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Why CRM is Essential in Today’s Business Environment

Why CRM is essential - man gesturing with laptop and notedbook on desk

CRM is Essential

According to various surveys conducted, customers make approximately 51% of their purchases online. As a result, businesses, including those selling local products, are pushing towards creating a more significant online presence.

But as a company’s consumer base grows, customising customer interactions becomes challenging. This is where a customer relationship management (CRM) strategy steps in. 

Today, with the right CRM software, businesses can:

  • Deliver a personalised experience to consumers
  • Better manage their customer relationships 
  • Improve their overall customer service
  • Increase customer retention and 
  • Enhance their sales

So here, Pipedrive is breaking it down and explaining how you can employ CRM to drive more traffic to your virtual doorstep and enhance your return on investment. Significantly.

Who is Your Customer?

Without a CRM strategy, 79% of marketing leads are not being converted to sales. When marketing tools like social media, email marketing, and several other automation are linked to a CRM platform, your sales and marketing teams will access all the information. 

So they can then tailor their efforts and focus on buyer personas that are most likely to convert to sales. By taking into cognisance your target demographic’s age, gender, location, income and marital status, among several other factors, and by creating dynamic communications, your team can hone their efforts on the right kind of lead nurturing to accelerate conversion rates.

Grow Sustainable Relationships

About 46% of sales leaders believe that creating customer relationships is an integral part of long-term success. When customer relationships are based on trust, retention increases, and this is how a CRM system can help your organisation:

  • Record customer information – From consumer requirements and challenges being faced to the solutions they seek, your CRM software will provide you with invaluable insights.
  • Understand their buying behaviour – CRM will help you find vital customer information, such as which products or services they prefer and how they intend to use them. It will help you build more engaging content.
  • Enhance your customer experience – With a robust CRM platform, you can establish task reminders, access email templates, and connect more efficiently with your target audience through phone calls and other communication channels.

Lower Sales Cost

Sure, expanding your consumer base is essential, but customer acquisition and lead nurturing don’t come cheap. Did you know that while selling to new customers has a 5% to 20% success rate, existing customers are about 60% to 70% more likely to repurchase your product? So by ploughing back profits from sales to existing customers, you can attract new customers, enhance your visibility, and grow their trust. 

A CRM platform can accelerate your business performance by:

  • Increasing the effectiveness of sales – by focusing on leads most likely to convert
  • Enhancing engagement levels – developing marketing strategies to target your audience better
  • Growing cross-sell and up-sell endeavours
  • Exploiting opportunities for referrals
  • Realising shorter closing times

Better Employee Productivity

According to the Harvard Business Review, 52% of the sales force successfully employ CRM technology to achieve better results. Since automation saves time, employees can build stronger customer relationships and send more consumers down the purchase funnel.

Enhance the Customer Service Experience

The CRM platform is indispensable from understanding the most opportune moment to employ marketing promotions to providing stellar after-sales service. It will provide your team with access to detailed customer history so that you can enhance their experience along various touchpoints of their journey, thereby building trust and motivating repeat purchases.

Increase Customer Retention

According to the Harvard Business Review, when your customer defection rate decreases by 5%, profits can increase from 25% to 85%. So from pursuing at-risk accounts and understanding your customers’ buying behaviour through their history to strengthening your email marketing strategy, you can enrich your customer experience, which will help create brand loyalty in the long run.

Identify What You Want out of Your CRM Platform

Before you decide to implement CRM software, determine the following:

  • How will CRM be employed to help achieve goals?
  • What solutions will CRM bring?
  • Which CRM features will suit my business the best

When you establish goals in advance, you then have the means to measure actuals against them. Since there are different kinds of CRMs, each with specific features, you will better understand which CRM software will suit your business the best by determining the answers to the above questions.

5 Reasons Why Your Sales People Won’t Use a CRM

  • Understand the difference between a bulky CRM and a workable one
  • Balance the C-suite and sales team reporting prioritieRecognisese the importance of data capture on mobile devices.