How Does One Justify a CRM System Investment

Most software ROI calculations are built off of two tenets: sell more or cut costs. The problem that most organizations run into is that they have no solid numbers to address either; “sell how much more”, or “save how much time” can be elusive concepts.
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I suggest that there are three fundamental business objectives that sales, marketing, and service must focus on and can be used to justify a Dynamics CRM system: 1) find more customers like our best ones, 2) keep the ones we want, and 3) increase profitable transactions. 

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As you consider a Dynamics system, and ways to justify it, start building out your evaluation around these three basic business objectives. Each will lead to the insight needed by answering the questions that Dynamics CRM is expected to resolve.

 For example:

• Do our account managers know where to find more customers like our best ones?
• Do our account managers know what are the characteristics of our best clients?
• Are our account mangers maintaining the relationship with key accounts? How often should they be communicating or visiting these customer?
• Can we measure what lead sources translates to our best sales?
• Have there been times this past year when customer service issues have dropped through the cracks and we lost a customer? How often does that happen? What was the value of that lost customer relationship?
• Do we know our quote-to-proposal-to-sales ratios?
• How long does it take us to find out that new account manger is not going to work out? What is the cost of waiting too long to cut them loose?
• Can we communicate our sales process to the sales force and show the value of measurable points at each stage?

​There are plenty more questions that can be asked, all tied back to the fundamental business objectives of finding and keeping customers while growing revenue. Each question can be quantified to address the investment payoff.

Once you have built your case there is one more question that should be addressed: "What is the cost of inaction in effectively supporting and measuring progress associated with these three fundamental business objectives?" There should be no reason that you are not able to find a monthly number that helps everyone understand the cost associated with an investment or the absence of a solution.

InfoGrow offers a FREE 90-minute assessment to work with your team in identifying the questions that you should be asking.  Please reach out to me at 330-929-1353 ext. 5224 if you'd like to discuss this further.