Mastering CRM: Effective management for building strong customer relationships

Micky Weis

15 years of experience in online marketing. Former CMO at, among others, Firtal Web A/S. Blogger about marketing and the things I’ve experienced along the way. Follow me on LinkedIn for daily updates.

Kopieret

In today’s post, we’ll take a look at what a CRM system is and how it can be used to streamline essential workflows in any business.

Why is customer management important?

Customer management has increasingly become one of the most essential disciplines within e-commerce.

We are now in a time where customers have a wide range of options for purchasing a particular product.

The market is so saturated that you often find multiple companies offering the same product, making it crucial to differentiate yourself.

It is especially through the consumer’s perception of customer management that the individual consumer decides where to make their purchase.

So, who do customers end up buying from? Usually, it’s the company that offers the best service and handles the purchase process – before, during, and after it takes place.

Customer relationships – an essential part of marketing

In other words, it’s about offering the relationship-building service connected to a product to achieve loyal and returning customers.

It is in the customer relationship that the customer feels both seen and heard, and in a saturated market, this is exactly what consumers are looking for – the feeling that they are benefiting from the right company with the right offer.

Over time, positive experiences will also generate positive reviews – both written and spoken, delivered from customer to customer.

Relational marketing

This brings us to what is known as relational marketing; a form of marketing that focuses on creating and maintaining relationships with consumers to ensure satisfied and returning customers who want to write a good recommendation or spread the good word about the company within their network.

The idea behind this type of marketing is that, all else being equal, it is more profitable to maintain a good relationship with customers rather than having to acquire new customers every time a purchase is made.

However, it can be challenging to maintain a good relationship with ALL your customers. There will inevitably be a lot of information about each customer, so there is a need to make this data manageable and automate some of the most basic processes that lead to successful relationship-building marketing.

For this reason, the development of so-called Customer Relationship Management systems has particularly accelerated over the past decade.

Different types of CRM systems and their applications

There are different types of CRM systems, each offering something unique. Broadly speaking, these systems can be divided into the following categories:

Analytical CRM system

As the name suggests, this is a CRM software system used for analysis, which can contribute to reports on customer behavior.

This could include reports on the effectiveness of campaigns, as well as insights into future sales forecasts and repeat purchases.

Operational CRM system

Operational CRM systems are useful for the daily operation and streamlining of marketing, sales, and customer service efforts.

This typically involves the automation of various processes that make it easier to maintain customer relationships. These automated processes could include:

• Automation of email marketing.
• Tools for organizing customer data.
• Automation of workflows in the sales process.

Collaborative CRM system

This type of CRM system is designed to organize consistent customer management across different departments within a company.

It is immensely valuable for the customer service, marketing, and sales departments of a company to have access to the same information about their customers.

In the end, this improves the ability to streamline individual efforts and better understand the target audience.

Here, you will see how the same data from the collaborative CRM system can be used differently depending on which department is analyzing and using the data.

Core functions of effective CRM systems

Effective CRM systems can automate some important routine processes for a company and offer the storage of a larger customer database with the ability to generate reports and analyses of this data.

Below, I have gathered a few of the most essential functions that enhance the efficiency of any CRM system:

• Management of customer interactions.
• Automation of marketing efforts.
• Customer service management.
• Database and analysis of customer behavior.

Benefits of implementing a CRM system in your business

The purpose of a CRM system is to increase the company’s efficiency when it comes to customer management.

This applies to everything from an improved customer support experience to better reports and analyses of customer behavior, as well as the ability to create more effective collaboration between the company’s departments and the communication that exists between them.

If the company ensures that the analyses are used to continuously improve workflows and customer management, a CRM system can simply help increase the company’s performance and competitiveness.

Learn more about customer support and AI’s revolutionary role in my post here.

Choosing the right CRM system: What to look for?

Since there are different types of CRM systems as well as software providers, it’s essential to consider which system is the right one to choose – in other words, what should you look for?

First, it will be important to consider which functions the CRM system should be used for. Is it for the automation of sales, marketing, or customer service? Is there a need for data collection and the ability to generate reports?

If you have employees who work remotely, it’s also necessary to have a CRM system that can be accessed on the go via a mobile connection. It’s generally important to consider how much the system can be customized to the individual company; both in its current stage but also for the future.

Mobile and cloud-based CRM: Future trends

The future will undoubtedly bring continued development of CRM systems as we know them today.

As it stands now, the mobile approach to CRM, and thus also placing the system in the cloud, has achieved great success.

These new CRM trends will continue to evolve, and I personally see a future where CRM becomes much more accessible, especially for companies with remote employees who need a mobile solution for their CRM systems.

Additionally, cloud-based CRM has helped revolutionize customer management with the level of flexibility this solution provides, making it possible for the company to maintain close collaboration across different departments.

Interested in SaaS tools? Learn more about how I would market a SaaS tool here.

Challenges and pitfalls of CRM implementation

To avoid specific challenges in implementing a CRM system and instead achieve its full potential, it is essential that the company’s employees are introduced to the system and its functions.

There’s no point in investing in a system that your colleagues simply don’t see the value in. In this regard, it’s also important to set clear goals for the system’s use.

If your colleagues question the system’s quality and purpose for the company, there is a long way to go to achieve the system’s full potential.

Before investing in a CRM system, it will also be important to ensure that the system can be integrated with the already existing systems that the company uses to get the most out of it.

The challenge otherwise will be that your company ends up investing in a range of new systems tailored to your new CRM system, but that require more resources to implement.

Finally, there is a pitfall that many companies may fall into by not using the full potential of a CRM system, and I am particularly thinking of the valuable reports and data that the system can provide.

If these data are not followed up on and analyzed along the way, the investment and idea behind a CRM system will simply be lost.

Read more: Take a look on all my marketing tools I use every month.