If your business has customers, you need a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. And if you're not sure what this is, you likely already have one in place - in some form or shape.
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a system or tool that centralises all your customer interaction, data and communication in one platform. Instead of information and lines of communication scattered across various platforms, you have one single platform where you can access all your customer interactions, from past sales information to communication, contact details, documents and much more.
Depending on your business, you could be working with nothing more than a basic spreadsheet saved on your desktop, but big businesses live and breathe CRM software, knowing how beneficial it is to nurturing existing relationships and growing new ones. One thing's for sure though, no matter how big or small your business is you can benefit from a CRM.
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While the benefits of a good CRM are never-ending for your business, your customers, and day-to-day management (we could go on for days), to keep it brief we've listed our top 5 below.
You've already put in the hard work and investment of nurturing a lead to a paying customer. Now's not the time to let that hard work go to waste by letting that relationship fade away!
A CRM comes in handy here, as it lets you identify past customers who haven't purchased within a specific time. Once you know who these customers are, you can reach out to that group with personalised messaging. This simple message can reengage these customers, refamiliarising them with your brand, and you can use this as an opportunity to offer a deal, share new products or services, or ask for feedback on their last purchase.
While this may not result directly in a sale or booking, it does keep your business top of mind, so when they need a plumber, builder, accountant or haircut, they think of you.
A CRM isn't just good for your old or existing customers! While keeping your existing customers coming back for more is important, it's just as important to bring in new customers to the business. And without a CRM, it can become tricky to prioritise these leads as they start to all look the same.
With an integrated CRM, you can quickly tell the difference between existing and new customers. From here you can dive even deeper, determining which customers are more likely to make a purchase in the near future based on their behaviour. A CRM can help you identify and analyse customer who have signed up for a trial recently and used it, requested a quote, spent a certain amount of time on your website, or have emailed recently - or whatever data point you want to use!
This allows you to focus your time and energy on customers who need it the most and also create plans for customers who need a little more time before they're ready to engage with you.
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Attribution and ROI are age-old pain points for many businesses and part of the reason digital ads are so popular. If you're not sure what activity is working best for you, a CRM can help with that. While a CRM is collecting a plethora of information, one area to look is where your converting leads are coming from.
For example, say you're running a PPC (Pay per click) Search campaign and social ads, your software can show you where most of new customers are coming from.
Knowing this, you can choose your next course of action, whether that's doubling down on what's working and investing more money or expanding your campaign to target more keywords.
Alternatively, you can also see the sources for the leads that aren't performing as well. With this information, you can readjust your priorities and invest elsewhere, or adjust your keywords, creativity and targeting to see what works best for you.
Upselling and cross-selling are tried and true techniques when it comes to improving the average sale. Upselling is when a car salesman suggests the more expensive leather-seated version of the model you're looking at, and cross-selling is what a shoe salesman does when they suggest a bottle of shoe polish with your new pair.
Research suggests that cross-selling and upselling can result in 10-30% more revenue, which can be make or break.
And with a CRM you can encourage more of this!
Use existing data to see which products or services your customers are buying in tandem. If there's a noticeable trend of customers buying product X when they order product Y, you can suggest product Y as a cross-sell for future product sales.
While no CRM can truly see what's around the corner, it can do the next best thing - use past sales data to give you an idea of what you might expect.
Instead of trying to remember what sold well last sprint, and how much stock you might need in the lead-up to Labour Day or Christmas, your CRM can give you an idea of what numbers you might be looking at. Pair this historical data with current trends and you can gain an idea of what to expect, what numbers you might get and how to prepare for the future.
This can help you ramp up a marketing campaign for when you know sales might dip, or stock up and prepare for busier months.
When used well, customer relationship management software can seem like magic, but if you’re not sure where to start, it can look more like rocket science.
Luckily, we can help with that! If you're interested in learning more about how a CRM can benefit your business and be tailored to your needs, we can help connect you to Thryv - a CRM built specifically for businesses like yours. Click here to book a callback today!