As a business owner, it can be easy to be overwhelmed with the organization of customer information. Names, numbers, addresses, emails, sales, leads, contacts, partners… All of it adds up! Even the most diligent person can crumble under the weight of running a business and staying on top of client and customer data. Teams of people often fail to communicate effectively with each other or their customers because they are not on the same page. Have you ever asked a client a question only to be told, “I gave your team member that information yesterday, have you spoken to them?” Oops. If you ever see those words, then somewhere in the chain something got messed up! All of these problems could be solved with the same solution-a CRM system. For more business tools to boost your business, like b2b sales prospecting tool, you should check this review of a a new software to manage the payroll. You can also click here for more info about free digital tools.
What is a CRM?
A CRM is a Customer Relationship Management system. It is software that usually is cloud-based, that stores, retains, and updates your customer data. This means your information is secure on the cloud and anyone in your system can access it at any time. CRM systems ensure that you have all the information you need on your customers, including their phone number, address, email, and anything in between. It’s like an old-school Rolodex on digital steroids.
However, there are plenty of non-CRM programs that can retain contact information; Even your iPhone can do that. The aspect of CRM systems that sets it apart from anything else is their ability to track relationships in real-time. You can enter any interaction you have with a customer into the system, and you or other employees are able to view the information at any moment. You can also see a customer’s purchase history, as well as their in-store or out-of-store interactions with the business. Ultimately, a CRM is a tool to greatly increase organization and communication between your company and its customers, and between coworkers.
What are The Benefits?
The benefits of a CRM are endless. The overarching benefit is the improvement of customer relations. As you build relationships with your customers, they will become more trusting of you and the work that you do. Consumer experience is vital in growing or maintaining a successful business, so anything to favor your customers is worth it. Correctly using a CRM system will definitely enhance the interactions you have with leads or current customers, but how does it allow you to help your customers?
The first benefit to the user is improved organization. As previously stated, with a CRM, you have every person’s information in one place, plus a record all employee interactions. You’ll never have to stress about trying to remember what was said to a customer again.
Another major and immediate effect of a CRM is greater efficiency as a team. Your employees will all be able to see a customer’s basic information, as well as any communication they have had with anyone else in the company. They can also see any past transactions or store activity. Many times, a customer calls a business looking to continue or build upon a conversation they’ve had with a certain employee. If that employee is not working that particular day, often the customer has to “start over” with a new person. A CRM will eliminate this tedious process since every person in the company is dealing with the same information.
CRMs make data tracking and reporting easier. Many CRM systems can take information from customers, such as what they have purchased and the amount spent, and analyze the numbers for you. Other systems allow you to export information into a different reporting software. Either way, your CRM can ensure that you get all the information you need to make the important business decisions.
The Icing on the Cake: Automation
Properly functioning automation is the dream for anyone who is looking to grow their business. Having something working for you day in and day out that is constantly improving, optimizing, and making touch points with customers at the exact right moment is integral to a thriving marketing strategy. CRMs are getting smarter and smarter every year, and for a lot of them that means directly interacting with marketing and serving content to a customer based on customer action (or inaction). Imagine if you could follow a customer journey from web to store, social to email, and have automated marketing following them and adapting with their purchasing, browsing, and consuming habits along the way. Well, you can!
Picture this: A customer visits your website and views a new product. After a few days, you don’t see them in store or on site, so an email gets triggered with helpful buying information for your product. The consumer visits the site again but doesn’t convert. Now the customer gets served an ad through display remarketing with your product, and finally gets a postcard with a $5 coupon. The chances that that person will convert are so much higher than a person who simply visited your landing page and left. You’ve given them 5 distinct touch points, with remarketing allowing for many more, and all it took was a single landing page view. That information is now logged on that customer’s account for later access, and any account manager could follow up with the customer to gauge their satisfaction and potentially open the client up to more future sales with your company.
Automation is powerful!
How Can We Help?
This may seem like a whole lot of information, and you may not know how to choose a CRM or how to set one up. Don’t worry, because at Pixel Press Media, we’re here to help! We can help you get on your way towards building better relationships with your customers and being more organized as a business. There are several ways that we can help you out!
First, we can help you pick the right CRM for your needs as a company. There are so many CRMs to choose from. Some offer all of the bells and whistles, while others are more basic. We’ll take a look at your company and recommend the CRM that would perfectly suit you. We also can set it up for you and explain how to use each feature so that you utilize your new tool in the most efficient way possible. We can take any customer information that you have stored someplace else, and move it directly into the CRM. Then we can set up email tracking properly so that you can see when customers open or view your emails. At the end of the day, we will make sure
Stop by our office, or give us a call at (508) 306-8383 if you have any more questions, or if you are ready to get a CRM and instantly improve your business.
