5 Ways Using CRM Software Boosts Sales Through Positive Customer Experience
January 29, 2024
Did You Know?
Positive experience is, by definition, a result of meeting or exceeding expectations. Therefore, it’s impossible to craft a positive customer experience without knowing who your customers are and what they expect.
Positive customer experience leads to increased order value, return sales, and recommendations, all of which boost your sales.
To understand who your customers are and how you can craft an offer that they’ll find irresistible, you must use the right tools. One of these tools is CRM software and here’s how it can be of assistance.
Understanding your customers better
Imagine talking to a friend or a family member that you know very well and trying to convince them to give this new TV series a try. You would probably open by mentioning a few things that you know they like that are in the series. You would also make a comparison between that series and something else they’ve watched and liked. If there’s an actor that they liked in one of the previous series, you would be sure to bring that up.
The reason why this works so well is because you know the person you’re talking to. You know their preferences and even have some historical examples of what worked best. With the help of a CRM platform, you can get that same persuasion advantage.
The thing is that CRM monitors user behavior while on your site and even tracks where they came from. It shows you what categories they were interested in, what kind of filters they used when picking a product, and even which product page they viewed the most.
We’re talking about a complete insight into what makes them buy and what makes them drop the purchase before completion, which is known as shopping cart abandonment. This way, you can figure out a better approach and boost these numbers in the future.
Improved customer retention
The most important thing that you can use insight gathered from CRM for is customer retention. Why is this so important? First of all, according to some estimates, it costs five times less to convince an old customer to make another purchase than to convert a new customer.
According to numerous surveys, about 80% of your entire profit comes from just 20% of regular customers. Not only are return customers cheaper for conversion, but with each new visit, their trust in your business grows, which encourages them to spend more money. This is why, on average, with each return visit, the average value order increases.
A good CRM platform will give you retargeting insights and even automate this process for maximum efficiency. The best part is that it, for the most part, does this passively (without much need for your involvement).
What you need to do is pick the right CRM platform, set the parameters, and do the best you can with it. There are many great CRM options here, and picking any one of them is a great idea. Still, you need to conduct a bit of research to see if the platform has all the features that you’re looking for.
Great opportunities for retargeting
Retargeting customers is an incredible way for a quick and effortless profit boost. All you need to do is follow up with a customer who made a purchase and thank them. You can potentially ask them to fill out a questionnaire or offer them something else.
Keep in mind that this retargeting needs to be done strategically. First of all, you need to time it right. For a lot of people, there’s a monthly limit to how much they’re comfortable spending from one paycheck to another. So, waiting two weeks can make a difference between them buying instantly or not burying at all.
Second, you always have an opportunity to sweeten the pot. Let’s say that they’ve been looking at this particular item several times already without making a purchase. Now, all you have to do is reach out to them and tell them that it’s on a discount or a limited-time offer. They’re clearly interested; they just need a bit of a push.
The last thing you can do through retargeting is boost your upselling and cross-selling. Just reach out to them with an offer for a similar item or a complementary item. Maybe they bought boxing gloves the last time, so now, you’re reaching out to them with discounted mouthguards, shinguards, or hand wraps.
For any of this to work, you need to know what to offer, how to make an offer, and when to offer it. CRM can give you answers to all of these questions.
Streamlined sales process
CRM is automating so many processes, even vital ones like data entry, follow-ups, and lead nurturing. This means that you won’t miss out on potential opportunities.
It also means that your sales team doesn’t have to be mangled in tasks that can easily be automated. Instead, they can focus on actual relations with potential customers, finding new leads, and engaging with potential partners. Instead of spending most of their time on data entry, they could be actively closing deals.
Process automation is more important for productivity than you think. It’s not just about the time and effort put into this process. It’s also about the fatigue. A salesperson won’t perform the same after four consecutive hours of data entry as if this task was the only thing they had on the plate for the day. In other words, it gives you all the benefits of outsourcing without actually having to outsource anything. A true win-win setting.
