Using more of your CRM solution can save your organization money

By Todd Fleming

Senior Consultant

BroadPoint Technologies

I'm sure you are probably wondering how using a CRM solution can save your organization money. If you are only using CRM for Sales Force Automation and are limited to just managing Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Quotes and Orders then you may only be utilizing about 25-35% of your software investment in CRM. If your business fields customer service requests or support cases in another system or even on paper, you can save money by using the Microsoft CRM Service functionality in order to manage Contracts, Cases, and Service Scheduling while taking advantage of a searchable Knowledgebase and workflow automation.

When trying to reduce costs and create efficiencies within your organization you should start by analyzing your business process and business applications identifying what roles they serve in your organization. Most of these applications will have ongoing costs associated with them such as licensing costs, annual software enhancement fees, upgrade costs and the labor costs of dual and triplicate entry of data.

Look at the following costs:

1. What are the annual software enhancement fees for your customer service applications?
   
2. What is the upgrade cost including software, hardware and labor?
   
3. What is the labor cost of managing customer data in multiple different systems?
   
4. What is the training cost associated with managing multiple different systems?
   

Some of the benefits of consolidating applications within CRM include:

1. Decreases labor cost by eliminating or reducing duplicate and triplicate entry of customer related data
   
2. If you can eliminate an application you will reduce software, hardware and any labor costs associated with maintaining those applications
   
3. Workflow automation can eliminate repetitive tasks such as providing automated email notifications, automating case assignments and handling case escalation
   
4. Provides better visibility for all customer's interactions with your organization and therefore increase cross-sell opportunities
   

In order to get the most out of your CRM implementation, find champions within your organization that will continually analyze your CRM solutions capabilities and uncover features and functionality that can help create efficiencies and cost reductions within your business. You should also make sure your staff is trained on the CRM solution in place and is knowledgeable about features and functionality in new releases that can benefit your organization and increase your CRM ROI.