Chances are, your business already uses some sort of CRM software to manage customer data, but in today’s marketplace, that’s just the bare minimum. Here are a few tips for maximizing the benefits of CRM to your business.
- Clean up your data regularly. Data is only valuable if it’s accurate and therefore it is important to have a process by which your organization reviews customer data on a regular basis. As part of this process, redundancies should be eliminated and customer information should be verified and brought up to date where necessary. If you find that your database frequently is filled with subpar information, it is probably time to train (or re-train) anyone who is responsible for data entry and create guidelines which everyone who interacts with the database is expected to follow.
- Make sure you clearly understand (and indicate) where each customer is in the purchase cycle and then use this information to build a more detailed sales pipeline. By doing this, you will not only be able to better predict when a specific client will be ready to make a purchase, but you’ll also be better able to forecast company-wide sales figures, allowing you to plan for future growth (or contraction) with greater accuracy.
- Use data to personalize the customer experience. Studies show that just by sending relevant, personalized communications based on where the customer is in the sales cycle can double engagement rates. But that’s just the tip of the personalization iceberg. If you want to make a more significant impact, don’t just rely on email as your way of communicating with customers. In today’s marketplace, customers are interacting with businesses through a wide variety of channels, including social media and mobile applications. Once you are able to identify each customer’s preferred communication channel, you can more readily engage them. Similarly, websites can now be designed to deliver personalized content and recommendations based on data from your past interactions with them, and this, too can significantly improve engagement rates.
If you want to learn more about how you can transform your CRM software into more than just a customer database, look no further than ATB. Our team can help you go from simple data management to building robust long-term, productive relationships with customers just by adding some guidelines and procedures for maximizing the capabilities of your existing resources. Contact us today to learn more.