It’s easy to think of CRM, and CRM software, as a tool that the salespeople use. But great CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS (the “CR” in “CRM”) are built on much more than sales. So let’s take a look at some of the other components of CRM that will help you deliver a wonderful and consistent experience with every customer interaction.
Marketing
For many businesses, customer relationships are considerably more profitable after the initial sale. Implementing marketing programs aimed at current customers can be an important advantage in building customer loyalty and mutually beneficial relationships.
Using CRM software as a marketing tool empowers your marketing team with the ability to plan, execute, and evaluate the performance of targeted marketing campaigns. You can segregate campaigns aimed at new business vs. those that are targeted to existing customers as well as track and measure every phase of a given campaign.
The marketing automation component of any good CRM software also allows you to build a detailed profile of your customers over the course of your relationship to ensure that marketing communication is highly relevant. With the right information, your marketing team make can design effective promotions based on a customer’s previous purchases, product preferences, and other important characteristics of your relationship.
Customer Care
Sales and marketing bring new customers to your business, but your Customer Service department keeps them with you for the long haul. CRM software also provides your customer service and support personnel with fast access to service requests, call and escalation history, recent customer communications, support cases, email communication, documents sent and received, and much more. Plus, all service and support activities are captured in your CRM solution so that you start to build a knowledgebase of common issues and resolutions. Your service reps can then use that knowledgebase to quickly resolve common challenges.
Whether you sell products that require technical support or offer service agreements that continue well beyond the initial sale, CRM provides the tools you need to manage resources, quickly resolve issues, track customer requests, provide high quality service, and build long-lasting and loyal relationships. And with all of that information at their fingertips, you customer service reps will have a better opportunity to cross-sell complementary products and services.
Mobile Access
If you have service personnel that work in the field, then all that great customer information stored in your CRM system is rendered useless unless you can provide access to your field personnel. That’s where mobile CRM comes in. Using a PDA, your field service reps have real-time access to customer contact information, account history, and can schedule follow up activities and appointments. Or you can use the web to access the same features … even if you’re not connected, you can work offline and synchronize with your CRM database later.
By enabling sales and service personnel to securely access the CRM system using the web or mobile device, you’ll ensure they have information available to resolve customer issues quickly, place orders efficiently, and keep customers happy.
Contact us if you’d like to learn more about the CRM solutions we offer including Sage CRM, SugarCRM, Sage SalesLogix, and ACT! by Sage
