"Do I really have to use software to nurture customers effectively?" The caller was serious. I answered that he can definitely nurture without software, but he can't do it indefinitely. He'll run out of memory and time.
CLIENT NURTURING
Many agencies are acknowledging the major advances in business development made possible by very affordable software and Internet tools.
By Jim Cecil
"Do I really have to use software to nurture customers effectively?" The caller was serious. I answered that he can definitely nurture without software, but he can't do it indefinitely. He'll run out of memory and time.
Many agencies are acknowledging the major advances in business development made possible by very affordable software and Internet tools. Leveraging these power tools requires an investment of funds and personal involvement, but the payoff will continue throughout your entire career.
Well beyond Rolodexes®, this technology has solved a wide variety of sales challenges. Powerful support tools such as software-driven marketing encyclopedias assist agents in creating sales presentations that incorporate the latest marketing information. Opportunity management systems deliver to an agent's fingertips a treasure trove of information on qualified prospects. Team-selling solutions combine and leverage the efforts of agents, marketing and service staff, as well as carriers, to provide fast, clean solutions to clients. Proposal automation (Proposal Master by www.santcorp.com) ensures that the format, content and context of each proposal is designed quickly and persuades intentionally, every time. Product and pricing configurators help agents customize solutions on the spot. Automated processes allow agents to maintain regular contact with prospects, clients, alliances, and centers of influence with campaigns of intelligent, relevant and useful letters, notes and e-mails.
The imagination runs wild with the possibilities in just these seven available technologies. Building and maintaining such systems is a serious, complex and expensive venture; but the transformation in people, productivity, profit, new clients and happy customers is dramatic, measurable and permanent.
Persuading yourself to make the technology investment/journey deserves considerable thought and investigation. Here are a few tangible benefits to explore:
1. Technology lets you improve market coverage and sales effectiveness intelligently and rapidly.
2. Technology rationalizes the data in customer information files and makes it easier to understand and use.
3. Real savings develop from the elimination of steps in the sales process that do not add value.
4. Immediate savings will be realized from automating manual processes such as customer follow-up and education.
5. Improvement in order entry and solution configuration reduces entry errors and boosts productivity.
Six hurdles and strategies for intelligent implementation:
1. Most sales software systems fail because producers refuse to participate. Be certain the solution really helps reps do their job and make more money (like automating a "stay-in-touch process"). Design fun training programs with real-life drills.
2. Answer this question. How will the Web fit into our three-year planning?
3. How can you involve your agents in designing what they really need?
4. Take this opportunity to examine your entire selling process from identifying, individualizing, interacting and integrating the right kind of customers into your system to new skills, attitudes and knowledge tools needed by your entire team.
5. Customers and top producers love razzle-dazzle. Include simple multimedia capabilities. They are becoming simple to set up and are a clear value add.
6. Acknowledge that many good producers are still using Post-it® notes and Day-Timers®. Don't expect miracles or instant adoption, but a few will transition into stardom.
It is clearly time to re-engineer the methodologies and technologies to identify and cultivate clients. Would-be vendors of such miracle cures abound. Find the right one and you'll see an almost magical change. When selecting a technology partner, ask a few of these questions during the initial interview:
1. Are you certified by a recognized vendor? For how long?
2. What specific improvements will your software help us achieve in terms of our main business objective?
3. Have other agencies our size and type actually installed, tested and measured results?
4. What changes will we have to make in our organization and sales process in order to take total advantage?
5. What kind of training and how long will our producers need to become comfortable with this solution?
6. To what extent will your product have to be modified to integrate with our existing system?
7. What is the total cost per employee?
Tom Peters once said, "No business asset is more valuable than its ability to present its ideas, talents and messages clearly, effectively and persuasively." The technologies of customer relationship management provide solutions with impact at amazingly low costs.
Henry Ford wrote the following words long ago (he might well have been speaking today):
"If to petrify is success, all one has to do is to humor the lazy side of the mind; but if to grow is success, then one must wake up anew every morning and keep awake all day. I saw great businesses become but the ghost of a name because someone thought they could be managed just as they were always managed, and though the management may have been most excellent in its day, its excellence consisted in its alertness to its day, and not in slavish following of its yesterdays. Life, as I see it, is not a location, but a journey. Even the man who most feels himself 'settled' is not settled--he is probably sagging back. Everything is in flux, and it was meant to be. Life flows. We may live at the same number of the street, but it is never the same man who lives there."
The author
Jim Cecil provides custom nurturing solutions for agencies. A free copy of his "A Cure For The Common Cold Call" is available at his Web site (www.nurturemarketing.com).