Managing Customer relations and increasing need of collaboration to build profitable business has led to the development of digital B2B ecosystem, which is a community of system working together to serve the needs of customers. These systems allow segmentation of audience and delivering a customized experience to each group. Some components of the B2B ecosystem are Enterprise Resource Planning System, Customer Relationship Management System, Product Information Management System, Order Management System, Marketing Automation System etc. A well-equipped system help marketers to Use Customer Insights to Cross-Sell, Optimize the Order and Reorder Processes, Better Manage Content ,Facilitate Lead Nurturing. In a well established B2B system Sales and Marketing collaborate to have a real time access to latest customer information. You can read in more detail at : http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/how-b2b-ecosystems-big-data-can-transform-sales-and-marketing

According to a study, 63% of CRM initiatives fail, costing companies thousands of dollars in out of pocket expenses, which negatively impacts future revenue due to missed sales and opportunities. CRM is effective for those who manage several sides of business, which includes sales, marketing, customer relations, and product updates. There are three reasons for these failures – flawed communication of goals for the CRM system by company leaders, lack of organization-wide use, and inability to integrate with existing tools and applications. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/3-reasons-crm-implementations-fail-70341

Companies have started realizing that a good CRM system is essential. So, to use CRM effectively, they must follow some best practices. Best practices mean that both management and staff are doing their best when it comes to dealing with customers. To know more about the best practices that create good customer relations, follow: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/customer-relations-management-crm-best-practices-create-superior-results-69918

Today marketers know how to enhance customer experience and implement new strategies to attract new customers. Big data, social media marketing and customer relations have influenced the marketing behavior. There will be no insights without data. But by managing data and analyzing it will lead to achieving marketing goals. Analysis of data should be such that it provides helpful conclusion to businesses to make strategies and reach goals. Documentation of business objectives helps business to know what type of data is required and how to manage data. Data should be integrated and structured in such a way that it is reliable to customers. Data validation is required to check the validity of data.   Read more at: http://www.smartdatacollective.com/lbedgood/332008/ultimate-beginner-s-guide-data-quality-and-business-intelligence

 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the approach of managing a company’s interactions with customers. It involves various technologies that organize and automate marketing, customer service and technical support. Companies employ Business Intelligence (BI) tools for the same. A BI tool is useful when it has rich, in-depth data to analyze from a CRM system. It helps companies organize and manage customer data by improving tactical and strategic decision-making for company growth.

Objectives of integrating BI and CRM:-
1. Collecting and consolidating data, lowers overhead
2. Missing data is lesser as it stores data in a central location
3. Duplicate data can be detected easily.
The methodology for the above integration follows Review, Analyze, Plan, Implement, and Deploy (RAPID). Read more at: http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/tip/Integrating-CRM-with-business-intelligence-tools

Like in any other service, in SaaS also, customer service is the most important element. And this becomes even more important because SaaS customers are different. They not only need service at the point of sales, but also for the whole duration of use of the software. If satisfied, then only, will they renew the subscription, otherwise not.

Micah Solomon, Customer Service Consultant, in his article at Forbes, explains the importance of customer service in SaaS by taking an example of PayScale, a B2B SaaS company. According to Mike Metzger, CEO of PayScale, “The SaaS environment makes the threshold for satisfying experience higher. We’re always working on it.”

Micah has also shared few tips for a successful SAAS customer service. Some of them are:

• Hire the right people
• Carefully define and put into place customer interaction standards and guidelines.
• Beef up your self-service options.
• Always be there for them.

Follow these tips and boost up your customer service, because ‘customer relations’ is the key to a successful SaaS business.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2015/04/25/how-and-why-to-improve-customer-service-at-your-saas-company-starting-today/

According to Dan Kennedy’s book, “No B.S. Direct Marketing",  business is a bucket into which we owners pour ideas, energy and money in hopes of stirring up profits and the failure to follow- up customers is a big hole in that bucket .

Therefore, a business should always look forward to follow up -both existing and lost- customers in order to serve them better, retain them and also, build long lasting relations. William Ballard, Freelance Writer and Author, in his article on entrepreneur.com gives 4 steps that should be followed to follow up customers when the answer is “no” in first stance. They are:

Step 1.Redeem yourself by re-stating or re-selling your existing offer.

Step 2.Give a firm or humorous “2^nd Notice” message to create scarcity.

Step 3.The “third and final notice.”

Step 4.The final step is to present another offer.

To know more, visit the following link:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244094