zero2ten-whitepaper-roi-of-everything-crm

Zero2Ten White Paper


Executive SummaryThis white paper aims to support the justification a business may need when selecting a CRM solution (in the cloud or on premise). When selecting a CRM solution, it is right for a business to talk about return on investment (ROI) as it should be about marketing, sales and service productivity, pipeline creation and straight to revenue. In short, a CEO should not pose the question about how much money CRM could save but how much more money could be earned in relatively short timescales.

So no surprise that over the past few years, including 2015, CRM remains high on the C-Level agenda, when reported by leading analyst groups, such as Gartner. In fact, not so long ago a Forrester research paper stated that, on average, Microsoft Dynamics CRM would deliver an ROI of 243%1. A figure that was substantiated at the 2014 Microsoft Convergence Europe, where the audience added a further 1 percent!

For a CRM solution to deliver ROI, an organization needs to consider the factors that reduce costs operationally against those with the positive impact on increased pipeline and an improvement in the sales cycle for existing business and new customer acquisition. Consequently, ROI will be derived from a combination of productivity gains, reduced costs, customer retention and increased revenues from the primary customer-facing departments of sales, marketing and service.

The basic tenet of a CRM solution is that visibility of prospective and existing customer status will drive more meaningful engagements to increase productivity of all departments and sales revenue and deliver ROI.

For more information please contact us on: zero2ten.comUS: (866) 420-7624 option 2

UK: (0203) 608 1445

Scope Your IntentionsBefore you deploy a solution, park any ROI estimates you have. Ignore that 243 percent or 244 percent.

You need to define the metrics to measure and validate your calculations. For every organization this will be different. If you have a commodity B2B product, then marketing and sales will be working with high volume and in shorter selling cycles. If your product is a high-value strategic acquisition for businesses, then the marketing target will be highly defined and the sales process more staged. Immediately, any ROI calculation needs to be adjusted to reflect the average sales cycle and set to your timeframe for an ROI.

Alternatively, plot your maturity as a company based upon how integrated sales, marketing and service processes are and set your ROI objectives against known operational targets. Not everything will be broken. An established company may place more stock on increasing customer retention, as maintenance, services and cross-sell underpin a profitable P&L, while start-ups may need to focus on building pipeline in order to secure a viable forecast fast.

1. Based on an organisation of 2000 employees with an initial deployment of 50 users would see a 3-year, risk-adjusted Return on Investment of an incredible 243% over a payback period of less than 5 months.


So think about why these five areas may come into play for your organization and how customer visibility and transparency of relationship status within CRM will provide ROI advantage:

Pipeline Generation – No matter what type of business you are, there will sometimes be quarters or trading periods when the CEO will ask “why did we miss our number?” and the answer will invariably start with poor pipeline. Pipeline generation has to be a shared responsibility and a CRM solution will allow marketing to manage campaigns, leads and events, while business development teams can receive and qualify leads for sales to convert to opportunity. This unified process will convey the collective ownership to the business so pipeline creation becomes a consistent and predictable contingency.

Productivity Gains – Visibility saves time throughout the entire customer lifecycle. As a prospect, the automated call lists for lead development teams provide a priority order for lead qualification through to status and engagement scheduling that ensures new business opportunities get focus and customers stay ‘on-maintenance’ and retained.

The visibility provided by CRM allows all departments to better schedule activities based upon status to ensure all engagements are objective driven.

Heightened Customer Retention – Meaningful and timely engagements from sales and service deliver so much more value to customers. No customers enjoy ‘coffee and biscuit’ meetings but relish meetings with an agenda that aids their cause. CRM allows customer-facing teams to follow an engagement model that predicts behavior yet increases loyalty. Understanding a buyer’s propensities and satisfaction status brings efficiency to sales and service processes that will only increase customer loyalty to your business.

Increased Sales Revenue – The sum of all of the above and for management it will become the control of the sales forecast. Again, CRM introduces greater predictability to your business and no more so than in the visibility of the sales forecast, which will allow management to be pre-armed and pre-warned as to the peaks and troughs that every business encounters and the benefit of pipeline transparency provides actionable contingency for your business.


UK: (0203) 608 1445

Reduced Administration Costs2 – Configured processes and automated data collection will generate higher volumes of meaningful decision support information. CRM, today, is increasingly acquired in the cloud, as SaaS and sometimes PaaS to remove many system administration duties and costs from maintenance and upgrades.

“We’re using 50% less administrative support staff than previously and believe that will increase to 65% as our business continues to scale and grow. That’s down to the efficiencies gained in workflow processes through development of the CRM platform. It’s a major cost saving for us.” Steve Cassell, President and CEO of Command Investigations

Once the CRM solution is in place, its automation tested (and re-configured as necessary) then the customer can move to an RFM3 model and commence measuring customer value. RFM will allow organisations to move to a predictive model of retention and recurring revenue as CRM will allow those in sales and marketing to assess last transactions (Recency), the Frequency they purchase with the Monetary value the purchases are made.

Such a predictive model will also help in understanding purchasing trends and how and when to engage with customers. In an industry sector such as manufacturing, this information, when shared with R&D, for example, will start to shape new product introduction and timely end-of-life strategies.

2. Companies may further reduce IT administration costs by choosing to deploy their CRM solution in the cloud. This will certainly be true of hardware and software costs but professional and implementation services may still apply.

3. Some organisations also overlay (EFM – Enterprise Feedback Management) to CRM to provide a Business Intelligence and analytics layer.


Stop! Start Again!Okay, so you have your basis for a solid business justification working across the needs of the holy trinity of sales, marketing and customer service. But stop and think again.

What remit have IT got to consumerize IT, increase the use of mobile apps and cloud services and extend the reach of key systems for staff?

