What a CRM consultant can do

By Carsten Bjerregaard, Marketingcapacity.dk (Link to the article. Copying/publishing without agreement is not allowed) 

A CRM Consultant can help your business strengthen and leverage relationships with customers and other stakeholders. The CRM Consultant combines a deep insight into customers with knowledge of CRM systems. Not least from Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft and SAP. The CRM Consultant can help establish processes so that sales and marketing work together to convert leads throughout the sales funnel, just as the consultant can work with customer satisfaction and activities to strengthen loyalty. Email can be your company's most effective marketing channel if you have your CRM setup in order.

See CRM consultant profiles

What is a CRM consultant?

The role of the CRM consultant is to optimize the use of Customer Relationship Management in a company. In other words, the consultant is a liaison with overall responsibility for creating value from the total investment in personal relationships with customers and other stakeholders.

What is the role of the CRM consultant?

Typical tasks that the CRM consultant offers are:

• Pre-analysis and requirement specifications in connection with the purchase of systems, CRM software or assessment of SAAS solutions
• Assessment of current CRM systems and cost/benefit of switching
• Establishing Business Intelligence dashboards
• Implementation of systems for email marketing, e-business, phoners etc.
• Description, establishment and optimization of CRM processes and customer journey from keyword optimization to loyalty programs
• Pipeline Management and/or Lead Management
• Initiating and optimizing Marketing Automation flows
• Assess your performance in e.g. Google Analytics
• Reporting to management and to functional managers

But first and foremost, it's about optimizing processes and results on a daily basis. By developing concepts such as newsletters and implementing campaigns and other lead-generating activities.

What else is a CRM consultant called?

Some people talk about CRM specialists or a customer relations manager or maybe a customer experience manager.

How do CRM consultants create value?

The consultant creates value by creating and commercially leveraging personal relationships with customers, prospects and other stakeholders. Simply by planning and establishing a customer journey that leads to more sales, bigger sales and selling more products.

What types of CRM consultants are there?

Like everyone else, CRM consultants are driven by their interests and special skills. Some are more technically skilled than others, some have greater business insight and flair, others are skilled at collaborating and rallying the organization and mobilizing it to achieve common goals. Some are specialists, others are generalists who need specialists to run campaigns or define segments in the systems.

What should a CRM consultant know?

There are many things a consultant needs to know and understand:

• Company readiness in CRM
• Its technological infrastructure
• The individual systems and how they are connected
• Company brand
• The company's product portfolio
• Organizations
• Budgets - both revenue and expense budgets
• The campaign wheel

Just to name a few. It requires a great overview, solid business understanding, deep customer insight and, not least, drive. The CRM consultant is responsible for the most effective platform - email - in the company. He needs to get the most out of it.A good CRM consultant is often data-driven and business-driven at the same time. He knows that data is the gold and business is the scoreboard. Data is the means, business is the result.

Examples of good CRM consulting work

Sometimes we see large, integrated DM campaigns. Campaigns that are personalized, targeted, attractive and effective. Campaigns that build real 1:1 relationships with customers and create value for both them and the business.Take big companies like Amazon, Facebook, RB&B or LinkedIn. While they're rightly most famous as platforms, their personalized dialogue setups are amazing. In fact, it's probably the CRM part that has made them so successful. They've simply had a better customer dialog than the hundreds of competitors they've had along the way. Amazon isn't the only online store. It even started out as an e-bookstore - but they had the mantra that they followed their customers' wishes and nothing else.

Why a freelance CRM consultant?

Someone needs to be responsible for CRM in a company. How it should be organized is of course up to the individual company, but it's probably a good idea to have someone who has end-to-end responsibility.In any case, it can be a good idea to have someone from outside the company on board for short or long periods of time. Among other reasons:

• Bring fresh ideas into your business
• External people aren't so deeply embedded in the history that they talk about what 'we usually do'
• The need for CRM consulting services changes, for example, there may be projects around new technology that last maybe 12-18 months, but still not enough for a permanent job

If you want this flexibility, you can basically choose between contracting with an agency or finding a skilled freelancer. And there are a couple of key differences here:

• With a freelancer, you only pay for the skill, not for secretaries, assistants or other complementary services
• A freelancer can work onsite with you when needed. While most agency employees are only visiting, freelancers can often be part of a closer relationship, which can be an advantage

How do you find a good CRM contractor?

At Marketingcapacity.dk, we work every day to find, evaluate and recruit marketing competencies. If you choose to ask us, we will present you with 3 possible candidates, which you are free to choose from if you wish. Contact us without obligation and hear more.See CRM consultant profiles