Information is key to being customer-centric and preserving customer loyalty.
CRM is a powerful tool that combines technology and business strategy to give you a full, consistent view of your customers in a way that continually strengthens the relationship. It lets you manage critical sales, marketing and customer information essential for success and growth.
Let’s look at three huge advantages that a CRM system provides.
1. It Ensures That Nothing Falls Through the Cracks
A CRM is a database of everyone who comes in contact with a business—prospects, customers, partners, vendors, suppliers, employees, and contractors—and activities associated with them. Knowing the history of your contacts creates informed communications and superior customer service.
You can, for example, track customers with existing jobs and make sure they are proceeding on track. You can see how problems are being resolved—with tickers, case, and incidents created within the workflow to make sure issue are dealt with. You can monitor and schedule communications and customer outreach such as calls, lunches, newsletters and other opt-in selections so that you stay top of mind when jobs come up.
2. Ensure Everyone Feels Special
The more information you or your staff can access about your customers, the more important they will feel when dealing with you.
When a customer calls, you can see who spoke to her last, what orders she placed, issues that were solved, all emails, tasks, calendars, notes on the account and other relevant data. Having real-time data will make conversations go smoothly and make customers feel like they are in the good hands of a supplier they can trust.
3. A Great CRM System Creates Value
If you ever plan to sell your company, know that information from the past helps plan for the future. Buyers don’t want to rely on an owner’s memory to assess the health of a business. They want a database with a company’s entire community, history, pending orders, backlog, communications, and profiles. They want data about the most profitable customers and the least profitable, the profitable products and the losers. Buyers will pay a premium for this information.
What makes a CRM great?
A CRM, while great for business, is only as good as the information that goes into it. To truly make it shine it needs the following:
• An administrator. This is a person who like to work with software and assumes responsibility for the completeness and accuracy of the database, someone who will become an expert in using the system and is invested in running it efficiently.
• A committed senior executive. Someone in a leadership has to be committed advocate of a CRM system. He or she must use the system, insist on it being used across the company, and lead the staff in doing what’s necessary for the health of the company. A CRM is a long-term investment that impacts the culture of company. Leaders have to adopt and drive that culture.
• Visibility. Your business operation should be transparent to you and your managers. A best practice is to integrate a CRM into a Print MIS system and establish one interconnected database that spans your entire shop. You will have real-time visibility into every aspect of your operation and the flexibility to adjust as you need to.
Download our e-book for more information on how CRM system can help your shop.
