Lead generation and CRM: Is it sure they are always essential?

crm

Photo by Sean MacEntee

Every year millions of euros are spent, both centrally and as a dealer, to generate leads. Another million euros are used for CRM actions to acquire customers.

But what is the generation of “lead” and the CRM?
The lead generation “…a marketing action which allows to create a list of possible customers interested in products or services offered by a company.
Whereas for CRM we mean “…Customer Relationship management, which is linked to the customer loyalty concept.

From the outside it could seem that with the use of these processes, of these methodologies of company technique, there is no escape for a “hot” customer; all are acquired and then loyal. A perfectly closed market is therefore created with a solid entry barrier, which is indeed insurmountable.

Despite this, in reality, there are many non-leading perfomers, which close the business (because they don’t have customers), which break up and allow many other small dealers to rise and prosper.

In reality, “hot” contacts are not followed and CRM actions often remain fine words!

One wonder:

  • Is it possible that we pay lot of money to generate leads from the web that are systematically ignored by dealers?
  • Is it possible that a workshop customer is not loyal with all the standard tools we have in our management?
    For both questions the answer is YES!

leads

You can invest all the resources you have but, if the bases of your business aren’t solid, you waste your money.
Starting Lead Generation processes or the CRM ones on a not solid commercial business or not performing, will only make the situation worse.

It will aggravate the situation because it will infuse customer expectations -which won’t be satisfied – and because it will clear the company staff from responsibility, delegitimising their role.

Let’s talk clearly, before reaching the highest systems you need to have solid organizational and commercial bases; you need to have that competitive spirit throughout the company that create the quid compared to the competitor.

The bigger is the company and the more employees feel only the momentary gears of a system, the more difficult it is to find the competitive spirit.

Photo by ChrisL_AK

I have actually realised, they have cloned the “dentist” method!
The dentist book the appointment for the control visit within 6 months or a year… why not applying it even in the dealer or even more so in the post sale?

If the furniture store calls me after 15 days to know if the appliances are all working properly, the dealer customer, who spends more than 500 euros, should be called back to increase the loyal and the satisfaction.

And what about the body shop costumer who spends 1000 euros to repair the car? Doesn’t he deserve a check to verify everything is all right, solve the inconveniences and reinforce the relations?

And so I welcome the tire shop that sends a text for the rotation of the tires, even better those who create Facebook campaigns for web customers.

This and other myriad of examples are the proof that Lead Generation and CRM are not enough and can’t be a momentary fashion or the result of a grafting.

They have to be originated as strategic choices, as natural evolution of the business and even the members of this must be the expression of the human resources evolution, all of them no one left outside.

Translated by Federica Izzo

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