When we talk of touchpoints, we are talking about different ways through which customers can have access to an organization.

 

In many forward-looking organizations, today gone are those days when customers cannot have access to their accounts or transact business with an organization unless they physically enter the branch offices or relate with the distributors.

 
When we talk of touchpoints, we are talking about different ways through which customers can have access to an organization.

 

In many forward-looking organizations, today gone are those days when customers cannot have access to their accounts or transact business with an organization unless they physically enter the branch offices or relate with the distributors.

 

 

In a customer-centric enterprise or organisation that plans to retain customers for life, they must devise ways of making transactions with the organisation as easy as possible.

 

As I said earlier one thing that people do enjoy most is the ability to have their freedom. No customer will like to be restricted to branch offices.

 

 

A Scenario

Mr Alfred is a very busy businessman.  He has businesses with many people and he has transferred money into many accounts and relationships with many people.

 

Mr Alfred had to monitor his business so he does not have the time to see his Relationship Manager or go and line up in banks.

 

This made dealing with banks to become a sort of headache to him. Because Mr Alfred is dealing with a forward-looking bank, they are able to come up with a mobile device that allows him to do anything that he wanted to do.

 

He can now transfer money and load his phone through the mobile application.

 

Mr Alfred also prayed earnestly that the bank will come up with an application that xviii make savings easy for him.

 

 

When we talk about creating touchpoints, there are some touchpoints that an organization can provide for its customer One of such is contact centres where customers can call in and get their issues resolved.

 

Organisations can also adopt emailing or they can appoint an Officer that relates to customers from the convenience of their office.

 

One thing to know about creating a touchpoint is that the creation of touchpoints will allow your customers to dictate how they want to be served.

 

You should allow your customers to determine this. Your own is to make sure that their needs are met.

 

 

When creating touchpoints also, you should empower those that will use the technology in such a way that they are able to resolve customer’s issues completely.

 

It should not be in a way that customers will have to wait endlessly before they can find a solution to their array of challenges.

 

Never forget the fact that the next organisation that produces the same products and services as you are is just a “mouse click away”.

 

 

On a final note, as a customer-centric enterprise using touchpoints, you should never joke with your customers’ privacy.

 

You need to have a lot of information about your customers in order to serve them better.  Once they are giving you this information, you must never disclose it to those that will use it, or those that are not authorized to have it against them.

 

There must be access levels as far as customers’ information is concerned but that does translate to the fact that customers will have to call up to ten numbers before they can change their contact address.

 

 

Customer Regaining Strategies

As I said earlier, customers move over and over around your cycle as they purchase new products and services; that is why you have to make sure that you continually meet up with your customers’ expectations.

 

If you lost a customer to your competitor’s Life Cycle, there are some practical ways that you can use in order to regain your lost customers back to your customer lifecycle.

 

 

One of the basic ways of regaining a lost customer is to have adequate information about the lost customer Suffice to say that before you can know that you have lost your customer, you must be able to say with precision, the total number of customers that you have.

 

If you don’t know the total number of your customers, how will you know if you have lost a customer? There is one reason why you need to seek help concerning knowing the total number of your customers.

 

It is simply because it takes less to retain existing customers than to gain a new one.

 

As I said earlier, you must have adequate information concerning the lost customer; this might give you a hint as how the customer can be regained.

 

 

One other way of regaining a lost customer is to know what your competitors are doing that is making your customers rush to their Life Cycle.

 

If you want to succeed in business, you cannot be oblivious of what your competitors are doing. You must take time to study their marketing strategies and sales tactics, including their promotional offers.

 

In recent times, you would have noticed that among the communication giants, once one of them gives particular promotional offers others will follow suit.

 

This at times includes promotional offers and midnight calls,   including a bonus on recharge.

 

This is due to the fact that consumers are free to make choices. A reduction in tariff can force a consumer to move to another network. It is as simple as that.

 

 

If you want to regain your customers, you must learn how to increase your customer’s experience.

 

Look for every opportunity to delight your customers. If you do that, those that have gone will come back and those that are with you will remain with you for life.

 

 

Total Customer Experience
When we talk of customer experience, we are talking about how the customer felt after they used your product or service.

 

A good customer-centric enterprise must find every avenue to delight its customers.

 

One thing organisations need to know is that customers have something at the back of their minds before they purchased an organization’s product or service, if after purchasing those products or services, it does not meet up with their expectations, they are bound to look for another organisation that can satisfy the pre-purchase need.

 

 

It is on this premise that organisation have to work earnestly in order to ensure that they do not fall short of their brand promise.

 

The brand promise is what you offer your customers that they would derive after they might have used your product or services.

 

If you fail to meet up with the expectation of the customers, that means you have betrayed the trust that they have in you, they will have no option but to look for another organisation that can satisfy their needs.
 

Key Account Management

With key account management, you can map business relationships to particularly important customers and support the expansion of these business relationships.

 

 

Institutions can be identified and classified as key accounts using the data available to the organization; this allows goal-oriented addressing and support.

 

In product and institutions plans, you can record customized strategies and analyze then for key accounts and identify key people and product(s).

 

Using the actual and target values in the goal definition and tactics, the development of key accounts can be monitored.

Benefits

• Identification and classification of key accounts using objective criteria.
• Structured management of key accounts in CRM systems.
• Concrete goal definition for the development of key accounts, including monitoring possibilities.
• Key account management drives the profitability of business marketing.

Building quality key account strategies are the heart of successful business marketing programs. The role of the sales force in establishing and nurturing this relationship is vital.

 

The sales environment is rapidly changing. This includes selling cycles, complex prepositions, and high-value sales make new methods necessary.

 

 

SUMMARY

At the end of this lesson, we have been able to discover that:

• Customer touchpoints are channels through which an organization relates to its customers.
• Creating touchpoints will allow customers to dictate how they want to be served.
• You have to continue to meet up with customers’ expectations in order to retain customers
• If you want to regain your lost customers, you must first know the reasons why they have left your lifecycle.
• Total customer experience has to do with how customers felt after they have used your product(s).

 

Brainstorming Session

1. Critical examine Mr Alfred’s case and profer solutions to some of his problems.
2. How relevant are customer regaining strategies discussed in this article? 
3. Discuss Total Customer Experience.
4. What do you understand by Key Account Management? What are some of its relevance?

