1st Edition
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for Medium and Small Enterprises How to Find the Right Solution for Effectively Connecting with Your Customers
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are a growing topic among small- and medium-sized enterprises, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs, and it is completely clear that CRM is a tool that businesses should have in place to manage sales processes. Teams of salespeople must have a system to run their daily activities, and small businesses and solopreneurs must track their marketing effort, a functioning structure for maintaining their contacts with prospects and clients to improve the effectiveness of their sales effort. CRM, once only available to large corporations, is now powerful technology for small and medium businesses. Small and medium businesses are now able to implement CRM solutions under a more cost-effective balance as an alternative to traditional tools like Salesforce, Dynamics, or Oracle. The reason for the success is mainly the simplicity of the new tools and solutions that have been developed for the management of sales processes.
This book discusses how to implement a CRM from the perspective of the businessperson—not the more typical IT consultant or the technical staff. It benefits business development, sales management, and sales process control. Small business owners must understand why and how implementing a CRM will create value for their business—how it will focus on business development, sales management, and how sales leads develop into happy customers. Small business owners must first understand what a CRM system is, how it works, what its main functions are, and how it serves to manage workflows in the company’s sales department.
Generally, entrepreneurs struggle to find the time to read and study complex and fully comprehensive books. This book provides direct operational guidelines to those who need easy-to-read information about how to use CRM effectively. Business professionals must be able to set up CRM systems and avoid mistakes and wasting time. This book provides an overview of what can be done with CRM and how it happens to empower businesspeople to find new customers and win business opportunities.
This book discusses the logic of CRM in sales, giving tips and explanations on why and what happens when CRM is implemented in a specific way. Essentially, this book gives the entrepreneur the know-how behind CRM in sales in general terms, supporting enhanced customer relationships.
Acknowledgments
About the Author
CHAPTER 1: Understanding the CRM
CHAPTER 2: The value for the organisation
CHAPTER 3: Sales Process management
CHAPTER 4: Leads Generation
CHAPTER 5: Helping people (Customer Service)
CHAPTER 6: Data Architecture
CHAPTER 7: Reporting and forecasting
CHAPTER 8: Implementing a CRM
CHAPTER 9: How to select a CRM platform
Biography
Antonio Specchia is a CRM architect with a background in marketing and economics. He shapes data architecture to boost the best outcomes, designing complex workflow configurations to enhance control over the sales process as well as advising companies about agile methodologies. Antonio has a long experience in management. He is now a seasoned entrepreneur.
Antonio is currently a CRM architect at easyCRM. easyCRM helps organization with designing, implementing, and enhancing CRMs. They develop great sales process management by implementing a CRM that works and focuses on what matters is the logic and the strategy behind the CRM.
easyCRM possesses strong marketing know-how that enable organizations to highlight their sales process logic and develop an effective CRM architecture. Their mission is to help organizations enhance their CRM and develop effective impact on the bottom line.
Previous to his role at easyCRM, Antonio was a Agile Marketing Strategist at STRATEGIC LINKS LONDON, in London UK where explored the benefits of Agile when applied to marketing.
It is peculiar how designers love to generate innovation and value for companies, but they usually don't like to talk about sales. A good user experience does not depend only on what you see on the screen, and experiences have a lot in common with access and consumption.
UX is about the entire way in which a given company responds to the needs of its network of contacts. That's where CRM comes in. These tools are inherently neutral, and you can use them to trick as many people as possible or provide them with the best possible UX. Antonio's book has a different approach, well beyond just the tool, the book is helpful to many of us; those who would like to learn about CRM but don't know where to start; those who do not know, as well as those not yet interested in learning what CRM is; and mostly to those who think that CRM is a magical technology that will solve their real-world problems just installing software on a server. Finally - the book - is SUPER helpful for those who really intend to try to achieve their success by improving the overall brand’s user experience. Enjoy reading!
-- Leandro Agró, Design Executive, IxD/UX expert, IoT pioneer, book author, and patents contributor; Designing Spatial Computing for desirable futures; Winner of Apple design project in 1997; Palo Alto, CA.
Finally, here is a highly accessible book focusing on CRM for small- and medium-sized enterprises, written by a practitioner. The book is easy to read with minimum jargon. Appropriately, this book has a strong focus on the sales process and customer service – areas of priority for small and mid-sized businesses pursuing growth strategies. Author Antonio Specchia addresses key aspects of CRM implementation including guidance on the selection of a CRM platform. Recommended for the management of SMEs!
-- Adrian Payne, Emeritus Professor, University of New South Wales, Australia- Author of the Handbook of CRM.
Antonio Specchia is an experienced and intelligent CRM thinker and doer. And his book not only shows that but reinforces it.
It is an excellent handbook for especially the small and midsized businesses in what CRM is, why CRM is important, who should consider it and even how to implement it. I highly recommend it because it gives any practitioner or future practitioner what they need to make CRM work - and that is something that we all need to know.
-- Paul Greenberg, author, CRM at the Speed of Light
