How long has it been since you implemented your CRM project? If it’s been a while, or if you’re about to switch CRM vendors, it may be time to refine or even redefine your CRM objectives.

What Are Typical CRM Objectives?

Customer relationship management is a philosophy, not a software. Consequently, its objectives must permeate the entire corporate culture from the front desk to the warehouse and fulfillment center. While good CRM objectives are quantifiable, they may also include some qualitative objectives as well.

Typical CRM objectives fall into the following three categories:

• Acquisition: Many companies start a CRM project with the goal of using it to quantify, monitor and manage their customer acquisition strategies.
• Retention: CRM objectives also include retention efforts, with goals set to retain a specific number of customers while continuing to grow the company’s client base and overall sales.
• Satisfaction: Although satisfaction is often measured as part of retention, it can also be a separate metric based on both longevity statistics and retention data.

Is It Time to Redefine Your Objectives?

Sales and marketing objectives must be aligned to corporate goals or they’ll be ineffective at achieving overall objectives. Many factors influence corporate goals, including the company’s current financial state, projected financial state, current and new products, anticipated market demand, economic forecasts, competitive intelligence and more.

If you haven’t adjusted your CRM goals since its inception, they may be moderately or severely misaligned with the current corporate goals. Although many companies set their CRM goals during annual strategic planning sessions, sudden market fluctuations or other drastic changes may require you to take a step back and redefine your CRM.

Appoint a CRM Task Force

This task force should include representatives from each stakeholder group that manages the corporate wide program.  Consider rotating team members, and including leaders from sales, marketing, customer service, finance and other departments including IT.

Blog: How to Develop a CRM Strategy

Your CRM system taps into the lifeblood of your company: its customers. Make sure that your CRM performs optimally by evaluating it against corporate objectives and adjusting any misalignments. To learn more about CRM solutions from BAASS, we invite you to contact us at 1-866-260-5302 to speak with an account representative. In addition, click here to watch our on-demand webinar for in our CRM series, "Planning for CRM".