Many organizations are structured as silos, in which different departments or teams within the same organization or group work independently, isolated from the rest. However, if these silos not collaborating sufficiently with one another, this can lead to customer confusion and Commercial opportunities continue to go untapped. That’s why it’s so important to break down silo thinking and behavior. In this blog post, we’ll share a few examples of how this can be achieved with CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
1. Create a 360° view of the customer
The basis of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is to A complete picture of your customers to build up. Make sure to a single, centralized, up-to-date customer database in your organization. Ideally, each customer is treated as a unique record in this customer database. Then link each customer to all the information relevant to each different employee profile within your organization. Of course, not all employees should have access to all information. Thanks to the comprehensive security features You decide who can access what.
With a comprehensive view of your customers, you lay the necessary groundwork to operate as a single organization and ensure that every customer interaction is as effective and seamless as possible.
2. Make Sales & Service the Perfect Duo
In larger organizations, the service– & the sales department completely separate from one another. It is therefore unthinkable that the service department would use a separate software package to record service requests to which the sales representative has no access. In other words, the sales representative has no insight into what might be going on with the customer. If the sales representative visits the customer and has no information about pending complaints, this can lead to awkward situations that are unlikely to be understood by the customer.
Therefore, integrate the service software into your CRM system and ensure that sales representatives can stay on top of things at all times and know what’s going on with the customer.
3. Keep a record of all business opportunities
Manage all sales opportunities from all departments within a single CRM solution. Keep track of who is working on what for a particular client. This is especially recommended, for example, for companies operating under the same company group operate. Companies within the same group often compete with one another for the same sales opportunity. If it eventually comes to the point where the (potential) customer notices this internal competition, it becomes painfully clear that the various companies within the group are unaware of what is happening with the (potential) customer. If, at the group level, you make it clear who is working on which open sales opportunities, then you can collaborate instead of competing.
4. Go for organization-wide marketing
A a comprehensive database of customer information is the foundation for B2B marketing. By making customer information available organization-wide (and ensuring it is fed from across the entire organization), the marketing department gains powerful capabilities for creating target audience lists for marketing campaigns. If the marketing department works entirely on its own in a separate database, it cannot take advantage of the information ‘in the field’. Customer information is much more comprehensive when marketing works with the same customer database as sales and services. That opens up opportunities for targeted communication and enhancing the customer experience and engagement (i.e., customer experience and customer engagement). Furthermore, because everyone works from the same database, there is no need to maintain the same customer information in duplicate.
5. Consider data migration
In a company that has grown through acquisitions, there is a good chance that the acquired organizations will continue to operate as separate, independent units—like silos. Suppose the acquired company continues to operate with its own customer base; in that case, the organization as a whole will no longer have a complete picture of each individual customer. Therefore, migrate the customer data from the acquired company to the central CRM system.
For shared customers, it is very important to have a unique identifier to identify each customer individually. The business ID number is ideal for this purpose. Make sure the business ID number is entered consistently in your customer database.
Conclusion: Break Down Silo Mindset with CRM
By working together as a single organization, by ensuring a comprehensive view of the customer, by managing all business opportunities within a single CRM solution, by building a robust and up--to-date contact database, by ensuring that every employee who interacts with a customer always has immediate access to the information relevant to them, … you'll take advantage of every opportunity, and the path to success will be wide open.
