A project manager's daily life is highly dependent on the quality of his / her relationships with stakeholders. Customers are a very important part of the stakeholder section as they can directly influence the ultimate success of the project. Information is the greatest tool a project manager can use in this sensitive relationship. Using appropriate tools like Easy Project, will make it possible for a project manager to access all of the important information of his / her client.
So, how does a system like this work?
We usually start collecting information about the customer during pre-sales activities. A record of all communications is kept by the sales team in a CRM software. Depending on the business, close collaboration between the sales team and the technical team is required, even if a customer is typically offered an off-the-shelf product. A customer-centric platform where all different team members work is a tool that helps keep track of all projects, issue tickets, and conversations related to a single customer. For example, the technical team presents all estimates included in the proposal stage based on this information. This also helps measure the effectiveness of pre-sales stages and guides managers on how they can improve these efforts to be more sales and customer-focused.
If the product or service is complex and needs to be tailored to a specific customer, this effort can turn into a project. Using proposal project templates where the roles of management, technical, sales, business development and legal teams are predefined will make the entire experience much faster and will also contribute to higher quality proposals. If the product is a project in itself, this project can be planned with all critical parts (such as WBS, schedule, resources and risks) and even different alternative solutions for different scenarios. In this way, the ability to provide the most competitive and accurate offers will be provided while ensuring that all the needs of the client are met.
Once the actual project begins, such a platform also provides access to the client for transparent and collaborative management. Tasks that require customer involvement can be assigned directly to them. B2B-CRM system reflects all these projects and tasks related to a particular customer in a single dashboard. This allows you to keep track of all changes along the way and makes the final project acceptance flow smoother and easier.
Finally, once the project is completed and the customer starts using the product, a Help Desk module integrated into the platform will allow all team members (sales team, project manager and support team) to see any support issues raised by the customer, get involved when necessary, thereby ensuring high customer satisfaction. The platform allows you to look at your customer's entire lifecycle, which can contribute to lessons learned, good practices and improve procedures for the entire company.
Long story short, like all relationships in life, your relationship with your clients depends on how much you know about them and how quickly you can react to their needs. Using a single platform to organize pre-sales, sales process and post-sales activities will give you the advantage you need to be the customer-focused company your customers expect from you.
Aslı Yücel Alpdoğan P.E., PMP
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