Customer relationship management (CRM) is a core factor in business success, but too many companies approach the topic without understanding their own goals. Yes, every company wants to have a positive relationship with its customers, but if you don’t know exactly how you hope to see that relationship manifest, you’ll struggle with setting appropriate goals.
It’s time to pay attention to your CRM strategy and develop clear aims to push your business forward – but don’t worry if you’re unsure where to begin. Unlike other aspects of business strategy that vary widely between fields, the core tenets of CRM are consistent. Target these three areas to improve your brand’s business relationships.
Fast and Friendly
Among the most valuable CRM metrics for your business to monitor are those directly related to service. Ideally, you want to reduce the number of service calls you receive each day because your product is reliable. But when there are problems, you want to minimize the time from complaint to resolution and close more cases per day. Customers become irritable when a problem persists for too long. Drawing out the response process is an easy way to lose customers.
One way to optimize your response time is by implementing a mobile CRM system. Such a system transmits customer data to your mobile device, allowing you to respond no matter where you are. A great mobile CRM system also allows you to assign client issues to team members, send price quotes, and more. By centralizing all the necessary tools, CRM software can greatly improve your company’s efficiency.
Get Visible
When talking about CRM, businesses have a tendency to think in excessively narrow terms, and this restricts their growth potential. Don’t get caught in this trap. CRM consists of everything you do from onboarding to post-sales follow-up, and growing your customer pool is a key part of the process.
One way to expand your customer base is by making sure it’s easy for people to find your website. Yes, old-school SEO (stuffing website content with popular search terms) is a losing gamble in terms of site rankings. But SEO is NOT dead. The key is to make sure you’re following all the ranking rules to provide users with a quality experience. Though it may seem like a hard thing to quantify, user experience is one of the most important factors in determining a site’s standing.
Be Cost Conscious
The profitability of your business and the success of your CRM strategy are intimately linked. Many of the steps that improve customer outcomes also either reduce costs or increase profits. Closing more cases in a day, for example, means you’re likely spending less time on each one – and that efficiency means you’re using your time wisely. But it also means that customers are waiting a shorter length of time for their problems to be resolved. It’s a case of lower interaction costs with better outcomes.
CRM should be your business’s guiding force, and once you realize how closely intertwined customer relationships are with professional success, there’s no reason not to follow that path to its logical conclusion.
What’s good for your customers is good for your business – and that empowers all parties.