The Power of CRM 2.0

The voice of the common man has been amplified tenfold
with the advent of Web 2.0, as seen when people gain
fame and recognition due to their contributions in
blogs, wikis, forums and podcasts. It seems as if
every opinion is heard and each word that they say
count. With the massive amount of users surfing
through the internet and with some people needing
advertisements in their webpages for income, this has
become a wonderful opportunity for companies to tap
into this potential oil rig of prospective customers.

Since companies are taking great efforts to reach out
to consumers in the internet, software publishers have
announced the arrival of the modern CRM: CRM 2.0.
Along with the basic tools of CRM applications, Web
2.0 technologies are integrated into these programs,
allowing businesses to keep track of the likes and
buying patterns of online customers/ shoppers. This
also gives leeway for marketers to present their
products more forcefully and convincingly without the
need of an expensive marketing research team for
information...CRM 2.0 can do the job perfectly.

Collaborative leanings

The main feature and driving force of CRM 2.0 is that
it’s inherently collaborative, putting the business
and consumer on the same page for the benefit of both.
With also the versatility of CRM software, marketers
and PR agents can truly engage the consumer across
multiple points. The assurance of the client’s
attention is guaranteed given that he/she has visited
a specialized site (e.g sports site) that is in
accordance with the target market of the business (in
the previous example, Nike is the perfect company to
reach out in that site).

Also, given human nature’s tendency to believe in the
testimonials of peers rather than repetitive marketing
pitches, the presence of blogs and podcasts create an
opportunity for companies to find legitimate models to
talk about their products, and spread the benefits of
their products to the market. This then encourages a
two-way exchange of communication where firms can hear
about the good and bad side of their products, giving
them inexpensive access about consumer concerns, which
will in turn help the company’s business strategy.

Lower costs

With the internet having more and more surfers every
year, this gives companies potentially more knowledge
about the market and also giving less value to those
expensive research firms, which implicitly benefits
big companies and handicaps small ones. Such is the
reach of Web 2.0, and it is necessary that
entrepreneurs be aware of its massive reach, which has
insight on literally billions of voices from around
the world.

Monitoring costs are also slashed and advertising too,
since the latter can be done in single click in a
consumer reports website and the latter’s cost is
based on the frequency of clicks on the company’s
banner. In the end, the company is getting closer to
that sweet dot in the profit maximization graph.

Lend an ear

Communications is developing at a staggering rate. Two
decades ago, text messaging and picture messages are
unheard of. Today, online video conferences can be
done and every internet surfer has an unsaid
opportunity to be a journalist or be a plain concerned
consumer, warning people of the boons and banes of
products. Either way, it benefits companies greatly.
And with the help of the organizational prowess of CRM
2.0 applications, managers and entrepreneurs should
lend an ear for millions speak their mind behind the
monitor. Read More......

The Executive, Consumer and CRM

In today’s information age, the typical consumer is
continually getting lost and confused in the sea of
random facts, news and reviews; which are just a click
away in the information superhighway that is the
Internet. The declining stock value of "clogged" Web
sites such as Yahoo.com proves this, as surfers are
slowly averting their eyes from these kind of sites
and subsequently go to more specialized (and therefore
credible) ones that truly cater to their needs:
ESPN.com for the sports buff and BBC.co.uk for the
current events-savvy businessman.

These are the types of things that any Marketing
Department of an enterprise should jot down on their
databases whenever they’re trying to reach out to
their target market; and this proves the growing
importance of Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
in today’s information-clogged era.

Approach

The approach of CRM utilizes every facet of the
organization; and each of those groups go hand-in-hand
in order to achieve what the enterprise is meant to do
in the first place: please customers, which, in turn,
cultivates brand loyalty, leading to a gradual
increase in profit.

The core departments for the building
corporate-consumer relationships are the Internals and
Marketing Department as they direct the mechanisms and
paint the image of the company, respectively. The
former, for instance, guides the whole enterprise by
creating policies and safety nets in accordance to the
company’s philosophy. The latter on the other hand,
identifies their target market and will find ways to
cater to their needs.

These lay the background for the other departments,
who see to it that the complex machinery that is the
corporation gets what it wants with the greatest
efficiency (Human Resources) and with a clean and
respectable image to boot (Public Relations).

Delivery

But given all this massive information about consumer
wants, performance ratings, cost-efficiency ratio and
tons more, how does a company streamline all this to
make the information as convenient for the Brand
Manager as it is for the Marketing Analyst? CRM
software: technology gives enterprises, big or small,
a chance to gobble up all the statistics and facts
that hound them and present it in a clear and
simplified manner.

Products such as the web based Infusionsoft and
outlook based ProphetCRM offer entrepreneurs and
managers alike different features and conveniences
atop of the standard contact and referral tracking
management options. So to speak, there are specific
CRMs that cater to small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
and also to the heavyweights of the corporate world.

The growing need for consumer-centric strategies

In this rapidly globalizing world, where trade borders
are gone and the once daunting walls that are tariffs
eroded, companies, old and new, are jostling to be on
the top spot in their respective industries. This is a
time where one needs to know more than the other with
regards to consumer desires simply to survive the
corporate wolves’ den.

Information is the key: not only do they have to
recognize their primary and secondary target markets,
they have to "be them": they have to engross
themselves into their customer’s culture, empathizing
with their feelings about products and correcting
themselves whenever they hear complaints about the
company’s shortcomings and faults. What better way to
be figuratively a part of them by the means of
observance of sales tracking, surveys, employee
relations, service reconstructing and the like? That’s
the beauty of CRM and technology, hand in hand.
Read More......