Managing Your Simple CRM: Tips for Clean Data in AddressTwo

Duplicates and inaccurate data in your CRM can ruin your ability to properly market and contact prospects in your database. Use these tips for ensuring your CRM system is in tip-top shape.

Avoiding Duplicates

Regularly review your data for duplicates. The most fastidious CRM database user is bound to create a few accidental duplicate accounts. This can also happen after uploading contact lists without removing duplicates first.

When removing duplicates from your CRM, first choose your duplicate criteria (step 3). There are multiple ways to remove a duplicate and it is okay to run multiple searches.

Email Contacts to update

Emailing your contacts for updated contact information regularly will help keep your contacts current. You can send a verification email requesting they update their contact details or you can set up an email template to send out to contacts on an as-needed basis. 

Save Money on your Small Business Cell Phone

How often does your business review your landline, internet, and cellular bills?  These bills tend to fluctuate from month to month but many businesses do not take the time to analyze why this is happening.  What you don’t know could be costing you thousands!

Unnecessary Charges

Telephony and data providers are notorious for adding charges from time to time without your permission.  Some of these unnecessary charges are small in price but add up to a lot over time.

·         Wireline Maintenance Charges – These charges insure the wiring inside your facility.  Wiring does not typically go bad and many times it is covered by the company who installed it or the building owner.  These $4-5/month charges can become heavy when tagged to multiple phone lines.

·         Additional Features – Double check landline and cellular bills for features that are not being used.  For example, voice mail and 411 directory assistance charges are common among the features added to landline bills.  Many companies do not need these features and are not aware that they are being charged for them.

Overcharging

Most providers do not inform a business when a new or better rate is available.  You may be paying more than you should for the same service.

·         Cellular, landline, and data companies change their plans regularly.  Find out what is available either through your provider’s sales representative or online.  Chances are that the service you have costs less today than when signed up. Look at long distance fees on your landline bill.  The charges may not be the same for each line.  Work with your provider to ensure that you are getting the lowest available rate and for each line of service that you have.

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Visualize Your Technology

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317.543.7791

www.visualizeyourtechnology.com

Why You Need a CRM System

Writing a post on "Why you need a CRM system" feels a little like writing "Why you need a respiratory system."  It's not an option, a luxury, or an upgrade for your business.  It's vital to survival.  But, unlike the lungs you were born with, businesses don't often begin with a healthy CRM system.  Oh, they have a system, but it's on life support.

You see, every business has a CRM system.  Think about it.  "Customer Relationship Management."
Do you have customers?  I hope so.
Do you have relationships with those customers?  Healthy or not, you do.
Do you manage those relationships?  Effective or not, you do.

The problem is not that businesses need to be convinced to manage customer relationships (i.e. adopt a CRM system).  The problem is that businesses need to realize that a conglomeration of Excel, Outlook, iPhone contact lists, SIRI reminders, post-it notes, and chicken scratches on the backs of business cards is not a viable CRM.  It's an iron lung.  Sure, it works (kinda) but there will always be a sense that vitality and health are far off.

At it's core, a CRM software like AddressTwo might not do anything that you're not already trying to via other means.  So what's the difference?  Scalability and sustainability.

First, a CRM system like AddressTwo is scalable.  Try as you might, you cannot effectively share the data from Excel or Outlook across sales teams.  Even smaller--forget "sales teams"--do you have an assistant, or does your spouse help out in your business from time-to-time.  Your business does not have to be very large before the post-it notes stuck to your computer screen become obsolete. 

That simple realization accounts for over 75% of our AddressTwo's new customer acquisition.  That means, 3 out of 4 times that a company buys AddressTwo, two things were true: 1) we were their first ever CRM software; and 2) the catalyst for purchasing was a new hire or some other form of team growth.

But that's just the immediate pain that pushes people to finally take the plunge. And when they feel the next pain--the pain of learning a new software tool--what keeps them using it? Why would anyone opt to learn something new if it weren't absolutely vital to their business?

That's where the second half of CRM comes in.  A CRM system like AddressTwo is also sustainable.  The fancy terms are things like "data continuity" and "transition planning" but in layman's terms what we're really talking about is having information stored safely forever where you can always access it.  Eventually, the glue on the back of that post-it note gets covered in dust and then what?  Moreover, what happens when the person who really needs that sticky-note is your assistant, not you?

There are a million reasons I could tell you to buy a CRM--any CRM, for the love of God--but if you haven't yet reached the point of needing one, there's one simple reason: your business isn't there yet... and if you resist the efficiencies that technology can afford you, I dare say, it may never be.  What will you choose?