It’s no surprise that acquiring and retaining customers topped GetApp’s recently released survey of SMBs’ biggest priorities for 2017. Of course, that means lead generation, customer service initiatives and maybe implementation of a CRM solution.
But, there much more to it than that. First, the study showed that reducing costs and improving IT infrastructure are also popular priorities amongst SMBs.
What’s more, lead generation can be anything from cost neutral to extremely expensive. And of course the methods and mediums are varied. The Great Online predicts that video, mobile and messaging will be top trends in 2017 within the digital advertising space.
For those new to it, producing videos may seem like a steep cliff to jump off. And after the last several years, what business has room to squeeze out more cost savings?
What if there were a way to attract and retain more customers, reduce costs and improve IT infrastructure all at once?
Let’s face it… The greatest challenge most sales teams wrestle with is prospecting. Lead Generation. If you’re sales team focuses 10 or 20 percent more time on finding new leads and getting referrals, how could that impact new customer acquisition? And the fastest way to keep salespeople focused on lead generation is setting goals and expectations and holding them accountable. Here’s an article on setting metrics for sales teams and how to measure performance.
Of course, centralizing information about customers and simplifying workflows can improve customer service, retain customers and increase revenue.
One of the greatest challenges to implementing a CRM solution that generates leads, retains customers and improves infrastructure is that it crosses many traditional departmental boundaries and requires the expertise in several functional areas of the business.
So, most businesses will have more of a shot gun approach to achieving their goals in 2017. They’ll create a handful of distinct customer acquisition and lead generation campaigns and they’ll have a separate group that works on reducing costs and the IT team will focus on updating their infrastructure. All separate and distinct and more likely to conflict with each other than to enable or “synergize”.
The prescription for achieving everything you’re hoping for in 2017 might just be to invest the time to look at the overall customer experience and the workflows that support customers’ experiences, especially as they move from one department to another. In the course of as little as a few hours, the low hanging fruit will appear.
And the past of least resistance and greatest, most assured return will most likely be to do less, not more. To simplify workflows with automation and integration of systems and information and to help salespeople focus on the right customers at the right time.