Do you enjoy this article, add Our Posts to your Reading List.

Action Point
PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.

I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.

 

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A Customer-Centric Enterprise (CCE) is an organisation that has resolved to do business from the customers’ perspective.

 

In this kind of organisation, profit is not their main motive of establishing a business, they first resolve to satisfy customers’ needs which will, in turn, generate profits more than they expected.

 

A Customer-Centric Enterprise (CCE) is an organisation that has resolved to do business from the customers’ perspective.

 

 

At the end of this article, you should be able to: ·    explain what a customer-centric enterprise is; ·    explain the stages that an organisation has to pass through before they can become a customer-centric enterprise; ·    know the reasons why an organisation has to be customer-centric; ·    functions and roles of customer-centricity in a customer-centric enterprise; and ·    Know the reasons why customer-centricity is the best solution for organisations experiencing customer attrition.

 

 

 

In this kind of organisation, profit is not their main motive of establishing a business, they first resolve to satisfy customers’ needs which will, in turn, generate profits more than they expected.

 

That is why CRM scholars have agreed that it is ten times better to do business from the customers’ perspective than from a product perspective.

 

 

In the word of the Gartner Group, they define CRM is an enterprise-wide business strategy designed to optimize profitability revenue and customer satisfaction by organizing the enterprise around customer segments, fostering customer-satisfying behaviours and linking processes from customers through suppliers.

 

 

In evolving into a customer-centric enterprise, an organisation tries to foster customer behaviours and they also develop business processes that will allow the organisation to do business from a customer perspective.

 

Apart from that, they have to come up with technologies that will allow customers to have a total experience irrespective of the channel that they are using to communicate with the organization.
 

Evolution of Customer-Centric Enterprise

 #1 Product-Focused Enterprise

      This is the default for many organizations. This is so because the primary purpose of the arty organization is to make a profit.

 

At this level, all that the organization is concerned with is, how they can increase productivity.

 

The organization here honour their staff based on the volume of sales they were able to make in a given year.

 

You should know that product-focused enterprise has much information about their customers but the information is not structured in a way that it can be used to satisfy customers needs.

 

 

#2 Customer Focused Enterprise

When an organisation begins with a product centric-vision, situation at times will force them to begin to reckon with their customers. they will now realize that they have to deal with arrays of customer issues which have much to do with the use of their products.

 

The organization will now realize that if nothing is done about the complaints, it may force them out of business.

 

This at times has forced many organizations to set up call centres in order to attend to customer issues and complaints.

 

The main purpose of doing this was to maximize customer and employees satisfaction.

 

 

#3 Customer Value-Focused Enterprise

         Under this, the organisation tries to minimize the amount being spent on customers that are not really adding value to the organisation. The organisation tries to concentrate on customers that have a larger wallet share with them.

 

Take for example; MTN tries to come up with a programme that rewarded customers that load up to ten thousand naira airtime monthly.

 

The company knew that it would be tough for a poor man that could not afford to feed three square meals.

 

 

The main onus of this is to gather as much information as possible about the customers and to use this information in formulating strategies that will allow the organization to serve its customers in a dynamic way.

 

 

#4 Customer-Centric Enterprise

     This is an organization that holds customers at the heart of its business.

 

They see their customers as one of the stakeholders in the organization. In this kind of setting, all policies and actions of the organization are geared towards customer satisfaction and making sure that the brand lives up to expectations.

 

 

     It should be noted that the CRM initiatives of these enterprises can help reduce costs by encouraging customers to render service to each other in communities of interest, promote the enterprise to like-minded people known to them at low cost, seek redress willingly in the event of a shortcoming, be enterprising in taking up new products, and remain loyal for life.

 

 

Need For Customer Centricity

There is a need for organizations to operate from customers’ perspective as this will help them to retain their customers for life.

 

The only reason why profit is coming in the first place is that customers decided to remain with the organization.

 

Once they decide to spend their money somewhere else, profit will cease.

 

 

One thing is that customers love to enjoy their liberty, if an organization gives them that, and surpasses their expectation in terms of services, there is nothing that will make a customer in his right sense to lock somewhere else.

 

 

The mother thing is that if you are satisfying your customers in the right way, you will spend less on promotional offers and adverts as your satisfied customers will do the talking for you.

 

There will be an opportunity to cross-sell as they will gladly accept your new products and offerings and introduce your products to others.

 

 

It has also been said that the best way for an organisation to go, is to operate from a customer’s perspective.

 

Although this may not be profitable in the first place as you have to spend much in order to gain their trust. Once this is achieved, you can rest assured that you have had those customers for life.

 

 

Functions of Customer Centricity

We have all agreed that customer-centricity is the act of doing business from the customers’ perspective. There are some basic functions that customer-centricity is meant to perform.

 

 

It is the function of customer-centricity to increase the profitability of the organization. If customer-centricity is well managed, it will help the organisation to reduce its cost of production; once you are able to manage your customers.

 

it will reduce the cost that you to spend on acquiring new customers. This will ultimately reduce overhead cost and will also increase the volume/number of your products that your customer uses.

 

 

Customer centricity will also increase the bond between you and your customers. It will help you to know the exact number of customers that you have.

 

What are those things your customer needs and you can provide those needs? You must be able to know what your customer wants and how to meet those needs.

 

At times, you may need to know the network of people that your customer or prospect has before you can even think of the best way to serve them.

 

Once you are meeting and exceeding their needs, you will be able to sustain the bond between you and your customers.

 

 

Customer centricity will also increase customer and employee satisfaction. If customers are not satisfied, they will spend their money elsewhere, this will ultimately lead to loss of jobs and once the money is being spent elsewhere.

 

It will create tension in the mind of staff of your organisation. That is why you have to satisfy your customer so that your employees too will be happy.

 

That is why it is often said that employees satisfaction is customer satisfaction.

 

 

Customer Centricity: A Systematic Solution

Have you ever wondered why a computer system is called a system? It is a system because there are many components that come together before you can have what is called a system.

 

 

It is a combination of many subsystems that form what is called a system. In a computer system, you have application software like MS Word, Microsoft Excel, and Corel Draw, among others.

 

We also have the keyboard, mouse, and UPS among others.
You would have been wondering, how then can we relate a computer system to a customer-centric enterprise?

 

Many organizations today in Nigeria have closed down because customers are no longer patronizing their organisations.

