How Your CRM Can Win You Loyal Customers
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Through the decade, customer choice has boomed in every business and industry. From bags to lipsticks, cash on delivery or via credit and cars to heavy machinery, consumers are flooded with countless choices that change how businesses play to attract customers and draw sales.
In today’s world, customers are more educated about products and services. An excellent and winning marketing strategy is not anymore about focusing on helping the vendor to sell. It is helping the customer buy. There has been a power shift from the seller to the customer. Now, the marketing people and the business owners need to view their activities from a different perspective, and that includes viewing their CRM with different perspectives too.
Making your brand stand out against others is a true challenge. Do you know what is more challenging? It is making your customers come back again after they made their first purchase.
In modern times, CRM is used by companies to analyze customer purchasing behavior to generate new leads. On the other hand, business owners and marketers fail to recognize how CRM is useful to retain existing customers and enhance customer loyalty. How can we keep customers on coming back?
To keep up with its competitors, businesses have to make drastic changes to their marketing strategies. CRM is not anymore used just only for managing sales and leads. Even though this capability is still one of the essential tools of modern CRMs, today, the most successful businesses are using CRM as a loyalty and relationship management tool.
Why companies should focus on customer loyalty?
Jeffrey Gitomer, a successful author, and businessman, once said in his book, “Customer satisfaction is worthless, it is the loyalty that is priceless.” Every business should apply this statement in this competitive market.
In marketing, gaining new customers is much more expensive than maintaining an existing one. That is why business owners and marketers have to focus more on their existing customers.
Some loyal customers become willing advocates of your brand. That means it will save you more time and money and generate more sales as they recommend your product or service to their family and friends.
Consumers are more likely to trust brands that are recommended by existing users. 70% of millennial trust brands that are influenced by their peers. Brands that brag about their own product are no longer trusted by the market these days.
Progressive companies of today focus more on thriving to build a long-lasting relationship with its clients and customers with a well-implemented CRM system that helps them do exactly that. Here are ways on how your CRM can help you win loyal customers.
1.Engage and Interact
Companies allocate more time and effort to engage with potential customers. Meanwhile, they forget to interact with existing ones once they have made their first purchase. This is one of the major restraints in establishing customer loyalty. As a matter of fact, 79% of customers in the US often choose brands that keep in touch with them.
The ultimate key to establish a relationship with the customer and earn their loyalty is by making them feel valued by keeping closer communication with them. A CRM system enables you to store customer data such as contact information, birthdays, anniversaries, previous conversations, and more. These data can be used to stay connected to them and will make them feel valued and thus will encourage loyalty to your product or service.
Your CRM system enables you to set reminders about a customer’s birthdays and other events in their lives. When your email marketing tool is integrated into your CRM software, you can send automated emails to greet your customers on special occasions. You can also send promos and incentives like a discount voucher to make them feel more special.
You can also ask customers feedback on their recent purchase through email. By this, you will know how to improve your product or services. Some companies even give incentives to customers who answer their survey. The customer will feel valued since you still engaged with them right after they made their purchase. This strengthens their trust in your brand even more.
2. Know Your Audience
CRM allows you to gather real-time information about your customers. As customers change style and preferences over time, the data you previously gathered is most likely to change as well after they make their first purchase. Gradually, people switch jobs, change houses, and build new relationships. With CRM software, you can keep track of all these changes in the lives of your customers and use them to your company’s advantage.
For instance, you own a coffee shop in different cities, and one of your loyal customers moves to another city. You can welcome them into their new location by emailing them a discount voucher or some gift certificates that they can use at the nearest outlet.
CRM also enables you to divide your customers into different categories based on relationship status. This capability will allow you to create customized and send special offers targeting a specified category. This allows better customer engagement such as campaigns. With CRM software, you can personalize your communication based on customer data.
CRM systems help you observe customer interactions like tracking their emails, purchase history, and web clicks. You can use this data effectively to create targeted marketing campaigns and deals.
One of the classic examples of tracking customer data and effectively utilizing it is KFC’s loyalty app which is the Colonel’s Club. Customers can earn stamps if they download this app with every purchase. In exchange for these stamps, customers can claim free rewards. The Colonel’s Club app can also track a customer’s location, style, and purchasing habits that enable the company to create geo-specific deals.
CRM also allows you to re-engage with inactive customers by providing you historical data that helps you know customers who have not purchased from your brand in a while. You can give them special offers and discounts that will bring back their interest in your brand. By this, the chance of them using your product or service again increases.
3. Conduct Surveys
CRM allows you to create automated surveys asking for customer feedback that is very helpful for your business. Your customers will feel that their satisfaction is your brand’s priority.
The feedbacks give you insights on how you can improve the quality of your product or service that ensures superior customer satisfaction. Your customers will then notice that you respond to their appeals that make them feel that you care for them.
4. Improved Customer Loyalty
CRM systems enable you to manage customer loyalty when you integrate loyalty programs in the form of memberships. Establishing rewards for loyal customers strengthens their trust in your brand.
You can generate creative rewards for your loyal customers as CRM enables you to track customer history and behavior. Reinforcing your relationship with customers who show their trust in your product or service is the main objective in creating these rewards.
Just like Sephora which is every woman’s haven has a customer loyalty program called Beauty Insider. The program offers free rewards in the US and Canada that let customers earn points on all purchases and redeem those points for rewards. The rewards include free makeovers as well as free shipping.
CRM today is not anymore just a tool that gathers data and generates leads. It has become one of the most effective systems to gain trust and customer loyalty. It provides insights to help you improve the quality of your product and the satisfaction it gives your customers by tracking the data customers provide. As a business owner, you should keep in mind that customer loyalty is your company’s most valuable asset.