In this section, the empirical findings on Company B’s CRM requirements is described, as well as the CRM functionality needed to meet the CRM requirements. To start with the needs in the sales process will be described and then the follow-up activities included in the production process will be described.
The sales process and production process involve several steps. In each step it is described what activities are performed and what information is needed. The sales process and the production process is visualized in appendix 10. The visualization includes activities, decision making points, points of information storage and generation points of reports or documents.
Sales Process
Step: Build Prospect Profile
The respondent emphasis the importance of performing as efficient marketing as possible and in order to achieve high efficiency he states that the right customers must be targeted. Thus, Company B needs to have a prospect profile that defines who they should target.
Target Marketing
Company B’s prospect profile is based on the segmentation of the customer base that was described earlier. The variables that constitute the basis for segmentation consequently help deciding who to target. However the variables, such as branch, turnover etc is not recorded for each prospect, it is recorded at the point when the company becomes a customer.
Sales Management Sales Analysis
In order to make the marketing as efficient as possible Company B likes to analyze sales statistics when deciding whom to target. It is important to analyze who their most profitable customers are in order to know who it is most profitable to target. For example, Company B would like to base the segmentation on sales results within different branches. This way it would be possible to target the branches that historically have generated most profit. Today, Company B utilizes ProClarity to make the analysis, with data collected from Jeeves Enterprise.
Company B would also like to be able to analyze external data. For example, import data on what branches are doing well at the moment, and then make a comparison with their own sales results. Such an analysis could improve sales by knowing when to target which branch.
Graphical Tools
When presenting sales statistic the respondent states the advantage of showing sales results graphically.
Customer Satisfaction Measurement
Quality is another variable that the respondent points out as important when deciding who to target. He would like to use the result from the customer satisfaction questionnaire in order to map within which branch Company B has received the best quality marks. This information could enable Company B to target the branch that historically is most satisfied with their services. What is important to take into consideration is that the quality may have been improved and the branch could be valuable to target even if the quality remarks previously have been low
Campaign Management
The respondent also emphasizes the possibility to pay attention to response frequency of campaigns aimed at different branches and regions, as well as the closing frequency related to released campaigns. These two variables must be considered together with profitability. Let’s say the profitability within a certain branch is high but the response frequency is low, then Company B has to consider if it is better to target a branch with just reasonable profitability but with high response frequency. Consequently, response and closing frequency could also constitute a base for building a prospect profile.
Step: Decide base of campaign
The Marketing Department at the parent company to Company B releases campaigns by mail to selections of prospects. This step involves deciding if a campaign should be released and who should get targeted in the campaign.
Target Marketing
The Marketing Department follows the marketing plan when deciding which segment to target. In the plan it’s specified at what point different segments should be targeted. As when building the prospect profile they use sales statistics and the result from the customer satisfaction measurement when making the marketing plan. With this information it will get easier to estimate what segment it will be most profitable to target. The use of the marketing plan ensures that Company B doesn’t target the same companies over and over again. In order to make sure that no existing customer is targeted when releasing a new campaign, Company B registers the organizational number for each customer. This enables eliminating companies that already has their organizational numbers stored in Jeeves Enterprise from the selected target group. Campaign Management
When making the marketing plan the Marketing Department also take the analysis of campaign results into consideration. The information obtained from the analysis is described under the “Analyze Campaign Result” step.
Furthermore, it would be valuable to have tools for estimating costs and expected returns of campaigns. The costs that are interesting are the cost of the campaign, the cost of the customer campaign response, and the costs involved with closing of a deal. This information could be an additional factor that influences the decision-making regarding marketing planning.
One-to-One Marketing
When releasing campaigns to existing customers the PS is the one responsible. Each existing customer is “owned” by a PS who is responsible for contacting the customer and ask if they are interested in making an additional magazine.
The respondent says that when targeting existing customers the campaigns has to be designed in a different way compared to the mass mailings that are sent to prospect companies. Existing customers already has a lot of knowledge about Company B, so they have to be provided with different information. According to the respondent it’s also important that the campaign is personalized, in order for the existing customers to feel that they are special.
