Customer relationship management (CRM) is quite a broad concept because it encompasses so much. It can also get confusing because the term is used to describe different things, like:
– customer management strategies
– a business function
– customer management systems and solutions
The simplest way to understand CRM is to look at your friend circle.
It is like having friends…
According to a Gallup study, 84% of people have at least 3 friends. So, chances are you have at least 3 people in your life you consider trustworthy companions. As a friend, there are to special things you need to keep track of to nurture your friendship. This includes things like:
– your friend’s name
– basic details (e.g., Where they live or come from)
– birthdays/anniversaries
– get-together dates
– conversations
Now, if you have 3 different friends, you must remember all this information for each one of them. On top of this, you need to remember each friend’s unique personality, taste, and behaviour traits. As well as treat each friend accordingly so you can have a good, long-term relationship.
How to remember it all
That is a lot of information to remember and manage. If you try to use your human memory to track everything, you are likely to forget or confuse details, and who wants a friend who always forgets special events or conversations?
You can alternatively put everything on a spreadsheet, so you do not miss anything. However, spreadsheets take long to create, fill in, and continuously update. Spreadsheets also lack the ability to alert you about upcoming or past events in your friends’ lives.
Today, you can use apps and digital calendars to track important dates, moments, and even conversations with your friend. This allows you to know:
– When to communicate, see, and plan things for, and with, your friends
– What is needed to keep your friendship going
– Why your friend can/cannot do certain things
– How to best manage your friends as individuals
All of this helps you build strong, successful relationships with your friends.
Now look at the story above again and replace friends with customers. This is CRM.
CRM is about relationship building
Customer Relationship Management is about tracking and managing information and interactions with your customers so you can have a strong business-customer bond.
It helps organisations:
- streamline processes,
- build customer relationships,
- increase sales,
- improve customer service, and
- increase profitability.
However, the key function of CRM is to nurture your relationship with your customers. Why? It is simple: because people spend more time and money on businesses (and friends) they believe understand them and can be trusted.
Just like with your friendships, there are different approaches to building a better connection with your customers, and similarly, automated solutions seem to be the most efficient when managing these relationships. We may not know what solution works best for making people better friends, but we can assure you that Consnet has top CRM solutions that will improve your customer relationships for the better.