 

They have spent a lot of their hard-earned money on promotional offers such as: Be a Millionaire promo, 180 cars in 180 days among others.

 

This is not really necessary when you have a customer-centric enterprise in place. It is a policy that will allow you to do business from the customers’ perspective.

 

You will have to consciously examine and discover some facts about your customers and you will use that knowledge to decide on what to produce, how to produce and for whom to produce.

 

 

We called customer-centric enterprise a system because it is a combination of many parts that come together to become one.

 

You can leave one step aside and move to the other, and you are still expecting the same result.

 

You should know that in evolving into a customer-centric enterprise, you have to make up your mind that you want to operate from the customers’ perspective.

 

This will be backed-up with technology that is meant to ensure that your dream is realized. You need to practically learn how you can consciously satisfy your customers’ needs.

 

This will help your business.

 

 

When organisations are established, they provide access and ways by which their customers can reach them. 

 

These include coming to branch offices, and meeting over the web and through the telephone. 

 

Each of these subsets has its own method and components which were used for handling customer contacts, 

 

 

A customer-centric enterprise always offers its services through the combination of these three channels.

 

  In doing these, the organisation needs processes, technologies and services that are conditioned to take customers first and think about them in everything that they are doing. 

 

Customer–centricity has much to do with rethinking the entire customer experience from the customer point of view.

 

 

NOTE:

Collaboration is a matter of degree, and the quantity of the software and services used for collaboration only defines how comprehensive the collaboration will be.

 

Collaboration you should know has its own price – the cost to the number increases as the number of application increases.

 

  While collaboration CRM should be implemented in a “build–to–fit” manner, the more collaboration an enterprise wished to enable, the more critical the vendor’s support for both system–to–system interaction and heterogeneity.

 

In a customer-centric enterprise, the organisation tries to put machinery in place in order to meet up with the needs of their customer. 

 

 

Even the workforce is trained to think about customers first before anything else. 

They try to gather customer data from multiple channels in real time, analyse the data in order to find a correlation in the data. 

 

The said data at times can reload some hidden customer behaviour and some basic characteristics that customers have in common, the organisation can now use this in making life decisions about their customers.

 

At its most basic, customer-centric enterprise requires that an organisation provides access to a wide range of functionality – which spans the enterprise and its IT environment – according to its specific role or job function. 

 

They tried to educate their product users on new ways of using their products and some things that their products can do that are not, available for other products or services.

 

 

A customer-centric enterprise achieves its true value by adding value to their customer.  These are achieved through integration and collaboration in a fashionable way.

 

 

You should know that data is the main thing in a CCE.  The more data you have about your customers, the more you are able to serve your customers better. 

 

The users must be able to access data that are outside their department, they should be able to use this data to solve customer issues. 

 

This will now enhance the value of internal and external business processes and technology.

 

 

People-centric collaboration also requires that applications and services interact automatically with one another., without human intervention, in order to facilitate people–to–people collaboration. 

 

This requirement for a system to–system interaction is a key behind–the–scene element in any people-centric collaborative environment.

 

The bottom lines are that CCE will lead to greater efficiency, a better return on human and technological assets, new business opportunities, and a closer and more fruitful working relationship between supply chain or value chain partners be they buyers, sellers, administrators or other service providers.

 

 

Collaborative customer-centric enterprise allows users from either inside or outside the organisation to access customer data as long as those actions will improve job performance in the bottom line.

 

 

The different users and the applications both within and outside the organisation must be able to interact and collaborate with one another. 

 

An external client having a problem with accessibility can communicate a CSR who might be able to help him or her out.

 

 

The Benefit of Collaborative CCE

1. It brings about streamlined operations that offer lower transaction costs, error rates, and other operational efficiencies.
2. It also improves customer and partner relations that come from building tight links between technology and business processes. When done right, collaborative environments greatly enhance customer and partner satisfaction and help leverage all partners’ investments in technology and business process.
3. A people-centric environment provides a platform for changing products, partnerships, and business processes in support of dynamic businesses and industries that require “first–to–market” rapid response.

 

Above all, if a collaborative CCE is well planned and implemented, it will significantly impact the bottom line of the enterprise involved.

 
SUMMARY

In this article, we have discovered that:

• A customer-centric enterprise is an organization that is doing business from the customers’ perspective.
• There are four evolutions of a customer-centric enterprise, which are: Product-Focused Enterprise, Customer Focused Enterprise, Customer Value Focused Enterprise and Customer-Centric Enterprise which has much to do with 36O⁰ view of customers.
• We have also observed that a customer-centric enterprise will help you to retain your customers for life. It will also ensure that both your customers and your staff derive maximum satisfaction.

• Customer-centricity has to do with the act of putting customers at the centre of business
• In collaborative CCE, users from within and outside the organisation must be able to access data that will improve business performance and help the organisation to improve on customers experience.
• Collaborative CCE will lead to greater efficiency, new business opportunities and closer relationship among stakeholders in the business.
• Some of the benefits attached to collaborative CCE includes:
• The streamlined operation enhanced stakeholders satisfaction and leveraging of partners investment in business and processes.

 

Brainstorming Session

1. Use the diagram in Fig. 11 to discuss what CCE evolution is.
2. Do you agree that organisations should treat different customers differently?
3. Do you think that organizations should waste their time on non-profitable customers?

Do you enjoy this article, add Our Posts to your Reading List.

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PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.

I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.

 

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At the end of this article, readers should be able to:

·   Know what customer-centric enterprises are.;

·   The characteristics of CCEs.;

·   Customers’ perspective of CCEs;

·   Functions that CCEs are meant to play; and

·   Differences between Customer-Centric and Product-Centric Enterprises.

 

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ARTICLE

 

Before we begin, you should know that organisations must focus on something once they are in business.

 

Traditionally, organizations do focus on their products.

 

They weigh their achievements based on how their products are doing and their percentage of the market share.

 

In this article, we intend to look at both product-centric and customer-centric enterprises and see what their focus are. We will be discussing this under the following headings.

 

#1 Product-centric Enterprise

The main focus of a product-centric enterprise is to gain increased product offering and increase its market volume.

 

Organisations in product-centred enterprises are ranged based on the volume of their products that they are able to release into the market.

 

Even employees are rewarded based on the volume of sales they are able to make in a year.