Direct Marketing
As mentioned earlier Company B is distributing a letter to existing customers, implying that is useful with functionality for generating address lists. The Marketing Department registers how the customer prefers to receive the letter, by e-mail, mail or by via a log in on the company Web site. The respondent is positive to follow-up of the result of the newsletter in a better way. If it is sent out by e-mail it could be useful see whether the customer has “clicked” on the link to the newsletter, this in order to estimate the customers’ interest in the newsletter.
Organizing of Sales Activities & Access to a Central Database
At present the PS:s at Company B doesn’t register their specific sales activities, nor does the sales people at the other subsidiaries and the collaboration between the different companies in the company group is insufficient. Consequently, The companies are unaware of each other’s activities and therefore there is a risk of calling, mailing or releasing a campaign to the same customer or prospect at the same time. The respondent would like to develop a solution that makes it possible for all employees having interest in a certain customer to access information about all previous and current activities towards that customer. With the current situation, with 6 different databases, it is not possible to get a single view of the customers. According to the respondent, the best way of improving the situation would be to install one common database handling all different companies, where there are restrictions on who have access to what information. However, according to several retailers of Jeeves Enterprise this change would demand a lot of resources, since there are a large number of specific adaptations made in the different databases.
Step: Build Prospect list
Company B is buying a CD-Rom containing information about different companies, from a company providing business addresses. Company B is using the CD-Rom to make selections of companies based on certain variables, such as turnover, branch and region, which are the most commonly used variables. What variable is chosen depends on the decision taken in the previous step “Decide base of campaign” The selected companies build the prospect list that will constitutes the base of the campaign. The PS’s also develop prospect lists by receiving tips from personal contacts and by staying up-dated on market changes or companies future events.
Company B also buy prospect lists from companies who supervise what is written about companies in newspapers. For example, they may buy information on all companies that have announced that they are going to celebrate an anniversary. This since these companies perhaps are interested in making a customer magazine related to the happening.
Lead Management
Store information about leads
Before the prospect becomes a customer Company B registers little information about the prospect company. The process for buying a magazine is not that complicated and a magazine only constitutes a small part of a company’s marketing strategy. This implies that Company B’s sales process is relatively short compared to the sales process at companies that sell complicated services. The respondent states that companies having short and uncomplicated sales processes do not have the same need of registering a lot of information about prospects as companies having long sales processes. However, the respondent brings up information that would be useful to record, which is described later on in the sales process.
Step: Decide mode of contact
In this step, Company B decides the mode of the campaign. Company B mostly releases campaigns by mail. The respondent is rather skeptical to the increasing use of e-mail for sending information to customers. He has got the impression that people tend not to read material sent by e-mail, thereby Company B prefers using mail.
Step: Campaign Release
This step involves the release of the campaign.
Step: Analyze Campaign Result Campaign Management
When the Marketing Department receives a positive campaign response they register the potential customer as a prospect in Jeeves Enterprise. This step also involves analyzing the campaign results.
Analyze Campaign Results
At present Company B utilizes ProClarity to make the analyses, with data collected from Jeeves Enterprise. The analysis gives information on response frequency on released campaigns, showing which target group that has the highest campaign response frequency. They also would like to analyze the closing frequency related to campaigns and the profitability of orders taken. Since Company B divides their campaigns into different campaign types, they analyze which type is most successful. These analyses are performed in order to know who Company B should target to generate the greatest profits. The respondent states that he thinks Data Mining could be an interesting tool for making more thorough analyses.
Use Campaign Results to Develop New Campaigns
The respondent thinks that campaign management functionality for developing campaigns based on previous campaign results is valuable when making smaller and more targeted campaigns. Then it can be relevant to release a new campaign, with a
revised content, to the ones that didn’t respond to the first campaign. However, the respondent does not see the use of registering prospects that doesn’t answer on a campaign when releasing large campaigns. If they would register all companies who is targeted in a campaign the customer directory would increase considerably. However, if a prospect respond negatively and doesn’t want to be contacted again it must of course be notified in Jeeves Enterprise, this to avoid targeting the company with a new campaign. The process for registering of negative campaign results is visualized in appendix 10.
Sales Management
Pipeline Management & Lead Management
In order to define a potential customer’s status in the sales process, Company B names a company that have responded positively to a campaign a prospect. The companies that have been identified but who haven’t yet been targeted with a campaign are called leads.
