Why is it important for any company to use CRM strategies to manage customer information?
Customer relationship management (CRM) is not just the application of technology, but is a strategy to learn more about customers' needs and behaviours in order to develop stronger relationships with them. As such it is more of a business philosophy than a technical solution to assist in dealing with customers effectively and efficiently. Nevertheless, successful CRM relies on the use of technology.
This guide outlines the business benefits and the potential drawbacks of implementing CRM. It also offers help on the types of solution you could choose and how to implement them.
Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) solution might involve considerable time and expense. However, there are many potential benefits.
A major benefit can be the development of better relations with your existing customers, which can lead to:
1)increased sales through better timing due to anticipating needs based on historic trends
identifying needs more effectively by understanding specific customer requirements
cross-selling of other products by highlighting and suggesting alternatives or enhancements
identifying which of your customers are profitable and which are not
This can lead to better marketing of your products or services by focusing on:
2)effective targeted marketing communications aimed specifically at customer needs
a more personal approach and the development of new or improved products and services in order to win more business in the future
Ultimately this could lead to:
3)enhanced customer satisfaction and retention, ensuring that your good reputation in the marketplace continues to grow
increased value from your existing customers and reduced cost associated with supporting and servicing them, increasing your overall efficiency and reducing total cost of sales
improved profitability by focusing on the most profitable customers and dealing with the unprofitable in more cost effective ways
4)Once your business starts to look after its existing customers effectively, efforts can be concentrated on finding new customers and expanding your market. The more you know about your customers, the easier it is to identify new prospects and increase your customer base.
Even with years of accumulated knowledge, there's always room for improvement. Customer needs change over time, and technology can make it easier to find out more about customers and ensure that everyone in an organisation can exploit this information.
If the virtual world is the first point of contact between a company and its customers, how might that transform the entire shopping experience?
~ The virtual world could become the first point of contact between companies and customers and could transform the whole experience, writes Jo Best on Silicon.com.
~ Some companies believe Second Life could one day become a first point of contact for customers. Like many other big brands, PA Consulting has its own offices in Second Life and has learn that simply having an office to answer customer queries is not enough. Real people, albeit behind avatars, must be staffing the offices – in the same way having a website is not enough if there isn’t a call centre to back it up when a would-be customer wants to speak to a human being. In future, the consultants believe call centres could one day ask customers to follow up a phone call with them by moving the query into a virtual world and hanging around in Second Life is more fun than being stuck on hold.
~ However, currently Second Life and its imitators remain relatively niche in usage terms and have their own technology boundaries – not all consumers, particularly the older community, have the tech savvy or indeed the hardware necessary to make use of virtual worlds.
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