 

#2 Reduced Cycle Times

In a product-centric enterprise, the focus of the enterprise is to reduce the time required before their goods got to the final consumers.

At times, they may be forced to reduce prices so that they can have some form of upper hand over their competitors.

 

#3 Quality

Organizations that are customer-centric are more concerned with coming up with quality products that will stand the test of time.

 

They believe that if they can do that, they will be able to attract more customers through quality products that they offer.

 

Characteristics of CCEs

One important point to know about CCEs is that they always resolve issues completely. A good CCE will not go to sleep while customer issues are not resolved.

I once had an issue with an old generation bank, I went to the bank to deposit some money only for me to get there and be told that my account had been dormant for over three weeks so it has taken some time now.

As I am writing this to you, the issue has not been resolved.

That is not a good example of a CCE. Is shows the bank is not serious about its customers.

A CCE should be able to resolve customer’s issues completely no matter the number of customers that are involved.

 

CCEs employees must completely focus on the customers. They must have full autonomy to resolve customer issues.

 

They must be able to decide on the right way to treat their customers. They must not be under any undue influence whatsoever as far as customer issues are concerned. Customers must be more paramount than the company’s policies,

 

CCEs allow customers to interact across multiple channels. The organization only needs to meet the customers at the right place with the right products and services.

As a customer-centric enterprise, you can’t force customers to come and meet you at your branch offices. You must be able to allow customers to choose the way they want to be served.

 

The true mark of a customer-centric enterprise is that they choose to be loyal to their customers even when there is no immediate reason to do so.

 

Everything about the customers may be pointing to the fact that they are not profitable at the moment, but a truly customer-centric enterprise will continue to revolve its life around the customers.

 

Customers’ Perspective of CCES’

Customers dealing with an organisation desire them to be honest and fair to them. They expect the management to be men of their words.

 

They must be able to add value to them. Like I have said in the previous chapters, there are some things that the organization promised to offer their customers for using their products.

They must be able to meet or exceed some of their customers’ expectations.

 

Also, the organisations that claim to be customer-centric must be able to provide emotional support to their customers.

 

They must be able to develop long-lasting relationship with their customers.

 

 

Customers expect that a CCE must not place short term gains before the ultimate satisfaction of their hard-earned customers.

 

 

The customer also expects the organisation to train their employees to place customers’ interest above any other Employees relating with customers must be held responsible for all customers that they are dealing with.

 

The fact that you are a marketing or sales agent does not mean that you will not know anything about customer relations. They must be able to project a good image of the organisation.

 

One thing you should know as an organisation is that you have to know much about your customers. This includes a deliberate study of their behaviours and wants.

 

 

You should also know that when you are dealing with various levels of customers, you cannot be 100 percent customer-centric to them all. This is because one customer may be more profitable than the other

 

#1     Customer Acquisition

While Product-centric enterprise focus on how they can increase their market share, the customer-centric enterprise is more concerned with how they can acquire new customers.

They also shift their attention away from their products and focus on their customers by asking questions on what they want and how their needs can be met.

 

#2  Customer Profitability

While Product-centric enterprise is focusing on how they can produce a quality product at a cheaper price so as to increase their profit margin, customer-centric enterprises are more concerned with how they can increase the profitability of their customers.

 

They continue to strategize on new means of penetrating their competitors’ customer base and evolve an effective customer strategy that will ensure that customers derive satisfaction from their interaction with the organisation.

 

 

#3  Support and Service

While Product-centric enterprises continue to think of ways of coming up with quality products to increase their market share.

 

Customer-centric enterprises are more concerned with how they can evolve better ways of serving their customers.

 

They try to ensure that customers derive maximum satisfaction from their interaction with the organization.

 

They always ensure that customers have a total experience irrespective of the channel that they have chosen to interact with the organisation.

 

SUMMARY

From this chapter, we have been able to discover that:

 

• Customer Centric Enterprises are organisations that revolved around the customer
• We also discussed some of the characteristics of CCEs which includes the fact that their employees are empowered to solve customer issues completely. They also allow customers to interact across multiple channels.
• We also look at sonic of the differences between Product-centric enterprise and CCEs. We observed that CCEs focus on customers white Product-centric enterprise focus on their products and hew they can increase their market share.

 

Brainstorming Session

 

1. What is a product-centric enterprise?
2. What are the characteristics of CCEs?

 

Do you enjoy this article, add Our Posts to your Reading List.

Action Point
PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.

I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.

 

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As an organisation moves from a product-centric enterprise to a customer-centric one, there are some basic things that will begin to change about the organisation, we want to look at this under four main headings, which are:

 

1. Pricing capabilities
2. Product quality capabilities

iii.       Marketing and sales capabilities

1. Customer service capabilities

 

 

 

Pricing Capabilities

Customer-centric enterprise tries as much as possible to come up with a price system that guarantees customer satisfaction.

 

They always come up with products and services of higher value at reasonable prices.

 

They ensure that they are excellent in whatever they are producing for their customers.

 

One unique feature of CCEs is that they do not compete with price with the non-customer-centric enterprise.

 

In this article, we want to look at the attitudes of CCEs in terms of: Pricing capabilities Product quality capabilities  Marketing and sales capabilities   Customer service capabilities

 

 

Product Quality Capabilities

In terms of what they produce, CCES’ have higher quality product ranking. They believe that producing quality goods and services at customer-friendly prices will make their customers stick to them forever.

 

They also make sure that all departments in the organization are quality 1)0th in goods and services to their customers.

 

Marketing and Sales Capabilities

Customer-Centric Enterprise tries as much as possible to build strong awareness by providing quality service so as to attract more prospects to their Life Cycle.

 

They can also create opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling. This is a way by which both marketing and sales departments are actively involved in sales. Customers can also help in increasing sales and introducing products to others.

 

The organisations also develop sales forces with superior technical skills in order to boost sales.

Customer Service Capabilities

Customer-Centric Enterprise has superior pre-sales services capabilities. They are able to educate their prospects on the benefit of using their products. CCES’. They also have well responsive after-sales services which are able to assist customers with any challenges they might be faced with while they use the product.

 

CCES are also able to rapidly handle customer orders in a way that it boosts customers’ confidence in the organization.
 
