Customer centricity is the backbone of businesses. In 2022, it has become ever so important that the mere thought of ignoring it spells doom for any organization. Take the case of Blockbuster. It was not Netflix that proved to be its nemesis. It was the absurdly high late fees and little to no concern for its existing customers. Before being auctioned off to Dish Network, it tried competing directly with Netflix, and failed. Because the customers did not want to give Blockbuster a second chance.
Another instance is US Airways. The giant was forced into bankruptcy due to one evil decision: to cut down the customer service funds. They failed to address complaints. They even misconstrued and turned the complaints against the customers. The result? Customers did not want to engage in business with them even after gigantic rate cuts.
This is where Customer Relationship Management platforms show grit. An effective CRM mechanism can help. Not only can it address problems, with a good analyst, you can predict such mishaps. Martech Zone estimates that CRM is the fastest growing digital industry as of 2022.
- The market is expected to hit a mark of $146 Billion by 2028.
- As such, 57% of businesses consider CRM as the prime software to invest in.
- In 2022, an average of 12% of a company’s budget is spent on CRM implementation.
All these numbers make sense from a company’s point of view. Now let us look at the counterpart; the customers’ perspective.
- 88% of consumers are expecting interaction tracking for a sense of security and responsibility from the company.
- Contact management is a necessity, as voiced by over 94% users.
With the necessities established, let us now take a look at how to effectively implement this dimension of business.
Boosting Sales Through CRM – 3 Unavoidable Steps
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Streamlining the Process
Having a quantifiable and efficient sales process is paramount. Have the KPIs in place. Define the process at grassroot levels. Have an account of the tasks at hand. And ensure that the steps are followed religiously. Train the team to total these techniques tactfully. Think of CRM as a tech integration. The foundation must be strong for any technology to work seamlessly.
Caperra has estimated that 39% of businesses have experienced exponential enhancement in terms of upselling and cross selling through strategic CRM implementations. Alongside, customer retention can improve by 27% according to Martech Zone. The time is ripe now, to leverage these benefits for your business as well.
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Leverage the Flexibility
The quirk of the most effective CRM implementation is being specific to the business. Use the language of your business. Make sure that the CRM software reflects your brand in terms of tonality. This will serve the purpose of credibility. Make sure that the configuration is in congruence with your sales process. And more importantly, make sure that the reporting mechanism along with the performance metrics are in sync with your business.
By aligning and streamlining these, WebinarCare estimates that you can reduce your cost per lead by 23%. This can also amount up to 5% improved customer retention which directly translates to ~95% improved profits as per Martech Zone
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Garbage In. Garbage Out
It is a sine-qua-non to clean up your data periodically and thoroughly. Update contact lists. Improve KPIs as per intelligence from previous periods. Understand the sense of interactions that has been happening and improve upon the front end of your systems accordingly. These enhancements fall under cleaning up as well.
A personalized approach is necessary to drive about 80% of consumers back to your business, according to Webinar Care. Clear and consistent is asked for, by 78% of them. Furthermore, 69% expect a well-rounded, interconnected experience which can only be provided by having up to date, clean data about your consumer base.
It’s Actually Worth It?
Now we have discussed what exactly needs to be done. These tips come directly from our CRM experts. They have studied our previous successes and bottlenecks. They have gone through hours and hours of data, compiled it to make sense, and then come up with these.
However, it is also necessary to understand the market at large and not just our achievements. So we went in search of what the other businesses have to say about this. And we will conclude with those insights:
- Finances Online estimates a conversion rate boost of about 300% through proper implementation of customer relationship management softwares.
- Forrester predicts that by 2023, 50% of teams will improve productivity through CRM.
- According to a study by Nucleus Research, an efficient CRM mechanism accumulates an average ROI of $8.71 for every $1.
- Another aspect of interest is sales forecast. Businesses can expect an average of 42% increase in forecast accuracy.
Summing up, a 41% improvement can be experienced in revenue increase per sales representative according to a study by Finances Online.
FAQ:-
Question 1: What are the key focuses of CRM?
Answer: There are 3 primary concerns when it comes to CRM: improving relationships, growing revenue, and differentiation from the clutter.
Question 2: What are the functions of various CRM tools?
Answer: Depending on the kind of tool in question, it can serve purposes ranging from marketing campaign management to sales opportunity identification
