Businesses must ensure that customer service issuesare dealt with seamlessly and effectively and that any leads captured arefollowed up accordingly - failing to do so will mean that highly discerningcustomers with heightened service expectation levels won’t return when theupturn comes.

Establishing achievable service level agreements withcustomers is an excellent tool to help improve communications, manageexpectations, clarify responsibilities between businesses and their customers andbuild the foundations for a win-win relationship. 

            Workflowcapabilities in Sage CRM ensure that the exceptional customer service levelswhich are expected in the post-recession climate are consistently met everytime. 

            Triggersand alarms allow customer service teams to ensure that queries are followed upin a timely manner so that issues don’t get ‘lost between the cracks’ and thatdemanding customers are served efficiently and effectively. 

            Knowledgemanagement capabilities make it easier to capture remedies related to specificissues which may recur over time, enabling users to find information quicklyand easily, ultimately resulting in improved customer care. 

            Real-time monitoring of SLAsensures that customerservice cases are progressed in accordance with SLA requirements, drivingcustomer satisfaction and retention

            Self-servicecapabilities empower customers to securely access CRM data over the web in a convenientmanner, enabling customers to services their own information requirements whilereducing the resource overhead to the business

            SageCRM reports and dashboards provide detailed analysis on metrics such as callvolume, case resolution times, communications, follow-up statistics andescalations; enabling management to quantify the performance of their agents –a key requirement for companies entering the recovery with fewer staff onboard.

 Core CRM functionalitysuch as opportunity management can improve the effectiveness of the sales team whilethe marketing functionality outlined in this paper allows the marketingdepartment to focus on the most profitable customer segment. 

As the diagram below from Gartner illustratres, an appropriatetime to prepare for the return to growth is before the recession bottoms out;the time to take action is already here and Sage CRM can help your businessaccelerate out of the downturn and take advantage of the impending recovery.

Withover 5.8 million SMB business applications customers around the world today,Sage is globally recognised as the market leader in this important segment. 

Finally,one of Sage’s biggest strengths and competitive differentiators in themarketplace is our global network of over 30,000 Sage-certified businesspartners that provide unparalleled business applications expertise andon-the-ground coverage to ensure to that you can always talk face-to-face withan expert and that you will leverage the maximum return from your CRMinvestment over its lifetime.