As the race to digital transformation accelerates, organisations are spending millions of dollars on implementing digital ecosystems and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to help convert leads into real business. However, the reality is that many of those projects fail to deliver what was promised in the business case, according to Empired.
Ben Johnson, national business manager, data insights and integration, Empired, said, “This is not necessarily because the project was executed poorly, because organisations chose the wrong technology or because people did a bad job. It’s more related to the absolute, often blinkered, focus on the product and the core system itself, and not how the information that is captured within it can be used for high value business. To do this properly, customer analytics and lead prioritisation are both critical.”
Many organisations often look at the opportunities in CRM in the context of what can be closed this month or this quarter – opportunities further out than this are placeholders in many industries.
Ben Johnson said, “It now possible however, for organisation to use historical and current data to segment and profile the opportunities in CRM to focus on the ones that really matter to the business.
“With lead prioritisation organisations can delve deeper and look further afield to target the right types of opportunities with the right types of customers, at the right time, through the right channel, with the right value proposition. This can be done using the intuition of the sales team, or it can be complemented with insights that come from the data.”
With lead prioritisation the data can also be used to help prioritise the sales teams time so they can focus on the deals that really matter. It is also being used to predict which customers are more likely to stay with an organisaton based on the synergies between the organisation and its value propositions and customer behaviours.
Ben Johnson said, “Lead prioritisation can also help organisations intervene in cases where they might lose a sale or an opportunity would fade away. The way it does that is by looking at exceptions. In a sea of data it can be hard to really know what is going on, and be across every customer in the sales pipeline. However, being able to find individuals stuck in the pipe can be just as important as filling the pipe with more leads.”
Lead prioritisation is a way of getting more from your market research. Today, most market research is focused on segmenting leads by using personas. But the reality is that often, these personas don’t actually match real customers.
Ben Johnson said, “With lead segmentation you can profile your customers in a much more personal way based on their individual behaviours tracked through engagement, referrals, purchases, membership and more.”
“The important thing is not to wait until digital ecosystem and CRM projects are complete before looking at ways to get additional value from these implementations. Consider how these investments can add value from the outset because clawing back return on investment is much harder once a project is complete.
“In today’s business environment analytics is the key accelerator for business growth, and should be part of the fabric of every organisation.”