360 degree view of your customer

by Doc Pratt
 

What does having a 360 degree view of your customer, as it relates to CRM, actually mean? The meaning is basically the same no matter who you talk to; the type and value of the data can be drastically different.  What it means is this, if you draw a circle on a piece of paper, this represents the lifecycle of your customer.  This circle represents the geometric view of the customer and the customer should always be in the center of it. On the periphery, starting at the top, write the word Marketing. Now at the lower right-hand potion at “4:00 o’clock,” write Sales and at “8 o’clock” write Service. Those are the three major elements of CRM. Your customer starts at marketing and travels clock-wise around the circle continuously. The speed they travel depends on your product or service, the key is they are always moving around it. The first time through Marketing refers to acquiring the new customer, after that marketing is the no-going process of cross-sell, up-sell, or referrals. Once any customer is in the loop, it is very likely they will be at multiple points on the circle at any one time. Many businesses have a linear way of thinking and fail to recognize that fact. They focus exclusively on Marketing, then exclusively on Sales, followed by Service. That works great for customer service, but not for growing the business with existing customers. If you have other products and services you are not marketing to your existing customer, they will probably purchase them from a competitor, without realizing what they are doing. Once the competitor is in the account, even in a very small capacity, they can start to wreak havoc on your position and significantly alter your approach to managing the account.

Now, for the 360 degree view, you must remember that the data must be pertinent to your business or it is basically useless. The CRM application you use must be flexible enough to give you the data you need, and it must be easy to learn and use so people will enter the data needed. 

As you look at the circle write down important information for each area and draw a line or some way connect it to other areas that need the information. As you go through this, you can also write in other areas that may need access to customer data. Here is one of the classic examples of the need for CRM. Accounts payable has an account that is past due on an invoice so, since they do not have access to other customer information, they really put the heat on the customer to pay. As that is going on, sales is working through an issue with the customer, that caused the payment delay, and also quoting a million dollar deal with the same customer.  Without access to unified data, people are pulling customers in different directions. As you can see from this example, giving multiple people access to important customer data improves the relationship with the customer, can increase sales, make customers more loyal and also help to prevent problems.

When all of the important data about each customer is entered in one location it helps the organization be more effective. When the sales person is about to call on an account they can look at the account information and see everything what has been going on. Where this is really important and powerful is if there is some form of a problem. If the problem is something they can resolve or get resolved quickly they can walk in as a here. If they don’t know about the problem when they call on the customer, they walk in to a hornets nest.  Other areas where this information is powerful is in bringing in a new account rep, or if a manager or a C-level executive has a call from or will call on the account.

Marketing should be able to see sales and customer service/care information. Service/care should be able to see sales information for individual accounts. Sales should be able to see marketing campaigns and customer service/care information about specific accounts. To make the 360 degree view work for your organization think about the people who have any interaction with your customers. What information, if made readily available to them, would help each person perform their job better while adding value to the relationship the customer has with your business?

You get a call from a customer that is someone else’s account and they have a concern about an issue they are dealing with. Can you see all of the information about that particular account in moments notice? Can you see information about the issue they are talking about? What about any other issues or past problems? Do you how the person calling fits in the grand scheme of things, what their title is and what kind of influence they have? Can you see all of the service issues, the products they have purchased and what is currently being quoted? 

As you build information about your customers to the point that anyone can get an immediate view of where they are in the circle, then that is the beginning of the 360 degree view. One crucial point to remember is this data is not static; it is very dynamic and needs to be kept current. Does your organization have a 360 degree of your customers and is it current?