George Bliss | Relationship Marketing

CRM, Cloud Computing, e-Marketing and Customer Intimacy

Big news! Increase CRM acquired by Genesis Communications

March 6, 2009 at 13:36 · Filed under Uncategorized

On Thursday 5th March, Jon, Neil and I sold Increase CRM to Genesis Communications. It’s a great development, and I’m excited for Increase’s future. I’ve decided to try something a little different… more news soon, but I want to wish Genesis, and the team formerly known as Increase CRM my best wishes and best luck for a very prosperous 2009! Congratulations everyone!

More information: Genesis Communications acquires Increase CRM to create the UK’s leading provider of hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM services

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The leads are still out there…

November 14, 2008 at 15:16 · Filed under Uncategorized

When it comes to economic down turns you can pretty much list the guys that will be affected. Developers? Car manufacturers? Tour operators? This time round things look a little more complicated. This time round It’s the banks first, manufacturers second and now it’s time for the mid market retailers. Now I’m not suggesting developers and car manufacturers aren’t busy thinking of alternative markets at the moment but, it would seem, the tour operators are relatively unaffected.

Upon my desk is a 3 week old invitation to the annual Direct Marketing effectiveness awards, the winner? Thomas Cook. Their campaign sent their entire customer base with a postcard with a picture of their last holiday destination and the line “dear isn’t it time you booked your holiday for next year?”

The response take up apparently broke the benchmark for Thomas Cook and the industry. Yet Thomas Cook’s approach isn’t revolutionary, it just retains a few CRM rules that ensure customer closeness that, when done well, results in repeat and referral business.

Customer information and knowledge is gold

It’s easy for small businesses to know their customers. As they grow this knowledge gets harder to maintain and share. A MS CRM solution ensures, whoever you talk to, you have their information at your finger tips. Your ability to share this personal relationship to your staff ensures new relationships form and the knowledge on this customer grows to help influence future product and service development. The most successful are those who not only listen to their customers but record and share it.

Develop customer insights

Each of your customers is different. What makes them tick? What makes them buy? To each customer this could be a different set of principles. The more information you capture on an individual the more success you’ll be in connecting with them in the future. Imagine if Thomas Cook asked all their customers “where would you like to go next year?” as they boarded the flight. They’d know exactly what brochure to send in the post.

Personalise your messages

Don’t underestimate the value of a personal message. Direct marketing isn’t easy. Most unwanted information I receive ends up as land fill. But occasionally something lands that connects. When it does the factors are always the same. The message relates to my job role, my single desire to improve my business performance but most importantly it’s been personalised. Specially delivered, just for me.

So for a holiday company trying to make that emotional connection to a customer, what better way than to remind them of their last holiday. Genius.

Business leads are harder to find. Our ability to connect with a prospect will be driven by our ability to understand what makes them buy. This understanding is inherently underpinned by knowing who they currently buy from, why and what potential opportunities this creates for future messages that are delivered to this particular customer.

Leads are out there, businesses still need your offering. All you need to do is connect with them.

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Viva Las Economy: How not to gamble with the future of your business

October 16, 2008 at 16:57 · Filed under Uncategorized

I think everyone is getting sick of the current headlines. With stories of ‘Tougher times ahead’, and ‘Crumbling economy’ it’s small wonder that so many business owners are seriously looking for ‘quick fixes’ like CRM, to provide their business greater efficiencies, more marketing clout, and a systemised approach to scaling; albeit potentially in the negative sense of the word.

So, you can imagine the disappointment when I explain that CRM will not provide a business with ‘plug and play’ profit margins, or microchip staff to enable them to triple their output. Nor will it singlehandedly increase the success of your marketing toll.

Bad news, I know, and as an owner of a business dependent on small businesses subscribing to our Microsoft CRM systems, it’s even worse news for me.

I see a lot of business owners who still believe an investment in technology will spark an operational revolution within their ‘nest egg’, and unfortunately it’s then the job of organisations like ours to play devil’s advocate and explain that technology is only a small piece of the jigsaw.

I remember my Grandfather, an early adopter of the digital calculator, electric typewriter, and subsequently an IBM personal computer, explaining to me as an inquisitive 6-year-old how if we put “junk in, we’ll get junk out.”

