Mastering the Art of CRM: Tips and Tricks for Successful Customer Management

Acquiring a new customer costs five to 25 times more than retaining an existing one. Customer management is the pillar on which a business stands.

Once a customer engages with you, you need to keep them in the loop and make them come back to you repeatedly. 

Keeping in touch and providing them value helps you nurture a fruitful relationship with a client. It builds loyalty in them and they’re more likely to choose you over others and return to you.

We’ve come up with some tips and tricks to help you master the art of customer relationship management and grow your business.

79% of customers care more about the personalized experience they receive with a business over the customized marketing they’re targeted with. A whopping 84% are willing to spend more to receive a great experience.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is what helps you ensure the customer receives a positive experience with you and returns to you for more. It is the process of interacting with customers in ways that are likely to drive the most engagement and inspire loyalty.
The CRM of any business is backed by data and previous records of customer behavior. This helps you act on a fact-based approach and be more targeted in your interaction. Here are some tips and tricks to help you ace CRM in your business:

1. Ace your eCommerce platform

Your eCommerce platform is the most important cog in the wheel of your CRM. This is where the customer purchases products and services from you. Everything else such as post-purchase services and keeping in touch can only happen when they purchase from you with ease.

Your eCommerce platform needs to be in the most optimal condition to ensure a positive experience for the customer. This is what will make them come back to you for more. Ensuring seamless operations of processing such as checkout and product navigation is vital.

When looking for an eCommerce platform for your business, here are some of the best SamCart alternatives to help you pick the one most suitable for you. The goal should be to make your business more accessible to your audience.
When they have a positive buying experience, they’d be more willing to come back to you again in the future. On the other hand, a negative buying experience not only jeopardizes that particular sale but also any engagement even if they like your products.

2. Provide quick resolutions

Another important factor in ensuring the customer has a positive experience with you is to resolve any issue they face as soon as possible. It can be in the form of chatbots on your website that engage with a user as soon as they visit.

They can ask what the customer is looking for and direct them, saving them the trouble to look it up. Or it can be in the form of resolving an issue a customer raises with you regarding the usage of a product they’ve purchased from you.

Dealing with complaints greatly factors into the customer’s view of you as a business. Now, you may not have the solution at your fingertips for the issue brought up by the customer. But your response needs to be quick.
Get back to them as soon as they raise a ticket or send in a complaint. Assure them that the solution will be provided to them at the earliest. This buys you some time to figure out the issue and provide a proper solution as the customer feels heard.

3. Provide value

The only reason a customer will return to your business is when they get value out of it. Use the data and information you have about the customer to help them derive the most value out of your business.

Get in touch with them to congratulate them on their purchase with tips and tricks to use the product correctly and for most use cases. For example, if they purchase a shirt from you, email them about ways to make it last long, such as not bleaching. 

Similarly, send them reminders about the different ways to use a product or get the most out of it periodically. This helps remind the customer of the product and appreciate the effort you put in. For example, Grammarly sends routine emails to its customer about new features.
Lastly, recommend additional products and services that complement the product the customer has just purchased from you. You might base this on their likes and dislikes or what is in trend currently. For example, recommend matching trousers if they purchase a shirt.

4. Nurture a relationship

Once you acquire a customer, it’s important to stay in touch with them and cultivate a relationship. Now, this can be a fine line to walk. You don’t want to be spamming them with irrelevant content or not contact them at all for fear of spamming.

Take the middle road and contact them in a timely manner with relevant content. Pick occasions such as their birthday or festivals with tailor-made offers. Let them know that the offer is specially crafted for them based on their likes and dislikes.

Moreover, you can contact them to fill out surveys or write reviews about their experience with you. Let them know that their opinion matters to you and that the reason for collecting their review is to better your services in the future.

5. Enable them to serve themselves

It may seem counterintuitive to enable a customer to serve themselves on your platform without any help from you, but it works tremendously well in your favor. 70% of millennials enjoy solving a problem without having to talk to a customer service representative.

By enabling a customer to serve themselves on their own, you speed up the process and make it seamless, hassle-free, and positive. A customer is more likely to visit you again to receive a smooth service where they don’t have to rely on someone.

This harkens back to the first point about having a good eCommerce platform that helps users navigate with ease. Having chatbots and FAQs on your platform helps customers resolve simple issues without relying on anyone for help.

6. Measure their satisfaction

CRM is a data-based approach that relies on statistics and facts to help you choose the aptest solution when it comes to customer management. Measuring customer experience, expectations, and satisfaction in quantifiable terms is an excellent way to decide the future path with a customer.

Ask them for a quick review as soon as they finish a transaction with you. Ask for longer, more detailed answers via surveys and questionnaires. They help you understand what the customer expects from you, what you’re doing right, and what needs to improve.

You can plan your next interaction with them accordingly. You can even remind them if something is customized just for them based on what they said in their previous interaction. This helps you gain their trust and loyalty as they see the effort you’ve put in. 
When sending in any sort of survey or questionnaire to a customer, make sure that they are not too time-consuming or vague. The customer should be able to fill them quickly and with the answers that a targeted. Such as, rating the experience on a scale instead of describing it in words.

7. Reward their loyalty

Identify customers that have been interacting with you for a long time or have shown you continuous support. Reward them with exclusive offers. Let them know that you recognize their support and are rewarding them for it.

It makes them feel seen and appreciated. It’ll increase their loyalty toward you. They’re likely to purchase more from you as well as recommend your business to others. Think of exciting ways to reward customers and increase their loyalty.

You can invite customers to special events or let them know about new products in advance. You may send samples of new products to get reviews from them that you can publish on your website or social media.

8. Train your employees

The way your employees interact with your customers plays a crucial role in the relationship they have with your business. Training your employees in customer relationship management ensures that they deal with customers most positively.

It will help them resolve customer issues and engage with them better. Don’t just limit employee training to their job roles but also soft skills such as problem-solving and active listening to help the customer feel heard and seen.

Nurture positive relationships with customers by empowering them

Customer relationship is the backbone of any business. Businesses need to cultivate positive relationships with their customers to make them engage with themselves repeatedly. 

Provide value to them at every step of your interaction, enable and empower them to serve themselves, and reward them for their loyalty to build a strong relationship with your customers. Masure their satisfaction and ask them how you can improve your services in the future.

Let us know in the comments how you think a business can ace its customer relationship management and build a strong customer base.