Customer service knows that the customer is king. CRM tools are the key to understanding your “king” and allowing your service teams to deliver the royal customer experience your customers deserve.
Everyone agrees customer loyalty is important. Where we part ways is how to get it. Building customer loyalty requires connecting the right customers with the right products and services. We can spend all of the time we want in developing products and services, but if we can’t connect the solution with the right customer who needs it, we’ll get little from our efforts.
In our quest for the best customer service experience, we have to optimize customer service and arm our service team members with the technology to make a service impact.
CRM tools aim at making it easier for organizations to manager customers, customer data, customer preferences, and more easily connect the needs of customers with the offerings of the organization. With CRM software, organizations can effectively communicate with customers, track customer actions and preferences and deliver the right service to solve the right customer problem.
Effective customer service CRM needs organizing, arranging and interpreting data to meet customer needs.
1. Use CRM to improve customer service collaboration
CRM has to create better working teams, teams that collaborate to make customer service better. A common frustration customers experience is information repeat, disconnected people and departments. CRM software is built to eliminate this customer frustration. If your CRM software isn’t doing this, you need to evaluate why you’re using it. CRM software isn’t for the call center experience, it’s for the customer experience.
2. Use CRM to help customer service make better decisions
CRM software has to improve the decision making ability of your customer service team. Customers often hit barriers with customer service teams that have massive amounts of customer data available, but no power to make decisions for the customer. Imagine having a computer connected to the Internet, but no keyboard to actually search for anything online.
CRM software HAS to help call centers and customer service teams make information customer management decisions. CRM software can help analyze data and patterns and offer suggestions for courses of action. CRM software should plan suggested customer actions, upgrades, marketing plans, account updates, product changes, etc.
3. Use CRM to assist customer service teams build unity
CRM software has to bring all of your team members and other organization departments together, allow them to work together, and facilitate the access to and action based on customer data. The larger the organization, the more complex the internal customer service support structure. But even with complex organizations, service action can remain simple and effective.
The key is to use the available technology to empower team members and unite them in the cause of the customer.
Using CRMs effectively means:
- Effectively qualifying the right type of customers for the services you offer.
- Effectively targeting customers with the most pertinent solution that they need.
- Understanding customers and where they may be in the buying process.
- Enhancing the effect of marketing actions by reaching those most ready for your solution.
- Adapting to customer habits to deliver an exceptional customer experience.
- Confirming customer behavior vs. initial organization expectations.
Are you seeing your CRM tool in a totally different light now?
Are you treating your CRM tool with the respect it deserves? A CRM tool isn’t just software to manage customer contact information. It’s a powerful tool that should be integrated into your customer service process.
You’re exactly right that CRM is more than just a contact info stash; it’s such a powerful strategy and tool but needs to be used to it’s fullest.
It’s a shame CRM software out there is so complicated and tedious that the majority of users don’t even know what they have or how to use it.
If you’re on a CRM software that you aren’t using all of the above for and don’t know how to start, my suggestion is find a simpler CRM solution and get on it.