SUMMARY

In this article, we have been able to discover:

 

• In terms of price, CGES do not compete with Product-centric enterprise. They give customers a “wow” experience with a relatively low price.
• CCES have higher quality ranking than product-centric enterprise.
• Marketing, Sales and Customer services departments walk together in relating with customers. It also goes with the ability of the customers to introduce the organization’s product and buy more of the products and services.
• Customer-centric enterprises have pieces of machinery in place to educate their prospects on the immeasurable benefits of using their products and services.

Brainstorming Session

1. Discuss the differences between CCEs and PCEs using the following parameters:
   ·      Pricing capabilities.
   ·      Product quality capabilities.
   ·      Marketing and sales capabilities.
   ·      Customer service capabilities.

Do you enjoy this article, add Our Posts to your Reading List.

Action Point
PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.

I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.

 

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The Concept
This is the simplest way of explaining the way by which an organisation whether product or customer-centred interacts with its customers and prospects. It explains the process that a customer or prospect passes through before deciding to purchase or use a particular product or service. Understanding the customer Life Cycle will help organizations to guide against losing customers to competitors.

 

 
The Concept
This is the simplest way of explaining the way by which an organisation whether product or customer-centred interacts with its customers and prospects.

 

It explains the process that a customer or prospect passes through before deciding to purchase or use a particular product or service.

 

 

Understanding the customer Life Cycle will help organizations to guide against losing customers to competitors.

At the end of this article, readers should be able to: Define customer Life Cycle Understand how customer Life Cycle can be managed Understand how the customer Life Cycle can be managed (1 in a Customer-Centric Enterprise

 

 

It will also help them to attract new prospects to their own life cycle.

 

The Customer Life Cycle you should know begins with reaching the target market and progresses towards an established loyal customer base.

 

Along the way, it is necessary to acquire, convert and retain customers.

 

 

The Customer Life Cycle (CLC) is a circle that any organization will want its best customer to move around over and over again.

 

This is because as customers purchase your products, they are learning about your organization over and over again.

 

 

I can even say that they are learning some new things. You should know that these processes may change from company to company the processes that lead to it are different from company to company The noticeable differences at times may be attributed to product consideration.

 

 

When a customer is considering using a particular product from your organisation, he or she is termed as a prospect.

 

In doing this, lie has to go through a lot of thought processes in order to decide whether or not to use your product. His conclusion will determine whether or not he will enter your Life Cycle.

 
When a customer enters the Life Cycle of any organisation, there are six basic things that they do.

#1 Identify needs

They try to identify needs that may be filled by a product or service available for purchase from the enterprise.

 

Let’s take for example an organisation is offering Tomato paste for sale. You have to think of needs that can be satisfied with that.

 

 

#2 Identify products

After you have identified those products and the needs that they can satisfy at times you have to tell others about it.

 

You can help the organisation to create awareness about the existence of those products or services.

 

 

#3 Determine satisfaction

The next thing is to find time to learn more about the organisation and the products and services they have to offer.

 

You may also want to know about other products and services that WON’ nave in stock.

 

 

#4 Consider the product

Now you have to consider how the products and services offered by the organization satisfy or do not satisfy your needs.

 

 

#5 Evaluate the suitability

You evaluate the suitability of the products and services against the competition to fulfil the identified needs.

 

#6 Purchase product

The decision to purchase the product or service or go to another competition.

 

The last phase in the customer Life Cycle is often regarded as the “Customer moment”. This is the time when the customers decide whether or not to purchase the product.

 

As soon as he decides to purchase the product, he becomes a customer. This decision will also change the focus of the organization.

 

They are now concerned with how they will not lose hard-earned customers to their competitors. They can now influence the customer either positively or negatively.

 

 

You should know that if the organisation fails to live up to expectation through poor services or falling short of the brand promise, this can make the customer to join another organization’s Life Cycle.

 

But if they are able to satisfy his needs, he becomes a customer for life. At this stage, the customer continues to acquire products from the organisation and utilize it.

 

This may continue through the entire lifetime of the customer. Once the customer is satisfied, he will re-enter the organization’s Life Cycle and start the process over and over again.

 

 

You should know that while the customer goes through the Life Cycle, he might be lost at any stage in the Life Cycle but it is also agreed upon that, it is better for you to lose a prospect than to lose a hard-earned customer.

 

If the loss of hard-earned customers continues uncontrolled, it is often referred to as “Customer attrition”,

 

 

There are two ways by which a prospect or a customer can drop out of the Life Cycle.

 

The first one is known as “loss”; this is when you lost a prospect to your competitor just before they enter your Life Cycle.

 

While nobody prays that this kind of loss should occur but at least it is desirable.

 

This is due to the fact that you have not invested your hard-earned money on the prospects before they enter your competitor’s Life Cycle.

 

 

The second form of loss that can happen to an organization is called attrition which is more than an ordinary loss. It happens when your hard-earned customers decide to join your competitors’ Life Cycle.

 

Attrition has been defined as the erosion of customer loyalty after the customer moment leading to their capture by a competitor.

 

 

 

This kind of loss is painful as you have already invested in them. Such loss, should not occur when you can provide acceptable service to your customers.

 

 

You should know that competition is one of the factors that influence movements in the CLC. One thing that determines the level at which an organisation need to be customer-centric has much to do with the level of competition that an organisation is facing from its competitors.

 

 

The final goal of a customer-centric enterprise is to raise the exit harrier so that prospects are not easily lost to competitors and attrition of hard-earned customers is totally prevented.

 

 

Customer Life Cycle Management
The business processes conducted by the organisation fall into the following general categories.

 

 

#1 Intrude And Engage

Under this, the organization intends to catch the prospect’s attention, and increase the prospect’s awareness of the organisation.

 

Tell him about what the organization has to offer and engage him in a discussion that is targeted at drawing him into the organization’s Life Cycle.

#2 Transact and Fulfill

That the prospects are aware of the organization and what it has to offer, does not guarantee that the prospect is going to purchase the organization’s product or service.

 

That is why the organization has to continually engage the prospects so as to ensure that they finally become the organization’s customers.

 

 

#3     Retain/Service and Expand

Once the customer purchases your product or service, you have to begin real work of ensuring that you do not lose him to your competitor.

 

This involves coming up with innovations that will ensure that you continually satisfy your customers and live up to the expectation of your customers.

 

Definition

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) can be seen as the expected financial benefit from customer retention investment to build customer loyalty, Simply, it is the total amount that you expect your customers to spend on your product throughout their lifetime.

