CRM as a fundamental process
The customer is the foundation of any business’ success. No doubt all we need in any business with a long-time vision is customer relationship management. Considering customers at all stages of the marketing process helps to ensure greater customer satisfaction and loyalty. Furthermore, It enhances its long-term goal of repeat business. Only customers create value; You might have all the inventory in the world or create all the products in the world, but if you don’t have a customer, you don’t have the business indeed.
Not only Software but a long-term Process, Communication, and Relationship
Many believe CRM is just a simple/complicated software, while CRM Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process. A combination of practices, strategies, and technologies throughout the customer life-cycle, to improve customer service relationships and assist in customer retention and driving sales growth.
How to design it in simple steps:
1- CRM vision.
Look at your company vision, missions, and fundamental strategies. It will help you to define and determine a vision for your CRM plan.
2- Identify Your Value Proposition & Target Market.
Ensure you know exactly who the target markets are (this is more than just customer demographics), and consider a clear value proposition.
3- Classify customers’ profiles in priority.
You can do it based on three factors: Recency, Frequency, Monetary (RFM). We will later talk about it in detail.
4- Define your CRM strategy and consider Costs.
Appropriate CRM strategy increases the sales force productivity, while at the same time, it decreases the already risen sales costs.
5- The customer experience (CX – CEM).
CX is the result of every interaction which is between you and your customers, from navigating the website to talking to customer service and receiving the product/service they bought from you. Everything you do impacts your customers’ perception and their tendency to keep coming back or not. For the beginning, Illustrate an overall CX picture for every customer.
The best formula to deliver breakthrough customer experiences is to sit where ever customers sit, to see whatever customers see, and to think the way they do. Thereafter, you can count the other side of the Formula (=) which is what they will Do!
6- Organizational collaboration.
Various departments of a company, such as sales, technical support, marketing, and others share any information they collect from interactions with customers. Collaboration and teamwork make an important contribution between different organization depts.
7- Sharpen the relationships (CRM process).
We should manage not only the process of the customer life cycle (welcoming new customers, handling inquiries and complaints, and winning back lost customers) but also build knowledge of the customer. Processes need to be clearly defined, carefully set out, and consistently followed. It also needs to be monitored daily to ensure success. Furthermore, processes can be changed, and if a process is not working, you need to change it.
8- CRM Technology
You must be committed to managing your data and information, your applications, and your IT infrastructure and architecture. Many believe they should choose software at the beginning. I sincerely recommend not to do that before having any knowledge about: who you are? Who your audiences are? What exactly are your job activities? And what do you need?
9- Metrics
Frequently measure both internal and external indications of CRM success and failure and make corrections as necessary. Data is the most important factor in the world of CRM. Always ask this question from your self: Are we managing our metrics effectively?