The Power of Managing Relationships
One question trumps almost every other when it comes to building a profitable business – How is your relationship with your customers?
The current economic environment is saturated with options targeting the consumer market. Consequently, the challenge facing businesses today is no longer about simply attracting attention. It’s about starting a conversation.
Customers long to feel recognised and understood by the brands they patronise, while business owners are desperate to sell their products. This is where Customer Relationship Management (CRM) comes onto the scene.
Over the last few years, effective CRM practices have transformed from a useful tool to a central component of successful business strategy, capable of setting you apart from your competitors in an overflowing market.
The right strategy can satisfy your customers’ desire to feel important and heard, while also saving you precious time and money on misfired sales and marketing efforts.
Ask yourself ‘how is my relationship with my customers?’. If you don’t like your answer, now is the perfect time to make some changes.
There are 3 fundamentals to consider throughout this process.
1 – Start the Conversation
Making your prospective customers feel important is a great foundation for building and maintaining a long-term relationship.This starts with your marketing messaging.
Finding the right tone and delivery for your messaging can seem time consuming. This is especially true when customers have learned to expect more personalised communication efforts than ever before. However, it is a necessary step to identifying who your customer is in order to ensure you are reaching the right people at the right time.
In this instance ‘messaging’ is in direct correlation to how your business speaks about itself while effectively nurturing your target audience. Through the use of ‘Key messages’ – statements used to generate materials for your marketing communications – you will able to provide a more tailored experience for your customer.
With the right CRM, resolutions can be handled for multiple customers, at the same time, via implementation of tailored marketing automation and chatbot programs. Improving your support processes ensures no customer enquiry goes untended.
2 – Use The Right Technology
Attempting to build and maintain effective relationships, with enough customers to sustain your business, can leave you no time left to keep operations running. Consequently, going the Do It Yourself route is not necessarily the most effective method to implementing CRM for your business.
Instead, consider taking advantage of the best modern technology available to you and its advanced data management capabilities. For example, most CRM’s can capture potential customer (Leads) information through forms directly linked to your website or social media account. The better CRM’s drop these Leads into a funnel for the sales team and/or directly into a marketing nurture sequence etc.
The possibilities are virtually endless and with the right foundation a good CRM will scale with your business as it grows.
3 – Manage Your Workflow
With technologies continually improving, managing your relationships, with anyone associated with your business, has become easier and more comprehensive than ever before.
In the race to find and develop to new customers, the fastest, most advanced technological methods are winning. There has never been a better time to invest in a tailored CRM system that can help you build a loyal customer base. Thus, process optimisation, by means of an effective CRM, is vital.
These systems are capable of capturing business processes, manage leads, and create reports on lead sources and key revenue streams with a few clicks of a button. Where, previously, time-consuming processes were a serious threat to the success of your business, now, the automation of these processes frees precious time and resources for more value added tasks.
If you’re looking for a way to simplify your business operations without losing out on the opportunity to create loyal customers, our team has the knowledge and expertise to help you implement the ideal solution.
At Relevate, we understand the importance of ensuring that no customer is left behind or forgotten.