Fast forward twenty something years to my first trip to a proper Casino a few weeks ago. Not, I’ll hasten to add, Monte Carlo, Las Vegas or even Blackpool… but Portsmouth of all places. My guide, a sailing friend famous for drinking fast, driving fast and the ‘odd flutter’ turned out to be somewhat an expert on all things 21, red-and-black and chip related.

True to form and new to this shiny, glitzy and sensory-overloaded environment I was full of questions. “But why can’t we just use cash?”, “Why can’t I put two cards down?”, “Why…”, “Why so many rules?”.

Patience quickly dwindling, my guide snapped “Look. A casino without rules or procedures just wouldn’t work. Everyone here knows the rules and they play to them.” Seeing my quizzical expression he continued, “We use chips because cash is too variable and it could be fraudulent. Now just shut up and play” he concluded.

Just like a CRM strategy with good customer data, discipline and process, a casino is nothing without its rulebook, chips and shared understanding.

Whenever I first speak with a business owner who wants a CRM system I’ll always ask them to try and explain their how their business operates today. What procedures they follow and the ‘rules’ they observe. This way, I’m always able to translate this into benefits that CRM could provide. It’s an easy conversation after that because we have a common understanding and goal.

So I’m not saying you need Scorsese or De Niro on your door brandishing guns and knuckle dusters to realise quick financial benefits and customer loyalties. Any business at any stage of its life can benefit from CRM technology after all. But remember the casino and it’s rule book, consider your rule book. Write down your processes and procedures.

Don’t gamble the survival of your business in these conditions on technology alone. Adapt from being a business balancing on a tightrope of cash to a business suitably equipped to weather this ‘economic storm’ and I guarantee you’ll emerge at the other side, more agile, maybe slightly bruised, but certainly stronger for the experience.

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Is the Sales Prevention Officer still running your business?

October 1, 2008 at 01:27 · Filed under Uncategorized

I stumbled across Carol Worthington-Levy’s excellent article on Chief Marketer this evening, called ‘Remove the Obstacles to Your Customer’s Buying Decision’. There are some real BFO’s (Blinding Flashes of the Obvious) in there, and I thought I’d share them with you, dear reader, and see how CRM could help you fire that Sales Prevention Officer once and for all.

You’ve got a better product, provide better service, you’ve a fantastic reputation and strong customer reference-ability. You’re even the most competitive price wise. And yet, your competitors, with their dodgy home-grown website from the mid-90s, lack of experience in your industry and inflated price list still manage to beat you to some of those deals. What’s going on?

  1. Are you over-complicating your product/service/solution?
    I’ve got to hold my hands up on this one….I’m guilty. I like words, and writing, and explaining things. And because I’m pretty passionate about hosted Microsoft CRM sometimes I get a little bit carried away. Microsoft CRM can do so much, but it’s all too easy to forget that sometimes all the prospect wants initially are the basics.

    The good news is that with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Workflow, we’ve designed a workflow to automatically email ideas and ‘top tips’ to prospects who are trialling our hosted Microsoft CRM and Beyond Demand service every few days. I’ve nick-named it the ‘little and often’ workflow.

    Carol sums it up really neatly: “Take your longest copy blocks and pare them down to this: What will it do for the customer? What is the benefit for them. Then follow up with what’s different about it.”

  2. Are you not describing enough?!
    Apologies if you’ve just finished reading point #1, de-capped the red pen, and you were about to get started chopping up that 100 page brochure.

    But…perhaps you’re not educating your prospects enough about just how great you are. Do you introduce the right topics early enough in your sales cycle?

    A common complaint I hear a lot from prospects is that keeping everyone up-to-date with relevant and timely sales literature is a nightmare, especially if you’ve got sales guys in the field or in multiple offices.

    Microsoft CRM has some great Sales Literature tools that can help you establish a central repository for your electronic brochures and sales collateral. You can also get CRM to automatically send it out at certain stages of the sale too. Maybe it would help if you tracked how effective certain brochures were with different type of prospect?

  3. Too many choices.
    Ah yes. This old chestnut. Finding a balance between giving your customers a healthy selection and scaring them off with too many options is tricky. And it’s not just a challenge small businesses face either.

    If I had a pound for every printing/telecoms/manufacturing business I spoke with that had an overcomplicated product catalogue, I’d be pretty wealthy. In fact, rather than blogging about CRM I think I’d probably be sitting on my super yacht somewhere in the Med sipping expensive cocktails.

