At a time when every business is trying its best to vie for the attention of the consumers, it is imperative that they adopt Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies in order to have a competitive edge over their peers.
CRM is all about knowing who your consumers and potential consumers are, and maintaining the relationships you share with them. It is also about keeping track of the needs and behaviors of these people while maintaining a steady communication with them.
Now let’s focus on some of the ways you can form and maintain a great relationship with your consumers with the help of a great CRM strategy.
- CRM software for managing the loyal consumers
The most potent way of ensuring the management and retention of your consumers is by creating a strong relationship with them.
So you need to prepare a list of all of your loyal consumers, and then prepare another list recording the sales made within the past six months with the help of a CRM software. When you compare both of the lists you’ve prepared, you are presented with a list of regular customers, along with the list of products and services that they have bought within the period of six months.
Now, if you notice your loyal consumers haven’t availed your services (which should be a clear indication that their loyalties have shifted), you can find out the reasons why they weren’t considering your services, and you can prevent them from shifting their interests elsewhere.
- Having a personalized approach when following up
Building a relationship means you need to nurture them as well, and the same applies to your brand’s relationship with your consumers. In this case, CRM software assists in perceiving your consumer as an individual and not just as a number.
So, you must always attempt to employ the element of personalization when registering a contact. Use notes and other relevant pieces of details that let you customize your outreach program. With such details, you can create your follow-up strategies properly.
In this case, you can prepare a list of the contacts you have entered in the CRM software. Next, prepare a list of every client who has attended your marketing activities in the course of the past one year. When you combine these lists, you are left with a set of contacts who have not attended your marketing activities. This way you’ll gain an idea of the people who’ve not attended your outreach programs and you can adopt a personalized approach while following up on them.
- Sending out regular updates to the consumers using a CRM system
You can leverage the CRM system to consolidate your already existing relationship with your consumers. In this case, you can use the personal details of your customers saved in your CRM database, and send out frequent and timely updates about your business or brand. In fact, you can also use the CRM software to send out a “thank you” note.
This will make your consumers feel more valued and cherished. Once they feel that they are a part of your business family, it will ensure that they always turn to you and your brand over others the next time they want to engage in a business with your company.
- Being incredibly responsive to the grievances and complaints of the consumers
The most crucial area wherein you should leverage your CRM strategy is while offering a super fast response to the issues and grievances of your consumers.
“For any consumer, getting a swift response from a service provider’s side makes him/her feel heard”, says Anwar Habib, a customer relations manager, and an expert on VAT in Dubai. In fact, you need to think from the customer’s perspective and put yourself in their shoes, as the quality of your business depends greatly on the customer service offered.
You cannot and should not take any chances when it comes to entertaining the queries and grievances of your valued customers, and using a proper CRM strategy would prove to be advantageous for your business.
- Rewarding the loyal consumers
Relevant details derived from a CRM software can provide you with insights on the consumers who are responsible for the most revenue. For instance, if you have a number of incentives to offer, you can reward your loyal customers to further boost their loyalty towards your business and brand. It will also help you to identify the specific consumers and assist you to create an appropriate strategy in terms of cross-selling.
You can follow up on these set of consumers and keep them informed about the rewards and incentives in order to make them feel special so that they continue to trust your brand while making a purchase.
- Determining the buying patterns of your consumers with CRM
You should put your CRM strategy to good use in order to recognize the buying patterns of your consumers. And you can do this by aligning your CRM with other data tracking resources, thus receiving a clear picture regarding your consumers’ shopping patterns and history. It will also ensure that you are thoroughly informed about their product preferences.
When gathering all these details about your target consumers, you can proceed to prepare your sales pitch and develop a foolproof marketing strategy. This will assist you to reap most benefit out of each of the consumers who have opted for your services and considerably maximize your business profits.
- Enhancing the conversion probability
With the help of an appropriate CRM system, you can even determine the specific time of the day when the consumers are more likely to land on your website with the purpose of making a purchase. A CRM software can evaluate and optimize conversions for you.
Since the CRM systems provide you with enough information on the customer preferences, you won’t have to invest your precious time on the elaborate process of researching and accumulating data about what they want. This way, you will be able to present the products your consumers were trying to find while staying much ahead of your competitors.
- Nurturing your new customers
Effective CRM is not just about cherishing your existing consumers who share a favorable relationship with your brand. It’s also about nurturing the new customers and converting the prospective consumers into new and returning consumers.
If you wish your business to thrive and prosper, you cannot just depend upon your existing consumer base to establish your brand. You need to put in place-efficient marketing strategies to win new consumers over, especially if you operate in a competitive space.
CRM tools allow you to recognize the prospective consumers who might be interested in buying for your brand and implement your marketing efforts to entertain these prospects.
In conclusion
With the help of a stringent CRM strategy, you can accumulate and manage the relevant details of your customers and also carry out the activities that encourage customer engagement.
Use the details provided by the CRM, and you will continue to retain and nurture your consumers and keep them satisfied. At the same time, you can grow your business without the additional expense of gaining new customers.
Harry Jonson is a tax advisor Dubai and holds an extensive knowledge of free VAT software for businesses. He has also worked in the domain of customer relations for a brief period. He received his Masters degree from the University of Dubai. He is presently associated with the website Uaevatexpert.ae.