The triumph of your business depends on the success of your relationship with customers. Businessmen always want to know what is the most valuable asset of their company. The answer to this question differs from every industry. Hotel owners would say it is location. Financial institution owners would say it is money. IT Managers would say that it is their products and services. Many fail to think of the people who peruse your products and services. Your customers are the most important asset of your company. Without customers, you will have no business. Google and CEB conducted a research in which they found out that customers who are happy with business and more likely to purchase again from the same business. Moreover, their emotional attachment makes them four times more enthusiastic to defend their purchase.
It makes sense that happy customers are the foundation of business success. Customer relationship management encompasses all businesses to organize, automate and interact with customers on every level. The popular saying of ‘’customer is always right’’ can be the motto of your customer relationship strategy. CRM takes your business and turns it into a lively brand which people love to get associated with. Customer loyalty and revenue are both important for more sales. Add CRM to the mix, and you will have a surefire shot towards gaining more profits.
Developing better relationships:
Customer relationship management helps businesses in building better relationships with their customers, the ones which last longer. It creates loyalty and retention. A customer relationship management (CRM) tool helps in collecting customer information and putting it to use whenever needed. Leslie ye of HubSpot blog describes CRM tools as:
“Beyond contact info, CRMs log reps’ touchpoints with their prospects, including emails, phone calls, voicemails, and in-person meetings. Some CRMs offer the ability to track deal stages and reasons for closed-lost and closed-won deals.” –Forbes
Learning:
CRMs help business managers learn more about their customers. It lets them know who the customers are and why they purchase from you. You can see the trends in purchase history and notice the periods where there are peak purchases. You can entertain customers better when you have a background information of their purchase intent. Out of all this well-organized data in CRM tools, businesses can pick the useful bits to create better sales strategies. It has a strategic advantage and also gives you a competitive edge over other companies in the industry.
Wells Fargo is one of the most popular banks in the United States. The organization is responsible for taking care of the money and resources of more than 70 billion customers. They gain a competitive edge by using a social media CRM strategy to connect with their customers. Customers are quickly connected to a relevant person for help.
Registering leads:
Last year, the usage of CRM systems was about 56 percent. This year, the number has grown to an impressive 74 percent. The growth is due to the effectiveness of the CRM model. It helps in managing the lead pipeline without manual intervention or complex spreadsheets. When you are managing a business manually, you will never know when a lead is ready to turn into a customer. You need an advanced CRM software to guide you in taking the lead down the nurturing process. It is never too late to start unifying this data and get to work. You at least a few basic categories which can turn your data effectively and provide outcomes. Your CRM strategy will work better if you have valid data to prove the actions. Some of the categories can be customers, lost customers, suppliers, partners, etc. you can take it forward by dividing the customers into segments for each customer relationship program.
Opportunities:
Are there any prospects you have not sold to? Why are they in the middle part of the funnel? How do you find out if they are ready? Through CRM data. Tell your sales team that a no from the customer doesn’t mean ‘never.’ It means ‘not today.’ That’s why it is so important to keep these prospects alive and feed them with subtle marketing messages to keep them in the loop. This is where you can use an email marketing strategy to send segmented mail messages to each customer. Here are some email newsletter templates which can help you start working.
Data:
Don’t let the data malfunction get to you. Take action before you regret it. If a customer or employee leaves, the data should remain. A CRM software which works with the cloud, can store your data and keep it archived for later referrals. Local storage is good, but not trustworthy forever. Don’t get to the point where employee leaves and all the precious data disappears. Small business sales CRM models prevent this loss of data by creating folders and directories of your data.
Steve Ellis of Wells Fargo group says:
“We see cloud as a way to help people connect with customers, to connect around building products, and to connect around risk management practices.”
Customer data and buying patterns are also safe in this archive. These gateways are protected by top-notch security standards.
Last word:
In the year 2008, only 12 percent businesses used a CRM tool. This figure has improved now. Currently, 87 percent businesses prefer using a CRM which is either supported on-premise or by cloud. The revenue from cloud-based solutions will also skyrocket due to this rising demand. Gartner also predicts that the Customer Relationship Management market is going to be worth more than $40 million in the coming year.
This growth is fueled by the need to stay updated with the technological trends which are revolutionizing business. You can keep up. Otherwise, you will be forgotten. Your business presence should be solid on social media platforms, and customer service has to be your top concern. The tools are available in the market for those who want to create a better relationship with their customers. 47 percent businesses are planning to introduce help desk or customer relationship software. Next year is the year of the customer, so be prepared. Do you have any tips to share with us? Tell us in the comments section below.
