In eCommerce, problems are always going to crop up, but it is how you deal with those problems that set you apart. Whether you’re helping a customer complete an order, answering their query, or submitting a refund, communication is pivotal.
It’s vital that your customers are kept updated on the progress of their requests at all times. Workflows and automation available through CRM software allow your staff to keep customers informed every step of the way.
CRM software is focused on storing and sharing customer data across your business, it increases visibility, allows you to track customer interactions with your brand, improves internal communication, and reduces duplicated effort, enabling staff to carry out customer-focused tasks quickly and without error.
The success of many companies relies on maximising the output from their opportunities. Within a customer relationship management system, the capability to gain complete visibility of opportunity records enables enhanced communications not only with the customer but between team members as well.
Seeing and acting on new opportunities relating to current and loyal customers can further keep customer satisfaction high and increase customer retention.
Customer feedback is invaluable, even when it’s negative. All customer feedback should be categorised, referenced, and accessible to everybody who needs to see it.
And most importantly it should be reviewed and action taken to ensure your other loyal and future customers don’t have the same experience.
Most CRM software allows you to track customer feedback, and record the reasons behind any negative experiences. By looking at individual cases and running reports that group them together, you will be able to learn from any mistakes and avoid losing customers going forward.
Dashboards are a key feature in any CRM system. It translates all your real-time and historical data into an easily digestible overview.
Real-time dashboards enable quicker decisions and smoother daily processes. The best CRM software has customisable dashboards.
For example, your sales reps may see open opportunities and inbound leads on their dashboards, whereas your customer relations teams may see the number of calls resolved and pending requests.
Your marketing team, on the other hand, may see data surrounding the latest marketing campaign they are running, where potential customers are in the marketing funnel or data being pulled in from email marketing tools.
Whatever metrics or information your team needs, with customisable dashboards, all of this is available without even a push of a button.
Reports are always readily available and awaiting analysis from your team. This means that your teams will always be working off the most recent information when making strategic decisions.
The reporting tool can also be used by stakeholders at the highest level as well as on the ground for all-rounded business success.
As with dashboards, reports can be preset for each department based on key performance indicators that matter most to each team and the business as a whole.
Sales performance reports can include metrics such as the number of customer interactions, particularly sales interactions, customer retention rate and existing customers vs new customers.
Reporting for your marketing teams could include return on investment (ROI), a breakdown of success metrics per marketing channel and even down to specific live marketing campaigns.
Finally, your customer experience reporting features may cover resolution metrics, customer satisfaction and an overview of the customer base.
Arguably the most important metric for measuring business success is whether or not current customers choose to continue shopping with you.
Understanding each of your customer’s specific needs, what they want, and why they shop specifically with you and then working with the data you have obtained throughout the years to deliver something that shows the relationship goes both ways will result in higher customer satisfaction.
A good CRM system will organise all of this customer information in one place to help your team and the brand as a whole improve customer satisfaction and generate more income.
Here are some additional CRM benefits:
For small businesses, in particular, operational costs need to be kept as low as possible while revenue and profit see steady growth.
According to Smile, 41% of an online store’s revenue comes from 8% of its customers. The likelihood of a customer coming back to your store and purchasing again is 27%. With second and third return visits, that likelihood of another purchase jumps up 54%.
Your ideal CRM software will play a pivotal role in helping your teams improve customer relationships and generate more sales with lower budgets:
Small businesses can save money on marketing to new customers by focusing on obtaining better customer retention.
Customer referrals can drive motivated traffic to your online store. Testimonials, reviews, and shared promotions; all help to encourage people who have never bought from you to buy, based on the fact that other people (who are generally more trusted than anonymous retailers and websites) have received a positive experience when shopping with you before.
It’s a glowing advertisement, and what’s more, it’s practically free.
It’s no secret that longstanding customers are valuable to your business when they’re buying from you regularly.
But just how much additional revenue a repeat customer generates is probably underestimated by many retailers.
