Customer Relationship Management (CRM) comprises of three words “ Customer, Relationship, and Management. Most CRMs have a transactional view of the customer “They are built on the premise that customer relationship is nothing but the transactions. While this view may be good for capturing and analyzing the data “ it does not helps in nurturing the relationship the most important leg CRM.
Most companies use CRM or Customer Relationship Management systems for transactional purposes with little or no focus on Managing Relationships. While it is good to know what a customer bought and when “ it is useless if the customer is not going to buy anything from you in the future.
Although customer retention is one of the most challenging tasks“ customer acquisition is even more challenging. That is why more and more companies are leaning on CRM to retain and nurture existing relationships to generate new business. The success however is a mirage as the approach they take is transactional and not relationship nurturing approach.
Instead of using the CRM just for catering transactional needs the benefits you get when you adopt a relationship-oriented approach are:
- The relationship nurturing approach ensures that your company performs better than those who do not
- Returning customers spend more than new customers and hence retaining a customer results in top-line growth.
- Retaining a customer costs one-third of acquiring the customer – resulting in an ever-increasing bottom line.
If any of your customers leave not because they were not happy with your product – but because they found your company (or your people) as one of the following – you need to rethink your CRM strategy:
- Unapproachable
- Unfriendly
- Cold
- Distant
- Indifferent
- Uncaring
- Unresponsive
- Uninterested
- Unconcerned
The effective use of CRM can change the whole perception from a negative a a very positive one:
- Unapproachable >> Approachable
- Unfriendly >> Friendly
- Cold >> Warm
- Distant >> Near
- Indifferent >> Involved
- Uncaring >> Caring
- Unresponsive >> Responsive
- Uninterested >> Interested
- Unconcerned >> Concerned
Here are a few ways to turn this around and nurture lasting relationships with customers using CRM:
- Use Analytics to help build relationships
- Identify related needs
- Cross-sell based on consumption pattern
- Communicate at the right stages of the customer lifecycle
- Create a customer focussed environment within the company
- Generate relationship-measuring metrics to measure the effectiveness of relationships
- Utilize CRM tools to effectively and easily connect with customers
- Measure rep’s performance based on relationship nurturing
- Listening to the true voice of the customer
- Generate independent first and feedback
- Use social media to monitor conversations
- Identify star customers and reward them
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- Find value in customer relationships
- Identify valuable and profitable customers
- Offer rewards to customers based on their value and loyalty
If you are looking to re-engineer your Customer Relationship Management Processes “ we are DhruvSoft can help you analyze and identify solutions and prioritize before implementing them. Contact us for a no-obligation free call to discuss more about our CRM Consulting offering and Salesforce.com CRM Enhancements / Optimizations Services.
