CRM – customer relationship management – has existed since people first started selling things.
Today, with businesses becoming more digitally remote, and person-to-person contact becoming more scarce, CRM is more important than ever. We need to build and maintain relationships with our customers. A faceless company is not personable or engaging – it has to work harder to fill the gap between attracting and retaining customers (and their good will).
The relationship a customer builds with a company is often the reason they return – but building it today is more difficult than ever, in a society where data is protected, customers are smart and exercise their right to choose, and a competitor can be just a click away.
CRM is a customer-focused approach to business based on fostering long-term, meaningful relationships. CRM is not about immediate profit. It’s about the lifetime value of a customer – the purchases they will make in the future, the positive word of mouth they will generate on your behalf, and the loyalty they will show your brand.
Effective CRM enables businesses to collaborate with customers to inform overall business strategies.
There are 2 essential steps to follow when creating a CRM strategy.
Step 1 – Conduct a business needs analysis
A major part of CRM implementation is having a clear understanding of business needs. CRM touches on sales, marketing, customer service, and support both online and offline. It’s important to review the needs of each business area so that you can determine your strategy for CRM.
Ideally, you should have individual goals for each department – and all members within the organization should buy into the strategy in order to drive it successfully, from the highest rank to the lowest. Implementing successful CRM across the organization is a process, with stakeholders making decisions collectively and sharing their views and needs.
Decisions should be based on realistic budgets and resources and full calculations carried out before any kind of loyalty currency is decided upon.
Step 2 – Understand customer needs
CRM is about the customer. You might have identified a range of business needs, but what about the needs of the customer?
Two elements of CRM in particular – service delivery and customer support – are actually all about meeting the needs of the customer. And what’s the best way of determining customer needs? By asking them, of course. There are various ways to find out what customers want, but in all of them, it is important to listen. Use online monitoring tools and insights from social media to gather a more rounded view of what your customers think, feel, and want.
Look at past behavior, churn rates, successes – a detailed data-mining exercise could also be on the cards, as you will need to understand which of your customers is the most valuable and why.
CRM systems that gather information on customer preferences and needs, and information on competitors and in the industry in general; Let organizations focus on providing customer solutions instead of simply pushing products.