The respondent thinks that Pipeline Management is a valuable tool for visualizing how the business is going. Company B would like to use such a tool in order to see the current number of prospects, the potential of closing, the lead-time from prospect visit to order, lead-time of production, and average pay time. Company B would also like to use the registration of prospects to analyze closing rates. However, the respondent emphasizes the difficulties with getting the PS:s to reveal how many prospects they have. The PS might not want to register how many prospects he or she has, since the PS might be afraid that someone else contacts the prospect. The PS also might be afraid that, by revealing the number of prospects his or her sales performance will look poorer. If the PS has less prospects registered, his or her closing frequency seem higher. Naturally, many PS:s are unwilling to reveal their current number of prospects.
Step: Qualifying Prospects Lead Management
In this step it is relevant to estimate the potential for closing the deal and record it into the CRM system. The respondent states that it is not until now that the Marketing Department have access to enough information to make a first judgment of the potential of closing.
Step: Assign Project Seller
In this step the CEO assign a PS, who will be responsible for contacting the prospect company in order to arrange a customer visit. According to the respondent the CEO is well aware of the skills of the different PS:s, this since Company B is a small company that doesn’t have so many PS:s. Therefore the usefulness of having the skills of the PS registered in the CRM system is not that important, the CEO already got all necessary information in his mind. The CEO is also aware of the PS preferences and tries to assign PS depending on their individual interests and personal character.
Sales Management
Evaluating Sales Force Performance
When assigning PS:s it’s, of value for the CEO to have access to information about the performance of the PS:s. When evaluating a PS’s performance the respondent highlight the importance of taking several parameters into consideration. Sales statistics is of course important to consider, how much the PS sells and the turnover of the deals. However, it is also important to consider the profit contribution of each project, since some customers might need a lot of after sales service that will lead to reduced profits for the company. Today the total result of the project is not taken into consideration when evaluating performance.
The respondent states that it is difficult for management to know why a PS shows bad results. Today the PS does not register the reason to why a prospect turns down an inquiry. It may depend on that he or she is not that good at selling, but it might just as well be due to that the customers had no need of their services. Thereby, when analyzing sales force performance it would be of great value if the PS records the reason to why prospects respond negatively.
Overview of Sales Activities
As stated before, the respondent says that it would be good if the PS:s increasingly registered information about their work in the CRM system. Then, the CEO could oversee the PS’s planned activities, their number of prospects or customer visits planned this week or month, and based on that information more easily assign the PS:s.
However, management can access some information about the sales peoples work by using the Web-based time reporter, which is linked to Jeeves Planning System where information on what each employee is working on is visualized. The employees at Company B are using Web-based time reporting in order to report work hours. Thus, time reporting enables that employees, as well as management, can see how much time each employee spends on specific customers and projects and how much overtime they have. It also enables each employee to improve the planning of his or her work. Another advantage with Web-based time reporting is that the employees do not need to be at the office when reporting work hours; they only need to have access to the Internet.
Customer Satisfaction Measurement
Another source of information when assigning PS:s is the questionnaire for measurement of customer satisfaction. By using the questionnaire the CEO may take the customers marks into account when assigning PS:s. Depending on within which branch or region the prospects is operating, the CEO can choose the PS that has got the best mark in that specific segment.
Step: Pre-Call Planning
Lead Management & Contact Management
According to the respondent it is important that the PS has a goal when contacting the prospect and in this case the goal is quite obvious. The prime goal with the first call is to arrange a visit at the prospect location. If this prime goal isn’t obtained the PS should strive for having continuous contact with the prospect. The respondent states that the PS must keep the goals in his mind, however, the goals could also be registered in the CRM system if it helps the PS to do a better job.
Today Company B uses a template that indicates what information the PS needs to collect from the prospect. They need to register general information about the prospect, contact information, the potential for closing the deal, and the source of the customer. Registration of the source implies that when the prospect becomes a customer it is indicated whether the customer was generated by a campaign or by a PS. When targeting existing customers it is also important to access information on history of orders. In addition, Company B would like to use the information registered about the position of the prospects in the sales process in order to analyze at what point Company B is loosing prospects and the reason why.
However, the respondent would like the PS to register more data about what he or she knows about the potential customer, like brief personal characteristics such as their interests etc. It could also be relevant to register prospect information earlier in the sales process, before the company have responded positively on a campaign. An idea