3 REASONS TO USE A CRM (CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGER) TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR CLIENTS AND PROSPECTS

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a model for managing a company’s interactions with current and future customers. It involves using technology to organise, automate, and synchronise sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support.

If you want to create a long term, sustainable business, then building mutually beneficial, trusting relationships with your customers is essential. Whatever type of business you have – whether you sell products or services – tracking your interactions with your audience is essential to grow in a reliable and sustainable manner.

One of the areas that can really help out with this is Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. There are applications which are designed to allow you to manage, understand and use information to improve the ways your small business work with your customers.

Here are 3 really good ways a Customer Relationship Manager can help you take care of your existing clientele.

To measurethe effectiveness and design your marketing efforts

Some CRM solutions integrate directly with social media networking sites. This means that you can get publically available, background information on your clients (e.g. from Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn) so that you can tailor your products and services to their needs.

You can see all of the activity relating to a client or prospect in one place including marketing, proposals and more. This allows you to easily plan and tailor approaches to clients or groups of clients and helps you in your marketing, advertising and outreach efforts.

CRM systems for marketing track and measure campaigns over multiple communication channels – such as email, search, social media, telephone and direct mail. These systems track clicks, responses, leads and deals.

To provide customer service and support

CRM systems can be used to create, assign and manage requests made by customers, such as call centre software which helps direct customers to agents. CRM software can also be used to identify and reward loyal customers over a period of time.

Business reputation is essential to building trust in your business. CRM software can help by ensuring you follow up with existing and new clients and that you resolve issues and problems quickly. Some CRM applications will allow you to record and respond to specific client issues, problems or complaints and get them resolved quickly. This means that you can track any impact on a particular customer and also understand the history, issues and problems they may have faced.

To set appointments and meetings

CRM systems can automatically suggest suitable appointment times to customers via e-mail or the web. These can then be synchronised with the representative or agent’s calendar. This includes subtle ways to capture and track all of the various ways to get in touch with your clients. In addition to standard areas like address, email and phone numbers, many CRM solutions can also integrate with social media, so you can contact and support your clients through Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and the like. This way, the meetings you set will be at the schedule most convenient for a business’ existing and potential customers.

It’s vital to manage your diary well to make sure you meet your commitments to your customers. Appointment and scheduling functions make sure that you can effectively plan and agree appointment times and meetings with clients.