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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
Sales and Marketing Effectiveness 
"SHOW ME THE MONEY" Collaboration is not a trendy slogan for the next annual report. Done right, this win-win approach yields substantial business benefits. Customer retention. It's many times cheaper to market to existing customers than attract new ones. "State Farm Insurance knows that increasing retention rate by one percent is worth a billion dollars, so they know that spending $20 million is a rational investment in loyalty," says Fred Reichheld, Bain Fellow and author of numerous books on customer loyalty. Increased leverage. CRM tools for sales and marketing are becoming more collaborative. Stands to reason -- most companies aren't relying on direct sales, but VARs, system integrators and agents. The Intel Inside campaign illustrates a company using its own money to push its partners' products. Insurance companies sell through agents, who use the national firm's marketing and sales systems to get leads to pursue. Cross-selling. "The ROI numbers I see deal with reducing operating costs by a percentage, decreasing campaign creation time and increasing revenue because of increases in cross-selling," says Nelle Schantz, worldwide director CRM for Cary, North Carolina-based SAS Institute. "We think CRM's cross-sell ROI is considerable," agrees Stanford Kurland, COO of Countrywide Credit Industries. Admittedly, it's not easy to quantify, but consistency and standardized methodology for running various campaigns can't help but pull their weight. Increased efficiency. Giving a sales rep a product configurator tool is great CRM, since it allows most of the configuration and pricing work to be done in front of the customer, thereby compressing the time required and eliminating mistakes. Instant cost-reduction. GETTING THERE To reach your ROI goals, jump on a Harley! Harley-Davidson is never satisfied -- it tracks over 90 percent of end users, asking them questions and listening to the answers. It's not just the "Easy Rider" image that sells the brand anymore -- most police departments have Harleys. IBM Global Services practices collaborative sales and marketing collaboration by focusing on solving their clients' problems, even when it means selling systems that don't include IBM hardware or software. As a result, Global Services accounts for 40 percent of "Big Blue's" revenues, up from five percent 15 years ago. Going outside your organization to solve customers' problems is a powerful way to preserve ownership of the relationship. Keeping a single face to the customer is more than just a nice thing to do, it also cuts way down on waste and duplication of effort. "Companies can't afford to add extra channels for customers only to have to contact their customers three or four times because the channels aren't integrated," says Jim Smith, vice president of CRM solutions for Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based Avaya: "They're creating more work for themselves" and losing ROI in the process. When purchasing CRM technology, have a specific use in mind for each tool you buy, whether that need means allowing ad hoc collaborations, giving consultant and vendor partners access to the same information, keeping track of teams meeting only in cyberspace, or whatever. You can get specific tools for just about any need, including tools to help you understand what the stages in the process are. Author: Bob Thompson Contributing Writer: David Sims, SharpAngle.com Print Design: Sundberg & Associates Inc. Produced by: Frank Long, International Media Associates, Sandwich, MA, E-mail: flongima@aol.com ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bob Thompson is founder and president of Front Line Solutions, an independent CRM consulting and research firm. Mr. Thompson is a leading authority on the role of CRM in the extended enterprise, specializing in emerging CRM-related strategies and technologies for Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Collaborative eBusiness, an emerging trend that is the fusion of eCRM, PRM and group collaboration tools. Throughout his career, he has advised leading companies on the strategic use of Information Technology to solve business problems and gain a competitive advantage. Mr. Thompson is also the editor and publisher of CRM.Insight, an award-winning CRM newsletter. In January 2000, he launched CRMGuru.com, which has become the world's largest and fastest-growing CRM portal with over 100,000 members. For more information, visit the Front Line Solutions Web site at www.frontlinehq.com or CRMGuru.com at www.crmguru.com. |
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