CRM, an effective way of getting closer.

This time I won’t talk to you about social media and its effectiveness to get closer to your target market; this time, I will suggest an older but far more holistic approach that will feed you with a better understanding of your target market and entail all aspects of interaction with customers.

I personally think that growth is the elemental objective SMEs strive to achieve. Nevertheless, growing also demand more organisation and more streamlined processes within the operations and marketing of the business. This is where a good CRM system becomes essential.

I would suggest having or using; if you already have it; a –Customer Relationship Management – system.

CRM, not only describes a business-customer relationship, it is also a magnificent way to manage business contacts, clients, contract wins and sales leads.

All in all, CRM Systems can bring your business:

1. Better organisation of your business contacts
First and foremost are your contacts therefore having all your business contacts at hand and in details will help you marketing team to generate more sales/bookings.

2. Sales Stats
See all you sales metrics easily in bespoken dashboard that will help you to manage your pipeline.

3. Customer segmentation
Digital marketeers, sales teams and agencies utilise the CRM system to segregate, segment and understand the existing client base. This allows your business to apply the Pareto 80-20 principle or giving your sales team a bit more clarity about their sales prospects and needs.

Other advantages of having an updated CRM in place:

By having one fully updated CRM, you will be able to know the:

• Status, purchasing figures and frequency of your existing customers.
• Effectiveness of your existing suppliers
• Right time to apply a sales tactic or review the strategy.

Customer relationship management can be synthesised easily by applications, software, mobile applications and solutions. This are capable of providing you with the ability to build an efficient customer business data, that will help you to improve the way of providing services or products that your customers want. This also help your business to understand their audience and communicate effectively.

It will deliver better customer service, cross-selling and up selling more effectively, closing deals, retaining existing customers and understanding better who your customers are.

So, keep you friends close, but your customers closer!