This article focuses on Customer relationship management and its benefits. Invest in your relationship with customers and watch your business flourish!
Imagine a boxing ring full of businesses, all competing for one thing: to keep customers happy.
In fact, 81% of marketers think that customer satisfaction is one of the main factors that will set a business apart.
In today’s competitive and highly-digitalised business market, customer engagement and fulfilment may seem more and more difficult to achieve. For instance, 14% of small businesses fail in their first year because they don’t listen to their customers.
That being said, you are not just selling a service or product, you are marketing it in front of a highly demanding audience. So, a relationship between you and your customers needs to be established.
However, don’t lose hope yet as Customer relationship management may be just the answer you have been searching for to keep up with customer demands and grow your business.
What is CRM?
It may sound too good to be true, but CRM software is an updated digital version of a diary. It contains information, like:
- WHO your customers are
- WHERE they are on their customer journey
- HOW they have interacted with your company
All this gathered in one place, so that you can make informed decisions — at every customer touchpoint.
Why is a CRM important?
Fundamentally, a CRM system enables a 360-degree view of your customers as it collects their information and data into a single database.
As such, a CRM system helps you build relationships with customers that further facilitate customer loyalty and retention. Both of these influence a company’s revenue, so despite CRM focusing mainly on the clients, its effects influence the company as a whole.
Henry Ford said it when he stated that a business that’s completely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits as “they will be embarrassingly large.”
The benefits of a CRM service
Now that we’ve established what CRM is and why you should invest in one, let’s take a more in-depth look at its advantages.
01. Facilitates business growth by improving visibility
Knowing your customers and their buying habits will help you build buyer personas. By understanding who they are, how they shop, and what they are interested in, you will be able to tailor future social media campaigns and marketing messages more effectively. In turn, this can lead to increased sales and leads.
In line with growth, having a 360-view of your customers can also aid with up-selling This article focuses on Customer Relationship Management and its benefits. Invest in your relationship with customers and watch your business flourish!cross-selling at the right moments. When you know what your customers buy, it’s easier to suggest similar or upgraded versions of their usual purchases.
02. Improves service through customer journey maps
Establishing a great relationship with your customers is crucial for a successful business.
CRM systems make building long-lasting and valuable relationships with clients easier.
For example, it enables the creation of a customer journey map. This tool designs the visual representation of your customer’s experience with your brand across all touchpoints.
When knowing your clients’ preferences, you can optimise and personalise their experience with targeted messages. This shows that you care about your customers, thus improving their overall experience, boosting customer satisfaction, and building customer loyalty.
03. Empowers your team to do more with automated tools
Most of the tasks that the marketing or sales department face during the customer lifecycle are repetitive. This is where CRM comes in handy.
With ready-made templates, automated responses, or data entry, monotonous tasks are minimised.
This way, you’ll have even more time to focus on your clients’ needs and optimise their experience.
Additionally, this goes hand in hand with the first point, as the likelihood of leads answering the phone is increased if they are contacted within 5 minutes after signing up. This becomes easier to do when you automatically assign prospects to the appropriate sales representative.
Email marketing automation will allow you to send the right messages to the right contacts, at the right time. It’s possible to target your contacts based on past engagement, behaviour and demographics.
Not only is this method efficient, but it also facilitates personalisation, and thanks to it, email open rates increase by 82%.
For example, abandoned cart emails are a great way to remind customers of the products they added to their cart, but didn’t end up buying. You can reassure them that the product is saved for them and add a call to action. This might just be the boost that they were waiting for.
Similarly, cross-sell emails are sent to existing customers based on their purchase history. These automated emails aim to keep customers engaged as you offer them complementary or similar products to the ones they have previously purchased.
04. Removes information silos and strengthens collaboration
The entrepreneur Tony Hsieh once stated that customer service should be the focus of the entire company, not just of a department. Thanks to the CRM system, this has become possible.
Customer relationship management improves the company’s overall efficiency. It becomes simpler for employees to access documents within the system, so fragmented information can become a nightmare of the past.
That being said, it makes collaboration between different teams easier and centralises work while also ensuring that customers hear a consistent message from the company.
Therefore, CRM is also a team management tool that simplifies business operations and boosts productivity.
05. Enables sales forecasting and visualisation
What convinces clients to make that last-minute purchase? What works for your business and what doesn’t?
If you want to find the answer to these questions, a CRM system can easily do that for you by analysing the data captured in your customer database..
That being said, it logs all the actions that were taken during a customer’s journey so you can analyse them by using CRM reports.
Accurate sales forecasts will help you make smarter decisions when it comes to planning marketing campaigns, interacting with clients, and gathering leads.
Insightful analysis of customer data can make all the difference as you can find out more about the actions that have boosted your sales but also about the ones that have sabotaged them.
Ready to take your Customer Relationship Management to the next level?
Your clients are your upmost priority, so investing in your relationship with them seems only natural.
Especially in today’s ever-changing digital environment, CRM is no longer an option. It’s a necessity. Therefore, your brand and your relationship with your customers should grow concurrently.
Customers are the key factor when it comes to a business’s success so, naturally, no business growth can happen without deepening your relationship with them.
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