The total spend-per-order for a customer who is considered to be in the top tier of your loyal customer base is significantly greater than those who are in the lower tiers.
In 2021, Talk-Retail cited a white paper that shows that one loyal customer is as valuable as twenty-two non-loyal customers.
The interdepartmental connectivity made possible by CRM solutions makes it easier to monitor the experiences paying customers are having when they shop with you, increasing the chances of turning a one-time shopper into a loyal customer.
We’ve already touched upon the financial value of leveraging customer data through a CRM system to increase the value each converted shopper brings to businesses.
An additional benefit of looking into CRM systems for your company is the ability to streamline sales processes.
CRM software does more than showcase key data on a dashboard. You can also:
And so much more.
Rather than think about how much it costs to engage new customers, educate them, gain their trust and encourage them through the customer journey to a purchase (which is considerably more than retaining customers), think about the cost of losing a loyal customer.
As with all business purchases, you must be sure that every expense improves the everyday working of your staff, doesn’t hinder customer experience and helps your business grow.
Below, we’ve answered some common thoughts business owners think of when deciding whether or not to invest in a new system:
Buying habits and customer expectations have changed. In the age of ‘omnichannel’, people want to choose how they interact with your company, and they expect a seamless experience regardless of whether they choose to shop in-store, over the phone, or online using their desktop PC, laptop or mobile device.
Customers in both the B2B and B2C space have become used to the high level of service they receive from companies like Amazon which includes, amongst other things, a truly personalised shopping experience.
Today’s customers want you to know who they are, what they’ve enquired about or ordered in the past, and how much they’ve paid. So it’s more important than ever to have an all-encompassing CRM system that brings together all of your data into one place.
We’re not just talking about software to store customer contact details, it’s a record of every single conversation and interaction every member of your team has ever had with a customer.
It provides insight into each customer’s interests, order history, what they’ve paid in the past, and their behaviour. Ultimately, it leads to a better understanding of who you’re trying to sell to.
Great CRM platforms will help your teams cope with changes in buying habits and customer expectations. Your brand will provide a more personalised customer experience, improve segmenting, and create more professional and targeted sales activities and marketing campaigns.
Whilst spreadsheets serve a variety of functions in business, problems arise when there is a heavy reliance on them, or they are being used to manage key business processes.
It’s incredibly easy to make errors when using spreadsheets, and for large organisations, even simple errors can end up costing millions.
If you can’t trust your data, how can you make the right business decisions? And if you’re looking for a view of how your business is performing with regards to customer service, sales and marketing, then searching through dozens of spreadsheets can be very time-consuming and hugely prone to error.
It’s also incredibly easy for spreadsheets to stack up and there be no discernible system in place as to how they should be managed and how they impact the business as a whole. Particularly if you are experiencing growth, the number of spreadsheets you are relying on can very quickly increase, only adding to the confusion.
Multiple staff members may not be able to edit spreadsheets at the same time, which can result in duplicate copies of the same document flying around. This can make it difficult to ensure that the ‘master’ copy is up to date.
With CRM software, all of your staff can enter data simultaneously into the same system, which reduces duplicated effort and the risk of errors. This allows you to manage all CRM functions within one streamlined solution and provides you with a single view of your customers, your sales and marketing activities.
Whilst in the short-term you will need to spend time and resources choosing and implementing the right CRM software, and then providing high-quality training to your staff, the long-term benefits will provide a very real return on investment.
Here are some ways that you will save time and resources in the long term by implementing CRM software:
Hopefully these will help you get your request for a new CRM system implemented. If not, we would be happy to provide a demo to showcase the positive impact an upgrade can have on business operations.
We hope you’ve found this guide useful. If there’s any additional information or help and advice you’d like from our team we would be happy to help.
We’ve been helping companies leverage the power of ERP and CRM systems for over twenty years. Our work has won awards and we are QAS International certified.
The specialist industries we support include:
We’d love to hear about your current business operations and discuss how we can help you make further improvements for your customers and staff.