By Jessica Heald on Wed 05 July 2017 in CRM
We all know relationships can be difficult – they require time, commitment and effort. But business relationships can be just as tricky, if not more, as you’re unlikely to be forgiven for your mistakes. Keeping all your customers happy can be hard to achieve.
1. Keep everyone the loop – Believe it or not, anyone in the business who interacts with customers, prospects or suppliers in any way, be they Sales, Marketing or Finance, can benefit from using an integrated CRM system. With a centralised database, all communications are recorded, giving your sales team a holistic view of the customer’s needs. Not only does this enhance your external communications, but your in-house communications definitely benefit too! Opening up this correspondence between employees can enhance your business’ productivity, culture and teamwork as well.
2. Stop letting your customers down – Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve had to let down a customer because you didn’t quite have the product/service they needed at the right time? Or maybe you’ve had to apologise for misquoting a customer or getting an order mixed up? These familiar situations can really damage your customer relationships. But with an accounts-integrated CRM system, you’re one big step closer to avoiding customer disappointment.
3. Have control over all aspects of the customer journey – Naturally, your customers will have certain expectations that they believe should be met at every stage of their journey. With an integrated CRM, you’ll be able to have control over the full sales cycle, so that no matter what stage your customers are at, you can still provide excellent customer service – at every step of the way.
4. Discover new customer insights – An integrated CRM system provides you with an overview of your customers’ purchasing behaviour and requirements based on their previous purchases. Having this valuable information to hand empowers your sales team by enabling them to recognise opportunities to upsell and cross sell – ultimately increasing sales for your business. This in turn helps your customer get the most out of your offerings. So really, it’s a win-win!
5. Eliminate time-consuming activities – With an integrated CRM system, you eliminate time-consuming tasks such as rekeying of orders, which will reduce the risk of human error and customer dissatisfaction.
6. Better after-sales care – Now that your team has the right information at their fingertips, they can provide an enhanced level of after-sales care, and build long term relationships.
7. Improves Customer Retention – Infusionsoft and Leadpages surveyed more than 1,000 SME owners about their current challenges and goals. They found 1 in 10 SME owners have difficulty retaining customers. With an integrated CRM system in place, all customer correspondence is recorded, allowing for you to provide a higher level of customer service. As we know, B2B customers will remain loyal if they feel valued, and the first step towards this is having an up-to-date profile of them that you can use to your advantage.
If there’s one thing to take from this – don’t lose the important interaction you have with your customers. Don’t let your customers pass you by because you don’t have an efficient solution in place to help manage your correspondence with them. Instead, take the opportunity to enhance your relationships with your valued customers by avoiding miscommunication and disappointment. But think about your employees to – you must start empowering your staff by giving them access to valuable customer information so that they can provide an all-round better service.