Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Strategy and Roadmap

There’s no denying it. Customers are the lifeblood of every business and in today’s digital world, businesses looking to thrive need to develop strong relationships with all their customers.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a strategy for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve business relationships.

Therefore, defining a proper CRM strategy is the first step any organization should undertake before acquiring and using CRM software. Typically, most organisations adopt CRM to help grow sales and improve their customer service. However, a CRM system can do so much more than that.

A CRM system gives everyone: from sales, customer service, business development, recruiting, marketing, or any other departmental line of business, a better way to manage the external interactions and relationships that drive success.

The goal of successful CRM strategy implementation is to boost efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, simplify access to customer data and make the most of up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. If you are looking to implement a CRM system or need advice on how to best use your current system, contact us today for more information!

iMovo helps its customers understand that any CRM strategy must underpin the overall business strategy with input, typically from sales, marketing, and customer service. However, organisations should look towards CRM being able to support more than just these three strands. CRM can by virtue of the massive ecosystems in place as well as the extensive enhancement possibilities, be extended to support an organisation’s business in areas which might not be immediately obvious such as operations, project management and supporting a diverse range of business models including Gig/sharing economy models. iMovo’s extensive experience in this sphere makes it uniquely able to help organisations identify and enable this incredible business opportunity.

iMovo has developed a unique and effective methodology for the process of CRM strategy formulation, which can be encapsulated in 5 steps:

1 - Understanding the organisation’s overall strategy for growth and the key milestones in achieving this
- Develop a Unique Selling Proposition – this should be the aggregation of factors that make your product or service different and better than your competition. iMovo will help you articulate this USP which should become the core of your marketing position and plan.
- Define your Value Proposition – this is a statement of the specific results the customer will get and the value they will get if they use your product or service.
- Know your Customer – this cliché may at first glance seem superficial, but is, critical for an organization. This understanding will determine to whom and how you will be marketing, selling and servicing – the aspects which have a bearing on how you apply CRM.
2 - Map the customer journey
This will show the touchpoints and the experiences of the customer along the way and will encompass virtually every area of your organization.
3 - Establish your sales processes & channels
One needs to take into consideration how CRM can help the organization sell more efficiently by empowering the sales force as well as possibly enabling the business to sell through more channels. A CRM strategy will clearly map out the optimal way to use the software.
4 - Understand the organizational dynamics
It is critically important that the CRM strategy identifies who will have access to CRM, how they will use it and how it will impact teams. This typically includes aligning teams especially in sales and marketing; departments which all too frequently appear to be run in “parallel” inside many organisations, yet with little cohesion between the two.
5 - Selecting the right platform
Multiple CRM systems are available, and price differentials may be significant. Guiding an organization through the selection process is an integral part of the CRM strategy.

For many organisations which do not have the institutional experience with CRM, embarking on the journey may be complex and fraught with possible pitfalls. Having an experienced organization like iMovo to guide and help define the strategy and roadmap is a smart way of mitigating the risks and taking the right investment decisions.

With iMovo’s technical expertise, implementation will be smooth and seamless, while we will also provide ongoing consultancy and training tailored to your company’s needs.