 

Definition

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) can be seen as the expected financial benefit from customer retention investment to build customer loyalty, Simply, it is the total amount that you expect your customers to spend on your product throughout their lifetime.

 

Lifetime Value of a Customer

By calculating CLV, you as a 0kM manager can measure the expected financial benefits from customer retention investment to build customer loyalty You will be able to know which of your customers you should invest in and the one that you don’t need to bother yourself about.

 

The calculation of the lifetime value of your customer will reveal the lifetime cost of the customer which includes acquisition cost, operation expenses and customer services that you offer to your customer. It will also show the expected lifetime revenue of a customer.

 

At the end of this article, readers should be able to: Define Customer Lifetime Value Appreciate the Importance of CLV Appreciate how to maximize the lifetime value of a customer Appreciate the purpose of CLV in an enterprise

 

Importance of CLV

From what we have said, CLV will allow customer-centric organizations to know what they should expect from their customers. There are many benefits that accrue to CCEs.

 

One of the benefits that can be attributed to CCE is the fact that it allows organizations to minimize wastage and maximize cost.

 

It will help you to know the number of resources that you could spend on a particular customer

 

Another benefit of lifetime value is that it will allow organizations to come up with strategies and programs that will enable them to give their customers a “wow” experience.

 

If you have a profitable customer base, you will not want to lose them. You will want to put pieces of machinery in place in order to ensure that the customers are satisfied so that they can remain with you for life.

 

That is why you have to carry out a comprehensive CLV analysis of your customers in order to know the proper way of serving them better.

 

Maximizing Lifetime Value of a Customer

This requires that you maximize the rate of new customer acquisition, the conversion rate of prospects to buyers and the repeat frequency of existing customers.

 

When you want to get the best from your customers, you have to improve the rate at which you convert prospects to buyers. You must also guide against losing your hard-earned customers to your competitors.

 

You should know that it is very expensive to acquire new customers. Besides, the new customers are not contributing to your profit base now, they will be contributing in the future.

 

It is from your existing customers that the bulk of your profit is coming. That is why U is not logical for you to build your business on your first-time buyers alone.

 

In a product-centric enterprise, profits are determined by calculating the cost of the product and other associated costs and subtracting it from the total cost but in a CCE, you have to consider the customer service cost and weigh it against the lifetime value of a customer.

 

You have to increase what you spend on customer value. Therefore CLV is a projection of what a customer will be worth in the future.

 

The purpose of CLV is to encourage the organisation to spend a large percentage of its resources on adding value to its customers.

 

The application of CLV is to encourage organizations to embark on programs that will improve customer lifetime value.

 

SUMMARY OF THIS ARTICLE
In this article, we have discovered that:

• CLV is the expected value that a customer is expected to contribute to your organisation over their lifetime.
• CLV is also the calculation of the acquisition cost, operating expenses and customer services.
• CLV wilt help organizations minimize wastage and maximize cost.

With the knowledge of CL~ you should be able to raise the exit barrier and draw
more people to your lifecycle.

 

• CIV can help organizations spend their resources effectively on adding value to their profitable customers.

Brainstorming Session

1. What is Customer Lifetime Value? How can you maximize the lifetime value of a customer?
2. Discuss the reasons why top management in various organisations in Nigeria are afraid of CRM.

Do you enjoy this article, add Our Posts to your Reading List.

Action Point
PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.

I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.

 

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A Customer Value Proposition (CVP) consists of the sum total of benefits that a vendor promises a customer will receive in return for the customer’s associated payment or other value transfer.

 

 

Customer Value Management was started by Ray Kordupleski in the 1980s and discussed in his book Mastering Customer Value Management.

 

This is is a business or marketing statement that describes why a customer should buy a product or use a service.

 

 

 

It is specifically targeted toward potential customers rather than other constituent group such as employees, partners and suppliers.

 

Similar to the unique selling proposition, it is a clearly defined statement that is designed to convince customers that one particular product or service will add more value or better solve a problem than others in his competitive set.

Why Customer Value Proposition is Important

A good Customer Value Proposition will provide convincing reasons why a customer should buy a product and also differentiate your product from competitors.

 

Gaining a customer’s attention and approval will help build sales faster and more profitably, as well as work to increase master share.

 

 

Understanding customer needs is more important because it helps promote the product.

 

A brand is the perception of a product or service that is designed to stay in the minds of targeted customers.

 

 

Creating a Strong CVP
A strong CVP is a clear, concise and compelling articulation of how the factors that are important to the customers are satisfied by the company.

 

Deep knowledge of the potential/current customer base is invaluable in coming up with a strong CVP which reflects the tangible results that customers can reasonably expect from using the firm’s products or services.

 

Strong Value Propositions are also expressed from the customer’s perspective and talk about the experiences and benefits that they xviii have when using the product.

 

 

Competitive Advantage

A product with a successful CVP is directly linked to the product’s actual and sustained performance versus the competition.

 

The two main attributes that allow customers to differentiate among products are price and quality Finding the coned balance between those two attributes usually leads to a successful product.

 

 

If a company is able to produce the same quality product at its direct competition but sell it for less, this provides a price value to the consumers.

 

Similarly, if a company is able to produce a superior quality product for the same or a slightly higher but acceptable price, the value to the consumer is added through the quality of the product.

 

 

Note: A product must offer value through price and /or quality in order for it to be successful
 

Target Audiences

1. End Users: The initial and ongoing satisfaction of the end-users is the goal of every business. Customer satisfaction is achieved when superior customer value is delivered. Establishing a lasting business relationship will lead to future sales. Price and quality are the most important factors in a consumer’s purchase.

 

2. Manufacturer/Distributor: When the sales target is not the end-user, but a manufacturer or distributor of a product, the most important factor is conveying superiority of one product over another There may be other factors besides price and quality that would affect a customer’s decision and communicating those as well is essential.

 

Types of CVP

#1 All Benefits

Most Managers when asked to construct a Customer Value Proposition, simply list all the benefits they believe that their offering might deliver to their target customers.

 

‘The more they can think of; the better This approach requires the least knowledge about the customers and the competitors, and thus results in a weaker marketplace effort.

 

 

#2 Favourable Point of Reference

The second type of value proposition explicitly recognizes that the customer has alternatives and focuses on how to differentiate one product or service from another, knowing that an element of an offering is a point of difference relative to the next best alternative.

