The Help Desk Software Blog

Valuable Customer Experiences

A CRM strategy is necessary, but most managers have no idea what it entails or how to build one. Start by looking at company goals and strategies. Then think about the people being served. Brainstorm with a team of people what each customer will feel is a good experience and keep detailed notes. From this you can build some customer profiles of satisfied customers, customers who will purchase again, customers that will upgrade or purchase due to an up-sell or cross-sell, etc.

Measurable Objectives

Then brainstorm what it will take to accomplish each of the pieces in that profile. For example, if part of the profile of the satisfied customer is that he gets his questions answered in one phone call or e-mail, what has to happen on the company’s end to accomplish that? It may mean investing in Knowledge Base software. That is a measurable goal because you can later look at that goal and answer the question: Did we accomplish this? If you bought the software and it works, the answer is “yes.”

Steps to Achieve Objectives

The goals may take several steps to achieve – and have several checkpoints along the way. If one goal is purchasing Knowledge Base software, the steps will include investigation of several versions to see if they fit your needs and requirements. In order to know that, you will have to create a list of needs and requirements. You may need to have demonstrations or trials of two or three after narrowing down the choices.

Long-Term Valuable Customer Experience

This is not a quick and easy process, but keeping a customer for the long-term is well worth the time and effort (and money) invested in formulating the profiles and goals and meeting those goals. Even as you successfully check off various goals, you may find that new issues arise which necessitate new goals. You may also find new uses for various pieces of software which can give you new goals for development. Or a competitor may start doing something that customers will quickly feel is a requirement in the industry, necessitating a new goal.