    This is a really difficult conversation to have with a business owner sometimes, but I always wonder, how much simpler a business is to run, and of course, buy from, when the product line up is straight forward, clear and easy to follow.

    I’d urge any business owner to take a good look at their product catalogue before going anywhere near CRM. If you’ve already got CRM, try and use the reporting tools available, to see just how many variations of your base product you’ve actually ever sold.

  4. Lack of credibility
    This is an interesting one. Carol writes about credibility in terms of advertising your memberships and accreditations, publishing customer testimonials, and displaying awards. These are, of course, invaluable. I also think that a good CRM system can help you to present a slick, deadly and accurate sales process that can build credibility with your prospect during the sales process too.

    Have you ever inadvertently ‘neglected’ or ‘dropped’ a sales lead or opportunity? Can you keep track accurately of all of your opportunities and their associated stages / status throughout your organisation?

    If you’ve answered ‘No’ to either of those questions, take a quick look at a CRM system, or even have a play with Outlook tasks and reminders. Keeping records and reminders is time-consuming and tedious, but CRM can help take the pain out of those menial tasks.

  5. Is anyone there?!
    Do you make it easy for your customers to communicate with you via your website?

    I think most people in business these days know about how a website can help with a sale or to generate leads. Sometimes prospects tell me that their websites don’t really generate that many new-biz leads for them. Here are a couple of ideas to help.

    Integrate your ‘Contact Us’ or ‘Get in Touch’ form directly with your CRM system, and have this kick off the sales process as soon as your prospect presses the ‘Send’ button. This is really easy to do, and it’s an ‘out of the box’ feature for customers ofIncrease hosted Microsoft CRM.

    Put a ‘Live Chat’ button on your website. You may think that Instant Messaging over the ‘net is something more suited to teenagers in their bedrooms chatting about their latest bike-shed conquests, but research has shown that real-time web based dialog between customer and sales rep is really successful for B2B sales, especially if you are selling something fairly complex or technical. There are some great tools out there like WhosOn (who, incidentally we’re currently working with to integrate into Microsoft CRM), Liveperson andBoldChat, and they’re all really quick to set up and very reasonably priced.

  6. Incentives to act, and calls to action
    Carol wraps up with this great idea. Sometimes all it takes to swing the deal from your competitors is a clear, defined deadline or a time based offer.

    Using some basic marketing automation features of any good CRM system means that you can automatically communicate your latest offers or promotions to your customers with just a few clicks. Microsoft CRM’s got a great ‘Quick Campaign’ tool for doing just this, if you haven’t seen these yet book a test drive and take a look.

    One pitfall to avoid however, is discounting. You’ve probably heard the smug saying “live by price, die by price”. As irritating as it is to hear from an ‘outsider’ it’s worth bearing in mind.

So, as we drift into October (85 shopping days left everyone!) maybe you can use some of these ideas to fine tune your sales operation in your business. Give that Sales Prevention Officer the ‘flick’, and prepare to blow the doors off your competition this autumn.

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If I had my way, the Big Bang machine would use hosted Microsoft CRM!

September 19, 2008 at 12:28 · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: , , , ,

Last week I was beside myself with excitement. On Wednesday morning, a team of scientists from around the world ‘turned on’ the largest and most ambitious scientific experiment ever conceived.

I find it difficult to get excited about physics, or chemistry, but the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), sometimes referred to as the ‘Big Bang’ machine has such an air of mystery and excitement that I’ve become completely absorbed.

Indeed, I’m so engrossed in the project that I will quite happily bore anyone that will listen about the project, the drama, the controversy, the exciting possibilities it opens up. I’m sapping up everything I can read, every documentary I can watch, and every radio show that even mentions the name.

The LHC has some key questions to answer, namely – what is mass, what is the universe made of and what happened during the first few seconds of the universe’s existence? The scientists are hoping to prove/find the existence of something called the Higgs boson – at the moment a theoretical particle that could unlock some of these answers.

It got me thinking. Perhaps the LHC scientists could leverage some of the principals of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in order to discover, acquire and nurture this slippery little Higgs boson!

Microsoft CRM can help track prospects right from your first introduction or connection. Whether it’s a website visit, a business card you pick up at an event, or a contact name on a list that you buy from a data reseller.

Now, depending on the source of your data, you’ll quickly be able to ‘disqualify’ or rule out based on their initial response (or lack of one) a percentage of these prospects. You’ll also be able to identify the ‘hot’ prospects on the same basis.