It’s difficult to attach ROI to such initiatives but your choice of CRM can enhance the end-user experience of this critical IT system. Most solutions are available in the cloud or SaaS but not always with a user interface that is instantly recognizable and with familiar attachment to commonly used tools, such as Outlook and Sharepoint. Then look for HTML5 compatibility, as this will deliver a responsive mobile app that will heighten productivity of any team anywhere and at any time.

Good end-user experience of IT is seen as a major contributor to staff retention therefore reducing the costs associated with new employees.


UK: (0203) 608 1445

Let’s Get BusyBefore an organization enjoys the benefits of the RFM model that CRM will deliver, the immediate impact will be the day-to-day productivity gains experienced across marketing, sales and service.

CRM is a consolidation of relevant prospect and customer information, and solutions are delivered today to provide visibility of status, opportunity (pipeline) and revenues. Customer-facing departments and management will quickly move to a proactive engagement-driven strategy.

Let’s take marketing, for example. CRM will allow a clear view on lead quality and its contribution to pipeline and customer initiatives. The transparency marketing will have enables them to fine-tune their output and become far more concentrated on customer outcomes. It will:

1. Ensure campaigns are structured to address lead requirements for pipeline2. Ensure campaign themes are tested and are relevant to the target audience3. Generate leads qualified for budget, authority, need and timescales, rather than masses of unwanted contact data4. Deliver pipeline generation support activities and contribute to opportunity conversion5. Provide a lead-flow calibrated to new business and customer retention



UK: (0203) 608 1445

In sales, the modelling of RFM data will allow for increased new business acquisition and existing account penetration, as CRM provides the productivity tools required to build out a logical engagement plan that is non-intrusive, qualified and predictive.The final productivity advantage to anyone in a customer-facing role is ensuring those in customer service view status and act in a timely supportive manner. Never underestimate service, as their inclusion within CRM will flag at-risk customers, as well highlight customers that can be referenced for, and in support of, further new business acquisition.

Automating the processes that connect sales, marketing and service will streamline many action points, especially how sales are alerted to real changes in customer status by service.

In short, your CRM solution should allow you to discover new customers, sell more to existing customers and move to a higher retention rate.

Data Is The DifferenceYour ROI calculations could be compromised from day one if the database is just a mass of raw data. Don’t let data be the constraint of your CRM project, as it’s already the dependency for success. If anything, data without any touch-point should reside in your Marketing Automation (MA) tool.

For example, if there are a lot of one-time web visitors, you should exclude these from your lead-generation activities and place them in a marketing nurture stream. These suspect/prospects will overstate the impact marketing has on lead generation and ultimately slow pipeline activities. This is also true in reverse. If you have masses of frequent flyers you need to suppress their activities to avoid duplicates that pollute databases.

Scoring should be done quickly and nurturing within MA will ensure data in your CRM remains clean and a redundancy process for removal back to the MA system for ageing leads will further guarantee the only data held in your CRM system is relevant and actionable.

And good and relevant data saves time and brings efficiencies to pipeline-generation activities. Lead Demand Representatives do not waste time chasing low-touch suspects. Complete data moves prospects quickly through qualification to opportunity conversion.

Top Tip: Many CRM solutions also provide integration with profiling tools that enhance prospect data with corporate information. This is another way to focus on the correct targets for your business and accelerate pipeline.


The CRM Bottom LineBy definition, a CRM solution should generate a high ROI when associated with a sales organization, as the visibility provided gives a 360⁰ view of each customer and every prospect.

Such a statement is not always true of every solution class. Often the efficiencies gained simply lead to a greater demand for the services being provided and only increase the use of the solution. However, CRM is often the exception and ROI calculations will often yield a positive value in a relatively short time due to its ability to positively consolidate and improve cross-functional processes and success factors.


UK: (0203) 608 1445

At O’Neal Steel Microsoft Dynamics CRM improved customer information flow and increased sales activity. This has resulted in some district offices showing a 6% increase in annual revenues - that is an increase of $1.38 million!

O’Neal Steel - A real world example...


In short, many of the leading solutions can build-out to provide the basis of a complete business platform. The Dynamics platform, for example, allows a manufacturing company to integrate with AX for full ERP support and management has decision support that places greater accuracy when planning resources in development and production through to having the right products to sell to customers at exactly the right time that they need them, as a result of the predictability provided by CRM.

A platform, centered on CRM, integrated with other business systems, puts you in control of what you supply to those in-demand. Think agile business!

With so many positive variables in play, it’s never a question of will you achieve ROI from your CRM investment, it’s when. The surprise for most companies will be in trying to predict where ROI will be derived first because it will undoubtedly be a combination of efficiencies in sales, marketing and service. And once you add-in that 360⁰ view, then one single event in the business that is captured and profitably leveraged will change everything.


UK: (0203) 608 1445

About Zero2TenZero2Ten has shown hundreds of companies that CRM doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive. We are the only Microsoft Dynamics CRM firm that combines deployment and a proactive user adoption road map into a single 100% fixed-fee program. Zero2Ten has implemented more Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online solutions than any other Microsoft provider worldwide. We continually fine-tune our process and user-adoption programs to give you the maximum return on your CRM investment. This commitment to stay with you throughout your CRM journey has earned Zero2Ten the highest CRM customer retention rate in the business.

To find out more about how Zero2Ten can help you to build your business call us now on:

(866) 420-7624 option 2 (0203) 608 1445

EMEA: US: Sources1. Gartner – Top 10 CIO Predictions 20152. Forrester - The Total Economic Impact Of Microsoft Dynamics CRM

zero2ten-whitepaper-roi-of-everything-crm

Documents