Renaud

In one week I met a car manufacturer and major retailer who admitted to the same problem I had at Romtelecom: The inability to send ad-hoc promotional messages to their clients. The reason: Lack of a structured database. I went on a mission to find a quick solution for all my clients. One phone call and two meetings later I found the perfect solution. Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Ok now you are thinking major integration, time and money? Wrong. Assuming you have a database of about 10,000 clients, you can either integrate the Excel files including customer data or get a small team to do data entry if the data is in paper form (i.e. contracts). The nice thing about Microsoft Dynamics CRM is that it’s a MS product and it can read and interact with all Office software. Cost: In the case of my two clients; one server license + 2 user licenses plus 30 man days (one person working one month) at integration comes up to 12-15k Euros. You don’t need Head Office approval and if Head Office hears about your new CRM, it is completely scalable.

I don’t sell software but the hospitality from the people at TotalSoft was amazing. They are local, they implement and in my client’s case, have an auto industry solution.

Message: Remember Step 5 - Over communicate to your customers. Implementing a quick CRM solution to communicate promotions, a reminder of your loyalty program, or just simply a ‘Thank You” note will ensure that customers keep you on top of mind. Proactive and consistent outbound communications are one more way to advertize and by putting a bit of money in a CRM, this will give you results now when times are tough and when things start to improve. In other words you need to do this anyway!

How are you communicating with your database right now?