Another thing that makes this even more effective is the fact that you can integrate the CRM with virtually any other tool that you’re using. We’re talking primarily about your ERP and accounting software. This way, you also get an insight into the macro scale of your sales performance and the way it affects your profitability.
More efficient customer segmentation
An ideal customer journey (from the customer’s perspective) is the one where, every time you make an offer, it’s the exact thing they need. They never go to the home page, but the link leads straight to the category that they’re the most interested in.
People are lazy and self-centered, which means that they want to see content that’s made for them and not much else. So, how do you ensure that everyone sees the portion of your offer that’s meant for them? The simplest answer to this question is – more efficient customer segmentation.
You need to segment all your customers into groups based on their interests and demographics. This is not a simple matter but with the right CRM, you have better odds at figuring out which of your customers belongs to which group.
This will allow you to craft a unique customer experience for each of these segments and really make a difference.
Sales pipeline management
Sales don’t happen out of nowhere or in a vacuum. They start as leads and end up as closed deals with a lot of smaller steps in between. When you understand your customers and their behavior every step of the way, it’s much easier to make this sales pipeline run as smoothly as possible.
The first thing you need to understand is that customers want an odd combination of patience and speed. They don’t want you to push them too hard. In fact, ideally, they want it to be “their idea.” This is why SEO is such a great marketing technique – it allows your customers to find you “on their own.” At least, that’s what they’re convinced of.
By using CRM, you can use your existing customer base to analyze your current sales funnel and improve it for your future customers.
The amount of assistance you can get from this is just incredible. Lead tracking and lead scoring alone (both basic features for virtually every good CRM) are worth paying attention to.
Then, you get the advantage of customizing individual sales stages. With a well-defined customer journey like this, optimizing a sales experience can be a huge boost to your overall efforts.
More efficient marketing
No one will dispute that marketing has a direct impact on your bottom line. Understanding your customers will always result in superior marketing results. This is especially the case because your customers want a personalized approach. With all the customer data that you’ve managed to gather, there’s really nothing that can stop or slow down your marketing efforts for too long.
Customer segmentation allows you to develop multiple different messages and send them in different directions toward various segments of your target audience. Not only that but through automated marketing campaigns, you can ensure that no opportunity ever goes unused. Every CRM can be used to set up an automatic email marketing campaign, which is already a great thing.
CRM can also help you create much better content marketing. By understanding your audience better, you’ll develop a better sense of what they’re interested in, in general. This will help you figure out how to approach content creation, which topics to pick, and what kind of voice and approach they’ll appreciate the most.
The main reason why it works so well in marketing is the fact that CRM is developed with marketing tools in mind. This makes the integration simple and seamless.
Better sales analytics
With the help of CRM, you’ll get an insight into more than just your customers. What you’ll also get to see are your sales processes. A good CRM has a sophisticated reporting system. In fact, this is the most important thing about it. Through it, you get to pick up on trends relatively early on, track performance, and even get data-based insights.
One of the unexpected ways in which CRM can help improve your sales as a department is by doing a revenue and profitability analysis. Great sales don’t always mean great profit. A platform that takes into account acquisition costs and ongoing expenses related to these sales will help you understand your bottom line far better.
Another great thing about your CRM is that you can give access to this data and insights to everyone concerned. Your marketing team, sales team, and your executives can all benefit from the data gathered here. Why deny them a chance to use the best of it?
Understanding your customers always leads to better sales and customer experience
Understanding your customers is crucial to maximizing their value. For this, you need to understand who you’re dealing with, and the simplest way to get there is to use a CRM platform. With the right tool, you’ll get all the insights you need.
Most importantly, there’s no major task that you’re doing without a tool, regardless if it’s your accounting or your marketing automation. So, does it make sense to avoid using a tool for the process that matters the most – relationships with your customers? Those who were still on the fence now have a definitive answer on whether CRM is actually worth it.