 

It does not however covey the value of this difference to target customers. A product or service may have special points of difference, complicating the customers’ requirements and preferences, arid what it is worth to fulfil them; suppliers may stress points of difference that deliver relatively little value to the target customers.

 

 

#3 Resonating Focus
The favourable points of a different value proposition is preferable to an all-benefits proposition for companies crafting a customer value proposition. The resonating focus value proposition should be the gold standard.

 

 

This approach acknowledges that managers who make purchase decisions have major, ever-increasing levels of responsibility and often are pressed for time.

 

They want to do business with suppliers that fully grasp critical issues in their business and deliver a CVI’ that’s simple yet powerfully captivating.

 

 

Suppliers can provide a customer value proposition on the few attributes that are most important and target customers by demonstrating and documenting the value of this superior performance, and communicating it in a way that conveys a sophisticated understanding of the customer’s business priorities.

 

 

Brainstorming Session

1. What is Customer Value Proposition?
2. Discuss the different types of CVP that we have.
3. Why do you think CXV is important in an organization?

Do you enjoy this article, add Our Posts to your Reading List.

Action Point
PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.

I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.

 

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Definition
When we talk about lead which is sometimes referred to as prospects, they are people that are likely to be interested in your products or services.

 

They are the set of people that will finally become your customers.

 

 
Definition
When we talk about lead which is sometimes referred to as prospects, they are people that are likely to be interested in your products or services.

 

They are the set of people that will finally become your customers.

 

 

Because of the relevance of lead to the development of your organization, you need to properly manage them so that, you don’t lose them to your competitors.

 

There are some basic things that you need to know about your leads because it is when you understand some of these details that you can meet them at the right place with the right products and services.

 

At the end of this article, the reader should be able to appreciate: What Lead Management is What you need to know about your leads What Account Management is

 

 

Capture of Lead Information
As a salesperson or sales manager, you need to have the contact details of your lead: you must also know their area of interest.

 

It is when you know this that you can package products and services that will satisfy their interest. You also need to know the source of lead: that is how the person or person(s) heard about your organization.

 

Also, you must be able to have metrics to measure the success of your organization as far as lead conversion is concerned.

 

 

Details Capturing
You must have a record of details of your interaction with your leads, so as to monitor them and know how far you are working towards their conversation.

 

The organization is to monitor all phone calls, emails and meetings that lead to the conversion of the leads to a customer.

 

 

Leads Qualifications
When we talk about leads qualification, we are saying that as an organization, you don’t have to entertain every dick and harry.

 

You must have some predetermined rules that specify what conditions a prospect must satisfy before they can qualify to become your customer. For example, not everybody n Nigeria can afford to buy a car.

 

Therefore a car dealer that is busy pursuing a man that could hardly afford three-square meals is chasing a goose.

 

Lead Allocation
Under SFA, we have said the organization needs to have an application that automatically distributes leads to sales agents or resellers who monitor things and make sure that their needs are met.

 

 

You should know that leads management in any organization are organized based on the needs of the organization.

 

 #1 Account Management

Account management is an application and process that helps salespersons and sales managers to handle individual corporate accounts with the organization. It allows the organization to monitor how each consumer with the organization are faring and follow – up on them appropriately.

 

This is mostly used in business to business (b2b) relationship in any organization.

 

 

This accounts that are being managed, apart from having financial transaction information also have other information that is needed by the organization such as the corporate name, an address which is grouped according to some basic requirement or other similarities that the corporate customers share together.

 

This will allow the sales team and sales manager that needs information about their corporate customer to have them.

 

 

When sale and account department of a CCE are integrated in such a way that have uniform database about the organization, it will allow them to monitor some basic information such as the customer purchasing patterns and use that information to predict what customers are likely to buy in the future.

 

 

SUMMARY
At the end of this chapter, we have been able to discover that:

• Leads are people that are likely to be interested in your products or services.
• Some of the basic things that you need to know about your leads include the capture of lead information, details of things to capture, what qualifies a lead, lead allocation
• We also discover that Account Management are applications that are needed to handle individual corporate accounts and manage how corporate customers in the organization are faring.

 

Brainstorming Session

1. What is lead Management?
2. What is the function of Lead management?
3. Discuss Account Management.

Do you enjoy this article, add Our Posts to your Reading List.

Action Point
PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.

I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.

 

Hi, I now use RavenBank to send, receive and save money. I also pay my bills with ease, you should try it out too

Opportunity Management In CRM: How To Manage Customers Who Are Willing

 

 

Some Interesting Topics For you

Facts About Customer Life Cycle
Facts about Customer Value Proposition

Facts About Wallet Share In CRM.

 

At the end of this article, readers should be able to: ·                     Define Opportunity management ·                     Know things that are associated with opportunity management ·                     Talk about sales forecast management

 
 
Introduction
From our earlier discussion, we must have known that there is no way we can divulge Lead Management and Opportunity management from SFA Lead management occurs when you generate lead us various channels available to you in order to introduce specific products to a particular market segment.

 

One thing about lead management which can be a form of challenge to any organisation is the ability to introduce the right product at the right time for the right consumers.

 

 

 

 

Once you have identified your consumer and you have been able to raise the financial commitment that is needed, then you can move to the level of opportunity management.

 

That is when lead management can become opportunity management. It is then that it will enter the sales funnel.

 

 

There are some things that point that is associated with opportunity management.

 

These are:

• Financial Details
• Decision dates
• Proposal
• Possibility of closure
• Financial Details: Before you can say that opportunity has come as far as turning prospects to customers is concerned, you must have carried out a feasibility study and known that the lead is really worth it. You have to know the financial implication that is involved and that are you going to realize at the end of the day.
• Decision Dates: One other thing that you need to take note of is the decision dates of your customers. You must be able to pinpoint the date that they actually become your customers. You might need this when you are to determine their lifetime value.

 

• Proposal: you also have to the proposal. This at times has much to do with the type of people that are involved. But in an ideal environment, there has to be a proposal and there must be an agreement to back it up.

 

• Probability of Closure: A business person or better still a CRM manager you must be able to predict based on certain pre-conditions if a particular prospect will finally become a customer. Like the example given earlier concerning a car dealer. if he now sees a casual worker with ten thousand naira basic salary as a lead, that means something is wrong somewhere.

