Using rules engines, the CRM software can identify the caller, then pop up a specific offer on the rep's workstation. The profile pulled from the data warehouse at an outdoor gear company, for example, says a caller bought three times this year. The purchases were a tent, a backpack and hiking outerwear. The rep can then ask the customer if she's interested in buying titanium cookware at 20 percent off. The rep is a better salesperson by virtue of having rich customer profiles, smart customer segmentation and rules engines that know which pitch to deliver to which customer.
Strategic measures abound.
Some of them include increases in customer lifetime value, increased rep close rates and higher revenue. Sales force automation. What has traditionally been a lead capture and management function is being used in very innovative ways. Even though VARs have been successful at selling the software company's product, they have been lax in communicating with the company about the status of leads in the sales cycle. The potential strategic improvement for the vendor is to compress the sales cycle from lead distribution to close.