What do customers value the most when doing business with you? Choice? Convenience? An esteemed brand name? Believe it or not, they value relationships over transactions. A customer who knows your company knows – and cares – about who they are, what they need and is committed to making sure their needs are met (and anticipated) is a loyal, long-term customer. This is especially true today, when competition is more intense. Customers who feel neglected or taken for granted are likely to take their business elsewhere. To meet their expectations, you need to know them thoroughly, and this is possible only if you have the relevant data that gives you a complete picture of them.
This is why your business needs a unified customer relationship management (CRM) solution. To deliver a consistent brand experience to each of your customers, your CRM should gather and use customer data at every touchpoint throughout the customer journey. A unified CRM solution improves collaboration among your sales, marketing, delivery and support teams because they get to see the same data. When your employees work in unison, there is no reason you can’t develop and nurture strong relationships with your customers.
Sales and Marketing Work Together More Effectively
A unified CRM helps build strong and long-lasting relationships with your customers because it combines such various business functions as contact management, sales, marketing, service, support and project management into one central data platform.
It is a big misconception that CRM helps only the sales vertical. A CRM solution can help every function in your organization. When teams work in unison, it can help you serve your customers better.
Out of all functions, perhaps, sales and marketing are the two most important for almost every organization. And with a unified CRM, sales and marketing work together more effectively. They can collaborate much closely.
Sales and marketing teams now have to work in close association. They don’t work in silos on different software. Whether it is a lead disposition or customer interactions, the two have to work together to nurture leads through the funnel.
If you want to close more opportunities and grow as a business, it is crucial to align both teams within your organization. Automated workflows, real-time analytics, and other features and functionalities like lead disposition help improve collaboration between teams. The unified CRM features make the teams more accountable, and they have no option but to work together.
Since all your data resides in one central place and is easily accessible by all, it improves CRM adoption among salespeople. It also creates transparency throughout your organization.
Here are some other reasons why your organization needs a unified CRM.
It makes data more accessible and reliable – Since data collected from everywhere go into one place, there is practically no chance of data discrepancies. Everyone gets to see and work on the same data. Every customer-facing employee gets to access the complete customer details, making things better for your customers.
A unified CRM solution offers better insights and analytics – Since a unified CRM collects data from a variety of places – marketing campaign engagement, customer satisfaction and retention – it helps you to learn which strategies work for you, as well as those that don’t. With better insights and analytics, you can make more informed decisions.
It helps deliver higher customer satisfaction – When you give your employees accurate data, they can serve your customers better. A unified CRM provides all the relevant data to your employees, allowing them to improve customer satisfaction.
Helps develop personal customer relationships – With a unified CRM in place, your employees can gather more relevant information about your customers. From buying behavior to purchase history and more, your employees have all the information they need to develop personalized customer relationships.
Easier Fulfilment of the Customer’s Need for a Personalized Experience
The growing personalization in the B2C marketplace defines the need of B2B customers. Thanks to the tools available to customize the product for everyone, B2C companies have perfected the art of delivering personalized experiences to their customers. Just like B2C companies, B2B companies also need to work for easier fulfilment of the customer’s need for a personalized experience.
Many B2B companies find it hard to provide personalized experiences due to cost considerations. To provide a personalized experience, companies need to have a complete and integrated view of the customer. And this is what most of them don’t have. It is important to note that larger organizations struggle the most. Lack of data is the biggest hindrance in providing a personalized experience. While many don’t have the data they need to provide a personalized experience, some that have the data don’t house it properly for effective decision-making.
So, what should you do to meet the expectations of your customers?
The first important point for businesses is to understand that there are no average customers. Every customer has a unique need, and you need to find that out and fulfill their requirement. To meet your customer’s expectations, here’s what companies need to do:
Think about integration – You can choose a starting point for integration. You can start small and focus on integration for one customer touchpoint in your customer’s journey. Look at all the silos to get a broader view of how you can customize the experience.
Give your customer-facing employees the customer insights they need to serve them better – Providing a complete overview of the customer is a challenging task. To make things easier for your employees, you need transparency to understand customers. Make sure your employees get all the customer insights they need to serve your customers properly.
Focus on insights that help develop a stronger customer relationship – Make sure you share insights that help develop stronger relationships with your customer. Add industry perspectives, the role of competition and the challenges your customers face to develop deeper relationships with them.
A personalized experience is what your customers expect from you. And a unified CRM helps you provide that to each of your customers. It organizes your data, facilitating effective decision-making – as covered in our blog post, “Organizing Your CRM for Success.”
Consider Your Operations and Sales Process When Choosing a CRM Solution
CRM not only provides you the contact info of your customers, but it also gives you all the interaction details your employees have with your prospects and current customers. CRM helps you achieve your business goals more systematically. It helps you serve your customers better and can also improve customer retention.
Here is how CRM can help you:
- CRM helps you learn more about your customers. You can get to know who they are, why they buy from you, and the purchasing history trends. When you know what your customers want from you, you can serve them better.
- Since CRM automates and organizes some aspects of your business, it can make your business more efficient.
- CRM can optimize your customer interactions. It simplifies your complex customer interaction processes, thereby improving customer satisfaction.
CRMs are of different types, but most focus on one of these categories:
Operational CRM – It can focus on any of these categories – sales, marketing, or service. It is an important tool for lead generation. Operational CRMs are the best fit for businesses that have a shorter sales cycle.
Analytical – Analytical CRMs can analyze customer data so that you can better understand the trends and needs of your customers. It can help improve customer satisfaction. They are the best fit for businesses in higher-priced segments that have a good deal of competition.
Collaborative – If you need to share customers’ information with outside businesses, you need a collaborative CRM. It is the best fit for businesses that are into new product development.
However, a unified CRM solution combines various business functions so that you can reap all the benefits of CRM for your organization.
Every company, large and small, needs CRM. It is a great tool that helps you on many fronts by improving customer satisfaction, increasing efficiency and enhancing profits. Your CRM can also (and should) be customized to suit your business requirements.
According to Jason Kulpa in his article for Forbes, “It is important for companies to consider their operations and sales process when considering which CRM solution to use: What customer information is relevant to your sales process? How many times do you usually make contact with a client before they purchase? How important is repeat business to your company? As a business owner, not exploring your CRM options could be a huge oversight for your company.”
If you are looking for a unified CRM solution eZnet CRM can help streamline your business processes and increase collaboration among your teams. eZnet CRM is intuitive as well as user-friendly. Our CRM solutions offer comprehensive support and training that is essential for a smooth end-user adoption. Contact us to learn more and begin your free 30-day trial.
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