With any business, regardless of its size, it’s crucial to manage the relationships it has with its customers as effectively as possible if it wants to be successful. Of course, the concept of managing customer relationships has been around in business for a very long time, however with the development of modern technology, businesses can now manage their customer relationships like never before. The term customer relationship management (CRM) is no longer just terminology but also the term to describe the latest CRM technology. In this blog, we explore ways businesses can manage their customer relationships and how to harness the latest CRM technology. Here are our thoughts:
Spend time listening to your customers
The best way to really understand your customers is by listening to them and their opinions but it’s also a great way to maintain customer relationships. For smaller businesses, this will involve speaking to your customers, making sure you are dealing with their concerns and making note of any requirement that a specific customer may request. For larger businesses with high volume activity, social media can help. Social platforms can provide a space for businesses and customers to connect with each other. By creating a company Twitter handle and Facebook page a business can help customers reach out if they have any concerns, comments or issues. Being aware of customer opinions helps you plan for the future and deal with any issues.
Understand your customer
It may sound cliche but understanding your customers information is vital to having successful relationships. The relationships you create and develop with your customer-base will make or break your business, however to develop strong relationships with your customers you first need to understand them. The company-customer relationship is often one-sided in that you need to know as much about them as possible but they will only judge the relationship on the evidence they are given from purchases, customer service, brand PR etc. For businesses to truly understand their customers they need to start gathering information that will better facilitate the relationship, this is where CRM technology comes in to play.
When a business implements a CRM technology such as Salesforce, the challenge of traditionally collecting and organising actionable customer data is removed. CRM tools like Salesforce help you identify, understand, and assist your customer by collecting customer information into one place, so that you’ll never have to worry about losing revenue as a result of incomplete data or lack of organisation. CRMs store information in one place which leads to improved analysing of data as a whole, meaning your business will have a far greater understanding of the customer which will aid in all communication.
Be personal
This may be more challenging with businesses who have a high volume customer base but being personal is an important feature in maintaining a positive customer relationship. Adopting a personal approach with customers is a strong method in building a loyal customer base and is used by lots of businesses in their marketing techniques. Personalised gifts, special exclusive deals and discounts are a great way of showing how much you value their custom and these types of personalised offers also go a long way in strengthening your rapport with customers. However, in order to offer a personalised approach to your customer relationships and marketing techniques you first need personal customer data and as previously mentioned the best way to capture and use this kind of information is with a CRM tool such as Salesforce.
Plan effectively
With the abundance of customer information you need right at your fingertips, it can be difficult to process and plan going forward without an effective tool. Salesforce is a great tool for processing large quantities of customer data and information and can give you the hands-on approach that you need to really make a connection with customers. Salesforce is also incredible flexible in that it also lets your sales teams modify their plans to achieve better results for each customer. There’s even an option in Salesforce to create to-do items so your sales team can stay organised throughout the day and plan effectively thinking forward. CRM tools also have functionality that allow reminders on calendars to be created to ensure sales teams will follow up with your customers, this will ensure that nothing gets missed.
Salesforce also allows businesses to manage time more effectively by tracking the amount of time that is spent on a specific customer account. This is incredibly helpful for service-based businesses who offer a variety of different clients to a variety of different customers, many of whom will be on different packages or plans. This functionality allows you as a business to ensure it is always meeting a customers expectations which will help maintain relationships.
Be Flexible
Making sure your business is quick and attentive to a customer’s problems or complaints is vital to maintaining strong customer relationships. If a business is reluctant to be flexible for its customers, most are savvy enough to take their business somewhere else if they don’t get the service and attention they require. Every business should create strategic ideas for dealing with an unhappy customers, maintaining your businesses mantra but ensuring that you can deal with any issues fastly and accordingly.
At Purus, we offer businesses support for those using CRM tool Salesforce, to ensure that as a business, you’re making the most of Salesforce’s specialised services they have on offer. For more information on Salesforce, and how to get started with Salesforce, get in touch with our team.