CRM: Revolutionizing Customer Experience
Too often customer experience is confused with customer service or customer satisfaction. The latter are typically post-sales interactions with customers, but the customer experience starts from the first moment a potential customer learns about your company.
Tips to Revolutionize Customer Experience via Your CRM:
Here are some significant ways your CRM can revolutionize the experience your customers have of your company:
-
Speak effectively to your prospects. Pay attention to the varied sources of your prospecting efforts and use what you know about those sources to direct a message tailored to each channel. Online advertising often falls victim to a “rush to press” and ads simply direct prospects to your home page. But if you customize the link and offer that particular channel something most likely to interest them, you will have much better results.
-
Follow up using the method your prospect prefers. It’s worthwhile to ask how your prospect prefers to receive information, and then listen to what they tell you. Don’t email someone who wants a call (unless you’re emailing them to set up a phone appointment) and don’t incessantly call someone who wants email.
-
Make the sale smooth. Don’t ask customers to enter the same information in multiple locations. Once you have their information, save it and make it easier for them to buy from you again.
-
Keep in touch. Don’t let a customer grow cold – follow up with emails, social media, and phone calls as appropriate. Again, note the methods your prospects prefer, and remember that social media is more effective when used as a nurturing tool, not a sales tool. Use social media to stay in contact, inform and entertain.
-
Understand the lifecycle of your product and know what product your customers need next – or when they may need to replace the existing product. Often a company will try to immediately sell the “next” product to a customer – but the customer isn’t ready yet. The timing of an offer is critical to improving its success.
-
Make future sales or contract renewals using the same method the person first used to order. More than likely, if they ordered online, that may well be their preferred method, and you can use email to prompt them to shop your online website. If they ordered via email, move them directly from the email into the shopping cart. If they ordered by phone, put them on a follow- up phone list. Try to use the same salespeople on successive sales, to create a stronger relationship.
-
Send a gift. If you are mailing someone a product, include a magnet, sticker or pen they can keep to remind them of your company. These are “old” marketing tricks – but they are even more effective now that fewer people are using them! Everyone likes to get a little surprise, even if it’s something very simple.
If you aren’t using your CRM to segment your prospects by source and your customers by types of products sold, you aren’t using your CRM to full advantage. IF you aren’t using your CRM to revolutionize your customer’s experience, then you are missing significant opportunities for leveraging your CRM. At AspenTech CRM, we’ll take a look at your current systems and processes and work with you to implement the CRM you need to give your customers the best experience possible. To start the conversation get in touch with us today at (866) 880-4228 or click here.
Please follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more CRM & business insights.
Related Articles:
Benefits of Customer Segmentation: Business Goals & Segmentation
