What is CRM and why is it important?
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2024 5:30 am
Customer relationship management, or CRM, is a term used to encompass a variety of activities that businesses undertake to build, maintain and nurture relationships of trust between themselves and their customers.
Why is CRM important?
It can include direct interactions, such as marketing, sales, and customer service, or indirect activities, such as sales forecasting, buyer persona development, and trend analysis.
CRM: What is it?
The term typically refers to the software (and vendors) that organizations use to manage and maintain these external relationships with customers. In recent years, significant advances in AI, cloud computing and storage, and robotic process automation (RPA) have made great strides in this sector of the software industry.
With all this information, what is CRM? Well, it's all of the above. Organizations have significant technological advancements, the old-school approach to human interactions, and putting the customer first. The trick to staying ahead in today's changing business climate is to mix and match these approaches to the benefit of both the business and the customer.
Conclusion, and why it matters
Building a strong, trusting relationship with customers is the best way to keep them how to get phone number database satisfied with your company, product, and service. This is how the best companies in the world keep their customers coming back (not to mention the potential of word-of-mouth marketing).
Why you should care, regardless of the size of your business:
Surveys continually show that it all comes down to the strength of a company's customer service. Nearly 80% say they have cancelled contracts due to poor customer service.
Word of mouth marketing is huge. Gone are the days when you could sell something and expect the customer to walk away happy. They will let you know, and more importantly, they will let all their friends and family know. And this goes for both positive and negative experiences.
Keeping an existing customer happy is much less expensive than finding and recruiting a new one.
There is technology to automate much of this process, allowing the marketing team to focus their energy and time on the real-time interactions that matter most, leaving the email updates and customer contacts to the software.
Ways to Strengthen Your Company's CRM: Technology
There are three areas to focus on to strengthen your company’s CRM: transparency, responsiveness, and availability. There are no surprises here; technology can be a vital asset in these areas.
Transparency
Most CRM software comes with built-in automation—it’s just up to you to set it up. These tools can guide the customer through most of their buying journey , leaving only the exceptions or wildly divergent situations for someone to handle manually. By maintaining your CRM database, the software can take care of everything from initial contact to data collection to shipping notices.
When a new site visitor signs up to receive email updates, their contact information is captured and entered into your CRM, which sends the customer a confirmation email message.
When a purchase is made or a ticket is entered, periodic update emails can be scheduled to notify the customer of the status of their order or where their ticket is in the queue, along with an estimate of when it will be resolved.
And when an order is shipped, the customer automatically receives detailed tracking information.
It's a short example, of course, but it demonstrates the transparency people expect from the companies they do business with. Let's say a step is missed or you're not kept up to date with the progress of your order/request. In that case, today's customer has no problem jumping ship to a competitor who keeps them fully informed throughout the process.
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Responsiveness
Implementing AI chatbots is the next wave of automation to consider when it comes to improving customer experience . These bots allow customers to open a chat conversation at any time, even outside of business hours, and potentially have their questions answered immediately. The AI behind the chat learns on the fly, so the more of these interactions that are completed, the better the answers the software will provide. Chatbots won’t replace your customer service reps, however, this technology is unrivaled when it comes to increasing their ability to respond immediately or nearly so.
Availability
As mentioned above regarding responsiveness, chatbots make round-the-clock customer service possible without the need to outsource a call center across the globe or employ overnight workers. With this type of automation, your customers can go online and get help in a moment, at any time. That level of availability is becoming a necessity in today’s global marketplace.
Why is CRM important?
It can include direct interactions, such as marketing, sales, and customer service, or indirect activities, such as sales forecasting, buyer persona development, and trend analysis.
CRM: What is it?
The term typically refers to the software (and vendors) that organizations use to manage and maintain these external relationships with customers. In recent years, significant advances in AI, cloud computing and storage, and robotic process automation (RPA) have made great strides in this sector of the software industry.
With all this information, what is CRM? Well, it's all of the above. Organizations have significant technological advancements, the old-school approach to human interactions, and putting the customer first. The trick to staying ahead in today's changing business climate is to mix and match these approaches to the benefit of both the business and the customer.
Conclusion, and why it matters
Building a strong, trusting relationship with customers is the best way to keep them how to get phone number database satisfied with your company, product, and service. This is how the best companies in the world keep their customers coming back (not to mention the potential of word-of-mouth marketing).
Why you should care, regardless of the size of your business:
Surveys continually show that it all comes down to the strength of a company's customer service. Nearly 80% say they have cancelled contracts due to poor customer service.
Word of mouth marketing is huge. Gone are the days when you could sell something and expect the customer to walk away happy. They will let you know, and more importantly, they will let all their friends and family know. And this goes for both positive and negative experiences.
Keeping an existing customer happy is much less expensive than finding and recruiting a new one.
There is technology to automate much of this process, allowing the marketing team to focus their energy and time on the real-time interactions that matter most, leaving the email updates and customer contacts to the software.
Ways to Strengthen Your Company's CRM: Technology
There are three areas to focus on to strengthen your company’s CRM: transparency, responsiveness, and availability. There are no surprises here; technology can be a vital asset in these areas.
Transparency
Most CRM software comes with built-in automation—it’s just up to you to set it up. These tools can guide the customer through most of their buying journey , leaving only the exceptions or wildly divergent situations for someone to handle manually. By maintaining your CRM database, the software can take care of everything from initial contact to data collection to shipping notices.
When a new site visitor signs up to receive email updates, their contact information is captured and entered into your CRM, which sends the customer a confirmation email message.
When a purchase is made or a ticket is entered, periodic update emails can be scheduled to notify the customer of the status of their order or where their ticket is in the queue, along with an estimate of when it will be resolved.
And when an order is shipped, the customer automatically receives detailed tracking information.
It's a short example, of course, but it demonstrates the transparency people expect from the companies they do business with. Let's say a step is missed or you're not kept up to date with the progress of your order/request. In that case, today's customer has no problem jumping ship to a competitor who keeps them fully informed throughout the process.
You may also like
Aspiration Marketing – Make the most of your HubSpot investment
Optimize your investment with the HubSpot Accelerator management
Are you getting the most value from your HubSpot subscription? The HubSpot Admin Accelerator program is designed to optimize your investment in HubSpot.
Responsiveness
Implementing AI chatbots is the next wave of automation to consider when it comes to improving customer experience . These bots allow customers to open a chat conversation at any time, even outside of business hours, and potentially have their questions answered immediately. The AI behind the chat learns on the fly, so the more of these interactions that are completed, the better the answers the software will provide. Chatbots won’t replace your customer service reps, however, this technology is unrivaled when it comes to increasing their ability to respond immediately or nearly so.
Availability
As mentioned above regarding responsiveness, chatbots make round-the-clock customer service possible without the need to outsource a call center across the globe or employ overnight workers. With this type of automation, your customers can go online and get help in a moment, at any time. That level of availability is becoming a necessity in today’s global marketplace.