In today's increasingly competitive society, it is essential to offer customers a first-class experience. To do this, a company must have a 360-degree view of each and every one of its customers: this is what good customer relationship management allows.
At Fed Supply, a customer service placement agency, we find that few companies in the province give it real importance in their strategy. Let's see why it's time to change your point of view on this essential lever of the strategy of successful companies.
What is meant by customer relationship management?
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) aims to manage all the relationships and interactions of a company with its potential and existing customers. This includes all the tools and strategies that can improve relationships with customers and prospects.
When we talk about customer relationship management, we can refer to the following 2 concepts:
- The strategy: it is a business philosophy on how relationships with customers and prospects should be managed.
- CRM software: this is a technology tool, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, analyze and report on interactions between the company and its customers. It helps companies keep in touch with their customers, centralize different processes and thus improve efficiency.
What does a customer relationship management do?
By collecting and organizing customer interaction data, making it accessible and actionable to different teams within the company, and facilitating its analysis, CRM offers a wide range of benefits, especially for customer service jobs.
Here's how different departments in your company will benefit from effective customer relationship management.
Sales to optimize performance
Sales managers will have access to reliable information about each team member's progress toward their sales goals and will easily view sales team, product, and campaign performance at both the group and individual level.
As for sales representatives, they will benefit from reduced administrative work, a better understanding of their customers and the ability to spend more time on sales techniques and less time on data entry.
Marketing, to better understand customers and improve forecasting
The team will have good visibility into each opportunity, including data collection and analysis, which will also allow for a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the company's sales process to improve it.
Supply chain to optimize overall logistics
Customer relationship management allows them to better track meetings with suppliers and partners, record their requests, add helpful notes, schedule follow-ups or outline planned next steps. The reports allow them to evaluate supplier effectiveness and manage the entire supply chain more effectively.
HR to improve the recruitment process and track employee performance
Human resources will gain efficiencies by automating the applicant management process, better analyzing the needs of different teams or even better tracking the achievement of annual staff goals.
Customer service to effectively monitor conversations across all channels
It's common for a customer to raise an issue on one channel, such as Twitter or Facebook, and then switch to email, phone or live chat to resolve it privately. Without proper customer relationship management, the customer service agent can lose track of communications, leading to customer dissatisfaction.
What are the benefits of customer relationship management?
Investing in customer relationship management (CRM) can bring many benefits to a business, including:
- Improved customer satisfaction: By using CRM, a company can better understand the needs and preferences of its customers, which can improve service quality, meet their needs and provide an overall positive customer experience.
- Customer loyalty: By providing a satisfying customer experience, customers are more likely to remain loyal to the company and purchase its products or services in the long term.
- Increased sales and productivity: CRM can help identify cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, which can increase company sales.
- Improved customer retention: Satisfied customers are more likely to recommend the company to family and friends, which can help improve customer retention.
- Collecting valuable data for more targeted sales forecasting: By using a CRM, a business can collect valuable data on customer buying habits, preferences, and feedback, which can be used to improve product or service offerings.
- Cost reduction: Customer relationship management can help streamline customer service processes, reduce marketing costs, and improve overall business efficiency.
- Competitive advantage: By providing a superior customer experience, the company can differentiate itself from its competitors and attract new customers.
Overall, CRM is an important investment for any company that wants to improve customer satisfaction, increase sales, improve customer retention, and differentiate itself from competitors.
Improve your company's customer relationship management with Fed Supply
Is your company lacking in customer relationship management? It's time to fix the problem. We can help you. If you are a Quebec-based company, don't hesitate to entrust us with your recruitment's need.
Fed Supply will be happy to listen to your needs and find you qualified candidates to solve these problems: our database of people with customer relationship management skills is growing daily. You can also contact us if you have specific needs or questions about our support.
