Customer relationship management (CRM) is a tool that allows businesses of any size to manage their interaction with current and potential customers. It helps companies become more efficient and tracks multitudes of consumer data, ultimately helping drive sales growth and profits. But, does it do anything to enhance the customer’s experience?
Are clients benefiting from CRM? It is possible for your business to use a CRM system to improve your customers’ experience and there are several reasons why doing so is important to you and your company’s future.
CRM: The Key to Better Customer Experience
CRM is used by businesses to help manage their relationships and interactions with their clients. By using the data you gather on your customers’ interests, purchase history, preferences and more, you can better tailor your products, marketing and services to your clients’ needs. This will help strengthen your relationship with your customers and aid in the growth of your profits.
Your CRM should serve as the foundation of your customers’ experience with your brand
Every successful business offers positive customer experiences – a key to making your business thrive. These positive experiences encourage customer loyalty, boost client satisfaction with you and your products, and reduce the loss of customers to your rivals. In fact, CRM has been shown to improve customer retention by as much as 27%. Using CRM to enhance your client experience will give you a competitive advantage and help you build your business as well as your customer base.
How a CRM Can Benefit Your Business
There are numerous benefits to using a CRM system for your business. CRM can help find new customers, maintain current clients, and bring back former customers. It allows companies to be more organized and efficient through automation of different areas of the business and streamlines a number of processes. These advantages can help your business run more smoothly, save money, and allow more time to focus on your customers.
In terms of improving your business, a CRM:
- Grows client numbers
- Strengthens customer loyalty
- Increases revenue
- Simplifies the sales and marketing process
- Improves customer service
- Helps build more effective communication
- Creates faster decision-making processes
- Improves data reporting
- Saves time
- Improves security and data protection
Why Should You Care About Customer Experience?
In order to gain and keep customers to keep your business alive, you need to make them happy. The best way to do this is to give them a positive experience with your company, products and services. Someone who has a good experience is more likely to become a repeat customer who is loyal to your business and who shares their positive impressions with others (who will hopefully become your customers as well). A recent study found 64% of customers feel their experience with a brand is more important than price when deciding to make a purchase.
Investing in your clients and ensuring they have only the best interactions with your company must be a priority. In fact, 75% of customer management executives and leaders say that customer experience is of the highest importance in their organizations. These leaders know that in order to keep their companies running and growing they need to focus on creating the best customer experiences possible. Without content customers, their businesses will not succeed.
6 Ways CRM Systems Improve Customer Experience
CRM systems help to improve customer experiences in several ways. With all of the data a company can gather on their current and potential clients, a CRM allows companies to tailor their business and practices to better serve their customers. The following are some examples of the ways in which CRM systems aid businesses in creating positive experiences for their clients.
1. Keeping in Touch
Businesses need to stay in contact with their current and future customers in order to give them a great client experience. A good CRM system will give your company the ability to send customers regular emails, letting them know about new products, upcoming promotions or special offers. You can track your clients’ activities, conversations and purchases, and special occasions such as birthdays, allowing your business to target them with the right messaging.
2. Personalized Communications
While you are keeping in touch with your clients, your CRM can also help personalize the communications you send to them. The data gathered by your system will allow you to use customers’ first names in emails and other contacts. According to one study, 62% of customers will open an email due to a personalized subject line. Sending messages that are personalized will help build a connection with your customers and add to their positive experience with your company.
3. Keeping Customer Experience Consistent
Another key to having happy customers is ensuring that they receive consistent messages and support from your company, a task perfectly suited for a CRM. Timely responses to customer inquiries can be set to automatically mail out when a client fills out an online form. Putting the same information your support staff uses onto your website can help give customers a consistent and reliable message from your business. Loyalty, brand reputation and satisfaction are all improved with consistency – and in turn, so is customer experience.
4. Storing Information in One Place
The central database of your CRM system stores all the information you have about a customer or prospect regarding purchases, service, contracts and more. Current or potential customers could use the phone, email or social media to contact your company, but a CRM will make that information accessible to all of your employees. The ability of any service rep to instantly access this information adds to the positive experience for your customers.
5. Learning More About Customers
Your CRM system will store data on what products your clients have purchased, browsed on your website, or inquired about on your social media channels. This information can help you know what your customers want and what additional products they might be interested in. You can better tailor an offer on a product or send them an email about a service that matches their preferences. Personalized service can improve customer satisfaction and increase their brand loyalty.
6. Handling Requests on Social Media
Over 65% of consumers now use social media for customer service, making it an important source of data for your company. Your CRM system can collect service requests or mentions from all of your social media accounts and send them to one database. This way, you will never miss an inquiry, or an issue, and you can give anyone tweeting or posting the attention they need. If you keep up with customers’ social media posts related to your brand, and respond appropriately, you will help keep their experience with you a positive one.
How to Use a CRM to Improve Customer Experience
Your marketing and sales teams can use the information gathered from your CRM to improve customer experience and service. Having data on your clients’ ages, locations, genders, hobbies, and interests, you can design more cost-efficient marketing campaigns and sales that target particular customers. This insight into your customers’ needs and behavior will show you the best ways to get the most relevant information on your company and your products to the right client groups. This will improve your clients’ experiences with you and your business.
The marketing and sales departments of your company can use CRM data to target your promotions to the right audiences. Emails can be sent to certain customers, sales on specific products can be marketed to the customer segments most likely to purchase these items, promotions can be designed to focus on your client groups, and can also be executed at the right time. In these ways, your customers’ satisfaction with your company will grow, and so will your sales. In fact, 74% of businesses using CRM report that their customer relationships are stronger through good customer experiences and that is a powerful marketing tool they use to help build their businesses.
In 2019, CRM usage increased from 56% to 74%, so it is easy to see that it is one of the most popular tools available to businesses today. CRMs, like HubSpot, help numerous businesses gain customers, become more organized, and grow their profits. It also strengthens companies’ relationships with their customers, creating positive customer experiences, which is key to growing your business.