 

You should also know that pipeline management entails

 

1. Pipeline management to track the opportunity life
2. Proposal management
3. The capture of multi-channel interactions with the prospect
4. Milestone management for sales processes
5. Managing the sales forecast depending on the decision date

 

#1 Pipeline management

One thing that you need to have is pipeline management. Look at it this way, your wonderful pet entered into a pipeline you will want to monitor it in order to see to it that your wonderful pet comes safely out of the pipe, so also is a lead that you desperately want to become your customer.

 

You have to put pipeline management in place in order for it to be successful.

 

 

#2 Proposal Management

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a proposal is a plan or suggestion which is finally made to an official person or group, or the act of making it.

 

If an organization for example is introducing a new product, you have to put pipeline management in place in order for it to be successful.

 

 

#3 Multi-Channel Capturing

Like was said earlier, you have to monitor the various channels that you are using to interact with your customers.

 

As a CRM or sales manager, you have to monitor the way your salespeople interact with the organisation so that you are not misrepresented.

 

 

#4 Milestone Management

At times, as an organization, you set a target for yourself. You might decide at times that, if you are able to convert one thousand prospects to customers, you have reached a milestone.

 

At times, this must be managed in order to ensure that these milestones are achieved in your organization.

 

 

#5 Sales Forecast Management
Sales forecasts also must be managed in order to achieve results. Take for example that you have projected that you will sell one million tonnes of cement before December and by August, you have not been able to sell 300,000 tonnes.

 

That means your sales forecast is not realistic. You have to make sure that you are managing your sales forecasting order to achieve the result.

 

 

The main benefit of opportunity management is to help organizations to deal as far as possible.

 

It will allow organizations to identify potential customers, gather as much information about them and use that information to meet them at the right place with the right products and services.

 

The opportunity management application should be able to identify qualified leads and provides important information that the organization can use in order to attain success.

 

 

Opportunity management span the entire organization.it has to do with the front office staff working closely with the back-office staff in order to utilize the information that they have about the customers.

 

They can also go into the data warehouse in order to have much information about pasty transactions of the customers.

 

 

A good and well-established organization must have rules that guild them this rule must stipulate what a prospect is when will it become a qualified lead and how to incorporate it into the organization’s database.

 

 

Another thing that an organization has to know is that they must be able to identify who their competitors are, and the leverage that their competitor has as far as the leading question is concerned.

 

They must have adequate information about their lead, their competitor and other things that have to do with their leads.

 

 

There are some applications that have to do with SFA being able to provide information about the product that your competitors have that compete with your product.

 

You will also know what your customers want in terms of product functionality, support services, and pricing among others.
 
 
SUMMARY
At the end of this lesson, we discovered that:

• You cannot separate lead management from opportunity management.
• Lead management occurs when you get leads to form various channels in order to introduce specific products to them.
• There are four basic things associated with lead management: Financial details, Decision dates, proposal and possibility of closure.
• Proposal management has to do with managing how you go about introducing your business to potential customers or those that might be interested in it.
• We also have sale forecast management which will help you to predict what you are likely to sell in the next year that you are entering into – based in your sales in the previous year and the lifetime value of your customers.

 

BRAINSTORMING SESSION

1. Define Opportunity Management.
2. Discuss the components that are associated with opportunity management
3. Discuss Sales Forecast Management.

Do you enjoy this article, add Our Posts to your Reading List.

Action Point
PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.

I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.

 

Hi, I now use RavenBank to send, receive and save money. I also pay my bills with ease, you should try it out too

 

The internet has changed people’s lives in numerous ways. From the way we look for information to the way we buy things. Nothing can stop the fast development of this immersion into the new technologies that we have now reached the point where we can no longer even imagine our lives without the internet.

 

In such a reality, people are trying to adapt their lives and to get the best out of it.

 

They want to improve their lives and become more efficient. Why would they go to the restaurant for dinner if they can order food in? Why would they spend time shopping when they can order everything they need in less than ten minutes?

 

There is a constant trend to use the internet, not only to find out information but to get things done.

Buyers and sellers

On the one hand, we have buyers, people who try to make their lives easier and better by buying online.

 

Regardless if we talk about making a grocery shopping quick and easy, or ordering an item from abroad.

 

The internet enables fulfilling those needs and the ability to obtain something you could not even imagine two decades ago.

 

Besides convenience, online shopping also provides a great selection of products and services, as well as competitive prices. This is something that provides an incredible advantage over any local retail.

 

Due to the growing expansion of the internet and the fact that new generations are growing up with the internet experience being part of their lives from the early days, the number of digital buyers is constantly on the rise.

 

From 1.32 billion digital buyers in 2014, this number is expected to grow to more than 2 billion by 2020.

 

On the other hand, we have people who create or simply resell the products through the usage of the internet. These sellers are turning to the internet as a tool to run their business and ultimately earn their living. Some are choosing the existing platforms specialized in the sale of goods, such as eBay, while others decide to create their online stores.

 

 

Either way, the goal is to reach consumers and encourage them to buy. As a seller, your goal is first to reach the digital buyers, and then persuade them to buy from you, using a series of promotional activities, online interaction, etc.

 

E-commerce

Buyers and sellers together make up e-commerce, short for electronic commerce. E-commerce is the transaction between a buyer and a seller, which is done through online technologies.

 

It is the process of using the internet to buy or sell online Despite the fact that e-commerce is something available to anyone and in spite of how easy it might be to start selling products and services online, there are many struggles to make this business viable and actually capitalize your efforts in the digital world.

 

As the market gets saturated, day by day, it becomes even more difficult to place your products on that market.

 

A modern consumer is overwhelmed with numerous advertising messages each day. He is also mobile, which means easy access to the information and ability to buy on the go.

 

A modern consumer is also doubtful and equivocal. Faced with plenty of choices and alternatives, a modern consumer needs to make decisions on a daily basis.

 

All of this shapes the approach of modern businesses whose goal is to reach that modern consumer and persuade him that theirs is the product they should buy.

 

It is not an easy task, but with the right strategy and tools, you should be able to introduce and position your company on the e-commerce market.

 

 

Action Point
PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on an individual and corporate level, I will be very glad to do that because I have trained several individuals and groups and they are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.

 

I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you can drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNUGGETS is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.