I Love My Customer

When Customers Understand the True Meaning of CRM

I preach this point. I wrote a book on it. I train people about it. I give workshops on it. I even beg people to do it. But no matter how hard I try, if a business owner doesn’t understand what CRM is all about, then I am just wasting my breath. CRM, Customer Relationship Management, is not about technology. It’s about a company’s culture and how that culture focuses on their customers. Needless to say that when I have a customer who gets this, I just love them. It makes it all worthwhile. And it does wonders for their clients and prospects too, which of course is what CRM is all about.

My client is Jordan Wirsz, President of Diamond Bay Investments, and he understands this. I recently installed a new CRM system, GoldMine, for his team. After discussing their needs and requirements and how his business operates, I customized and configured GoldMine to run the way his business functions. But, during our initial needs analysis discussions, without provocation or prodding, Jordan told me he wanted to develop a system where all his clients, prospects, and other various and sundry contacts would receive some sort of “touch” once a month. In most cases, these touches would be emails. In other cases, they may be a phone call from one of his Relationship Managers to a client who hasn’t been contacted in more than a month. It might also be a birthday card to a client. The important point here is that Jordan told me this is what he wanted to do before I even started my pitch on why he should do this.

Jordan is a young, smart, successful business owner who really cares about his customers. Sure, sure. I know. So do you. But what sets Jordan apart from many business owners, who supposedly care about their customers, is that he translated that into a customer retention strategy that will keep his name in front of them on a regular basis. Now this isn’t that complicated. Anyone can do it. Yet in my experience, very few businesses actually do anything to retain their existing clients. And they do even less to maintain a relationship with their dormant prospects. These are the prospects who have told you, “I’m not interested,” but may, in fact, be interested some day in the future. If you don’t keep in touch with these dormant accounts, then they won’t remember who you are when they are ready to buy. Likewise, if you don’t keep in contact with your existing clients, they too won’t remember you when it’s time to buy more, renew, upgrade, or recommend you to their friends and colleagues... Read More

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