletters, so that interacting with customers becomes automatic.

4. Set up a reward system. When your employees do something correctly, you should reward them with half a day off, gift certificates, and so forth. Keep a number of small items in your desk that would be appropriate as a small reward. When you notice in the Relenta CRM system that an employee has responded quicker than usual to a client, or has successfully negotiated with a client who was unhappy, send them a quick thank you e-mail, and send them a small gift. Also, make sure that you give thank you gifts and send emails of appreciation to your customers.