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Quotes4Max for
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Harvey Nichols uses CRM to improve customer service - July 2008
 Shop 'till you drag and drop
Famous retailer Harvey Nichols has enjoyed a surge in sales since developing CRM software a year ago.
Twelve months into its CRM development, Harvey Nichols has enjoyed a 25% increase in sales generated through marketing events. This is widely attributed to the more targeted customer service the retailer is now able to deliver. The chain of luxury department stores is now able to get a better integrated, single view of the customer which will help it to increase the average sale transaction value.
Martin Schofield, Harvey Nichols’ IT and Logistics Director told delegates at the Retail Solutions conference in London that a major systems overhaul (which included the retailer’s point-of-sale, merchandising and warehouse systems) had revealed shortcomings in the company’s knowledge of its customer base.
"It’s all very well being able to do stock look-ups at the till and tell the customer if another store has the item they were looking for or whether it can be sent from the warehouse," he said. "But we had no way of finding out if moving that stock around was worthwhile: could the store that sent it out have sold it if the customer never came back for it?"
CRM software has now been installed on all Harvey Nichols’ refreshed store till systems.
CRM sector grows despite economic slowdown - June 2008
Value of
global CRM market to reach $3.7 billion in 2012
The jury may still be out on whether the UK really is heading into a recession but there is no doubt that the economy is slowing down across EMEA and that spending on IT will be hit. Interestingly though, one segment that is predicted to grow is Customer Relationship Management (CRM), with AMI-Partners Research estimating that the global CRM market will increase at an average annual rate of 13 percent from 2007 to 2012, to reach $3.7 billion in 2012 – and that’s despite the current financial downturn.
So why is CRM bucking the trend? Vivek Thomas, Managing Director of Maximizer Software, believes CRM is increasingly being seen as a valuable tool not just in helping organisations to win new customers - and keeping them satisfied once they are on board - but also delivering on business goals when times are tough. Even during boom times, CRM should be at the heart of an organisation's business development and growth strategy - and is absolutely vital in an uncertain economy.
Gaining new customers is imperative but it must not result in neglect of the existing business base. CRM's ability to focus on best practice and optimise customer relationship processes is invaluable. This is particularly appropriate to small to medium-sized companies, which recognise modern CRM as a means of going beyond merely managing customer relationships, contributing to all areas of the business, Thomas says.
"This is the differentiator that now sets modern CRM apart as a value centre, in contrast to conventional, silo CRM which did little more than facilitate the collection of information surrounding customer engagements. Incorporating people, process and technology in an effective strategy that focuses on getting the best out of hard-pressed sales and marketing resources are vital in the current economic landscape and will play a major role with astute organisations in weathering the economic storm," Thomas adds.
Call centres not utilising CRM - May 2008
 A global survey of call centres suggests that the potential of CRM is not being realised.
The 2008 Dimension Data Contact Centre Benchmarking Report, which includes survey responses from 300 call centres in 36 countries across five continents, found that only a minority of contact and call centres have established CRM capabilities and practices.
One of CRM’s benchmarks is the establishment of a single view of the customer. The 1997 Dimension Data Contact Centre Benchmarking Report In 1997 found that 39% of participating call centres possessed this capability with a further 45% of centres planning to implement it in the next two years. However, the percentage of call centres with a single customer view stands at just 34% today.
The 1997 report also recorded the intention of many to deploy a more sophisticated set of customer metrics within their call centres, such as customer lifetime value and profitability. However, the 2008 statistics reveal that less than 10% of centres surveyed have the capability to measure lifetime value, and only 18% of centres use customer profitability as a metric.
Dimension Data spokesperson for the Benchmarking Report, Alex George, said of the findings: "Minimal progress has been made in adopting a more customer-oriented, CRM-based approach within the contact centre environment over the last 10 years. When we compared this year’s findings with those from our inaugural 1997 Report, the picture is not positive."
In 2 Sports become
another Sage CRM user
We are pleased to announce that In 2 Sports have selected
CRM4Business to supply and integrate their new Sage CRM system at their
Leicester Head office.
Tim Warner, MD at In 2 Sports says “We selected
CRM4Business as we want to work with a company that’ll help us realise the full
potential of our new system. So many companies wanted to sell us the software
and a few days for installation and training. We chose CRM4Business as they
offer us much more than this.”
As providers of sport and dance instructors, In 2 Sports are implementing a CRM solution to grow their
business within the educational sector by:
- Targeting prospective clients more efficiently via email
- Providing higher levels of customer service with case
tracking
- Co-ordinating a full audit trail for each course to co-ordination material
for examination board submissions
- Efficiently scheduling resources for remote users
CRM4Business wins
Maximizer's European implementation award
For the second time CRM4Business has won first prize for the
Best Implementation of CRM solutions in Europe, the Middle East and
Africa. We also achieved runner up position in the global
contest, run by Maximizer Worldwide.
James Bogue was delighted to accept the award on behalf of
everybody at CRM4Business at the recent award ceremony held in
Vancouver,
Canada.
CRM4Business has built a growing successful business by
helping companies implement cost effective sales and support management systems
which increase revenues and profitability.
James Bogue,
Managing Director explains:
“We live in very dynamic times and maintaining a
continual presence with customers and prospective customers is vital. Few
companies can afford the luxury of sending out poorly focused sales teams. Our
systems identify key opportunities and gather information which is used to
implement targeted marketing activity to support sales efforts. This way our
customers get the best value out of their sales and marketing resource, and
have a real way of monitoring progress”
CRM4Business launches
Quotes4Max for Maximizer version 10
 We have increased sales in our specialised modules which
link into CRM modules. One of these, Quotes4Max has now been launched for
version 10 of Maximizer and is being used by a wider reseller community for
automatic quotations and opportunity creation.
More resellers and end users are benefiting from the close
integration of Maximizer and Quotes4Max.
This module speeds up the quotation process and
automatically creates a sales opportunity in Maximizer for each quote.
Andy Lynch – Development Manager says; “Many of our
customers are giving verbal quotations for which there is little or no record.
This means many sales opportunities are being missed. Our Quotes4Max
specifically addresses this issue by providing a very fast way of producing
quotations which are then auto-logged by Maximizer.
The opportunity never gets lost and is analysed through to
closing. This is a big plus”
CRM4Business appoints
a new Development Manager
Andy
Lynch joins us with a wealth of commercial web development experience
as well as public sector projects and mobile application design.
As well as helping to manage our team of developers, Andy will
liaise with our clients to ensure they get the highest quality of
support for their projects.
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