Exactly the same principals (sort of) apply to the LHC! 100 metres underground the Large Hadron Collider will be whizzing protons or lead ions around this huge 27km particle race course at staggering speeds just shy of the speed of light. Some of these particles will be lost (they’ll simply dissipate away), some will be smashed together in a collision (that’s the objective, incidentally) and others will just carry on whizzing round for a little longer.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that like the scientists running the LHC, you’ll want to know what happened to every last one of these particles….I mean prospects! Microsoft CRM can help you manage them.

With Microsoft CRM you can run a report on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, with a complete breakdown of your sales funnel. How many leads did you put in? How many were unsuitable? How many were un-contactable? How long were they in the funnel for? What’s the average conversion rate? How much have you spent on marketing and what is your average ‘cost of acquisition’?

All of these key statistics, and more, are built-in functions of Microsoft CRM, and can offer some seriously useful insight for your business. The good news is that with Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM you can get access to all of these answers with just a few clicks…without a team of IT technicians, trained CRM managers, servers or even a 27km long particle accelerator.

Large Hadron Collider

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Partner + Vendor approach better all round

September 16, 2008 at 18:39 · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: , , , , , , , ,

I just read Joshua Greenbaum’s article (Microsoft Dynamics Goes for the Mid-market again). It’s exciting that the industry is starting to recognise Microsoft’s successes in the mid-market, winning deals over SAP, Salesforce.com and Oracle based on the Microsoft CRM platform, high R&D investment, and roadmap for the product over the next few years.

Joshua raises some interesting points: does Microsoft’s indirect channel sales model actually support enterprise and upper mid-market deals? Should Microsoft engage or lead enterprise sales directly like Oracle and SAP?

You’d be forgiven for not completely understanding the indirect channel model Microsoft has established. It’s a little different from the USA in the UK too, and I guess it’s becoming somewhat blurred in the small/bottom end of the mid-market, with Microsoft offering CRM Online and plans for GP Online, NAV Online directly.

That said, I feel Microsoft’s commitment and foresight in establishing this model opens more doors than it closes. While Microsoft’s current model is ‘channel based’ I don’t think this precludes Microsoft’s involvement in deals directly at all. We regularly work with Microsoft directly to jointly pitch Microsoft CRM and our implementation approach to potential enterprise customers.

Our Microsoft team has a clear visibility of our sales pipeline and regular opportunity reports and updates from our own CRM system too.

I think a partner-led (or partner+vendor) approach is much more credible than a vendor-led sale. A partner can talk about cross-platform integration, compatibility and value added services like support and training. Sometimes a vendor could be prejudiced towards a ‘stack’ or product range, and up-sell/cross-sell opportunities.

Without doubt, the Microsoft partner ‘ecosystem’ (to coin a Microsoft term) offers a fantastic assurance for CRM buyers evaluating Microsoft CRM. Microsoft has thousands of ISV, reseller, implementation, support and system integrator partners around the world.

The Microsoft partner ecosystem also helps to maintain the consultancy resources, skills, best-practice and add-ons and it keeps the market fresh and competitive.

My only criticisms of the current ‘ecosystem’ are based around the partner directory tools currently available. This huge global network of Microsoft partners don’t talk enough – there are so many great ISVs out in the cloud spending valuable R&D budgets on marketing to other Microsoft partners or resellers. It’s ludicrous! Microsoft should be facilitating this cross pollination and ‘match making’ service.

Ultimately, selling indirectly is initially a risky and potentially expensive strategy, and it undoubtedly takes balls. Ask anyone that’s ever tried launching an ISV or SaaS service through the channel.

The fact Microsoft are making it work profitably speaks volumes and I think it offers CRM buyers and evaluators with great assurance and confidence in the whole Dynamics range.

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Suits you, Sir.

September 4, 2008 at 13:30 · Filed under Uncategorized

Everyone can talk about a bad customer service experience. Absolutely everyone, without exception. But great, exciting, passionate and feel-good customer services stories seem a rare thing to come by. Fantastic customer service is something I’m passionate about. After all, it’s why we set up Increase CRM 3 years ago.

I wanted to tell you two stories. My own extreme customer service experiences recently, one good, amazingly good, and one so awful, so obscene, so outrageously shocking that anytime I think about it the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, I start babbling obscenities and go red.

