Author: Mark Bogos, General Manager of Operations
Published: 1st November 2021
Customers and clients are the lifeblood of any profit driven organisation. By producing goods or delivering services to your client base, they in turn provide you with the revenue necessary to enable operations and hopefully at the end of the day, influence a positive bottom line. They are a precious commodity that significantly, if not certainly, determine the existence of your business.
For some organisations, particularly suppliers of goods and services that are low risk, low cost, necessities or inelastic to the effects of demand, customers come and go with the breeze but can be constantly relied upon for a steady stream of income. Some of these businesses can operate without having to put much effort into their relationships with their customers, relying on the nature of their industry to see return or new business.
However, for the great majority of organisations, and particularly for those who provide higher end, higher risk products and services, there is a reliance on customers to be repeat and ongoing sources of revenue. This dramatically heightens the importance of maintaining strong business relationships with customers. This is where Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software becomes a crucial tool in maintaining and retaining these important relationships.
Depending on the size of your business, and the number of customers you have, CRM software may be invaluable in helping you to maintain your customer relationships. CRM software can give you a snapshot of each of your clients, providing pertinent details such as; primary contacts, phone numbers, email addresses, previous transactions, operational locations and many other snippets of information that you deem to be important.
With the ability to be accessible organisation wide, you can be sure that everyone in your organisation is getting the same story about who your customer is, and the standing of your relationship with them.
The number one critical deliverance of CRM software is its ability to improve your relationships with your customers through regular and relevant communication. Using CRM helps you to tailor messaging that is valuable to clients and meets their needs, rather than simply being an annoying marketing mandate.
This is the type of communication that will help build strong, longstanding relationships with your customers and cement you as their provider of choice. This is effectively the end goal of your CRM efforts, and is where the value of the software shines most brightly.
As mentioned before, relevant communications are key. By having an all-encompassing view of your customers, you can better understand their needs, preferences and buying behaviour. This can be particularly handy during up-selling and cross-selling activities undertaken by your sales and marketing teams.
Say that a particular customer is in the market for office furniture, and come to you looking for a solution. Given this information, you can tailor your marketing communications to be of greater relevance to the customer. For example, if they are looking at office chairs, you can make them aware of the fact that you can also provide office tables and workstations, items that may also be relevant to their needs.
Essentially, CRM software helps you to be more strategic with your messaging, meaning greater margins and a greater likelihood of return or ongoing transactions.
Another great benefit of adopting CRM software is the boost to marketing targeting and campaign execution. Having a unified, and categorised summary of all of your clients allows you to segment your target market by simply defining your desired customer segment by their “attributes”. For example, if you wished to only target your Australian customers, you could dictate that each one with the country or continent attribute of “Australia” be displayed.
However, this is just the tip of the iceberg, as there are limitless ways in which you can segment and filter your customer data. By utilising CRM software, your campaigns can be executed quickly, and be targeted to the right customers every time.
The Beauty of having a CRM system in place, one that holds all of your important customer data, is that they can often be integrated with data analysis software. While many CRM’s feature the ability to drill down and examine the data already available, specialised business intelligence tools can effectively sit over the top of most CRM software and give you even greater insight. For instance, with the use of these tools, you can better monitor customer buying behaviours and trends. This allows you to make better decisions about how you communicate and position your offerings, giving you that advantageous edge over your competitors.
At the end of the day, CRM software is a tool that intimately connects you to your customers. Having an answer for each of the “who, what, when, why” and “where” questions in regards to your customer patch, will help you to optimise your communications to serve them in the best way possible and provide the best customer experience.
Have you got CRM software in your organisation? Pronto Xi CRM capabilities can give your marketing and sales team the information they need, all while helping to maintain your important customer relationships.
Get the help you need now. One of our experts will call you to discuss your needs and help start you on the path to greater control.