Real-Time Customer Relationship – Your customer is busy. Their lives are fast-paced and they have a world of options – literally – at their fingertips. Your customers expect everything “now”
When your customer is used to instant gratification, real-time response is considered normal.
CRM software has the power to collect data about the customer’s buying process and set up automated responses to respond to evolving customer behaviors and preferences. Automated triggers guide the sales lead through your sales process in a very individualized way with data-driven decisions based on lead information that is always fresh, accurate and complete.
Customer Satisfaction
Nothing promotes complete understanding of the customer’s needs, wants and concerns
better than responding to customer feedback. Your
CRM software can easily collect the feedback and set up notifications
to manage and act upon the feedback received.
Team members are a great source of customer feedback. Encourage them to record comments from in-person conversations, telephone calls and email. Implement other feedback loops with comment cards, social networking and web forms.
When you offer an engaging customer experience it rapidly builds loyalty. Using customer feedback analytics, your CRM software can be set up to respond immediately and automatically. One way a customer can be satisfied when they have complained is to receive an automated letter acknowledging the customer’s negative experience. According to the level of frustration, the letter can include a voucher or coupon.
CRM Software Ecosystem
The immediacy of the customer experience puts demands on your CRM system under
three categories:
- Operational: Supports business functions such as lead management, ordering, sales, invoicing, marketing and customer service
- Analytical: Involves the capture of data, plus storage, retrieval and
interpretation of the customer data. - Collaborative: Coordinates communications and collaboration between
team members, vendors and customers.
The dependence on real-time data has become integral to the success of business today. Without the timely accumulation of information and immediate response to what you learn, you lose in competitive advantage in today’s marketplace. All three of the categories need to be ready to respond with current information.
For example, when the sales department has a full view of the buyer path to a purchase, yet lacks the information about how the sales lead was developed in the marketing department, fewer sales will result. In fact, when the collaboration aspects of the CRM are lacking, a customer may get different pricing or promotional information, according to which person they talk to.
Benefits of Real-Time CRM
Gathering feedback and responding to customer’s needs is more than finding out about a customer’s needs and addressing them adequately. It is a cumulative understanding about all customers’ needs, wants and issues. It also helps identify shifting trends and patterns that will contribute to business success.