I’m just about to move, and I’m sure you can imagine my life is somewhat disrupted. Boxes everywhere, paperwork scattered across two homes, late night packing… one thing I didn’t need to deal with was BT’s utter incompetence.

2 months ago I phoned BT and requested that my line be transferred. I gave them the dates, my details and was pleasantly surprised at how easy the whole process was. One less thing to worry about – one more tick on my list. Hooray! Um, yeah.

Fast-forward 1 week, and I’m working from home. Using the ‘net. Using our Hosted Microsoft CRM system. One minute I’m happily tapping away, updating my opportunities and preparing to run our monthly forecast. The next…. the rug was pulled out from my feet. The screen timed out, the lights stopped flashing on my router, the plug had been pulled.

I’d been terminated. Cold turkey. No warning, just a dead line. It felt like that scene from Total Recall where the air supply on Mars was turned off and everything suddenly ground to a halt.

I won’t repeat the exact words I used, but you can assume I was jolly cross. And while trying to express my dissatisfaction to the helpful [sic.] well trained [hmm], empowered [yeah...] staff at BT’s customer care centre in Bangalore I was placed on hold 22 times, asked to speak to the supervisor/manager/team leader 9 times, transferred back the UK, then back to India 4 times and spent all in all, 8 frustrating hours sorting out the mess of getting the line, my number and broadband re-connected.

Physiologically, the whole experience affected me. Stress, raised blood pressure, numerous headaches, and at one point feelings of being physically sick. I think BT have knocked at least a month off my life expectancy.

It made me think. Do we Brit’s expect too much? Do we like a good argument? What is the definition of good customer services? Do these corps realise that bad customer service will kill us eventually?

So, my good experience. I recently bought my first bespoke suit. It’s really fancy and not only does it have my name embroidered in the lining, but it’s got hidden pockets, custom stitching and fits me like a glove. It’s wonderful.

And it’s all thanks to one man, Harold Rose. Someone I want to tell the world about. Harold runs ‘Master Tailor’ a bespoke suit making business. I first was introduced to Harold 6 months ago when he approached us to discuss CRM systems for his rapidly expanding business. We immediately hit it off, and it was clear that Harold was someone who was not only passionate about his services but also great customer experiences. “I treat each suit as if it’s my own. If it doesn’t meet my standards it doesn’t meet my clients” he told me.

I liked Harold’s approach so much I decided it was time to put my money where my mouth was and put his services to the test, and so Harold came down to London to measured me up, taking the time to go through about 100 bespoke configuration items and measurements. The process was, well, let’s just say…. thorough. “It’ll be ready in 4 weeks, George. I’ll come down and check it fits if that’s ok?” he asked. “Wonderful, Harold. Sounds perfect”, I replied.

A whole week later I had a situation. “Harold…….it’s George, I need a favour.” My dry cleaner had somehow mucked up my favourite suit, and with the Microsoft WWPC conference in 3 days I had nothing smart to wear. “Is there any chance you can fast-track that suit? I need it for Friday.”

I can’t imagine what Harold must have thought, but always the professional he advised me that he’d do his best; he’d check and let me know if my outrageous request was physically possible. True to his word, the next day Harold phoned, “George, it’s going to be okay. It’ll be tight but we’ll courier your suit next-day and you’ll have it on Friday morning before your flight.”

Sure enough, as promised, 3 hours before my flight to Houston, the doorbell rang. Wrapped in tissue, delicately packed and impeccably finished was my suit.

I’ve learnt a lot from Harold Rose. And believe it or not I’ve learnt a lot from BT. When things go wrong, or don’t quite go to plan sometimes you need help. You need quick, honest, and realistic answers. And if nothing else you need to be treated well and listened to.

Customer service and support, particularly in the IT industry has a bad rep. It’s something I’m desperate to change. With our current struggling economy, people like Harold Rose are our only hope.

I’m even thinking about starting a campaign.

At Increase CRM exciting customer service is something we’ve affectionately nick-named ‘Beyondness’. Our service plan, Beyond Demand™ (a little play on ‘On Demand’) is not just a support service. It’s a philosophy. We’re beyond 9-5. We’re beyond making you wait in a phone queue. We’re beyond IVR (press 1 for….press 2 for…) systems. We’re beyond “no can do”.

We’re just Beyond Demand™. And so is Harold Rose. Suits you sir? Yep, it really does.

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