Customer relationship management (CRM) is so much more than an application it’s also an overall strategy toward better client service. Here, are five cutting edge strategies toward customer centric strategy.
1. Understand Your Customer Life Cycle
According to the book ” The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business To Market Itself” by John Jantsch, the customer lifecycle should go like this:
1. Like
2. Trust
3. Try
4. Buy
5. Repeat
6. Refer
While there are other forms of the customer life cycle I like this one for its simplicity. Once you understand the customer lifecycle in this simplistic form, then you’ll realize that this lifecycle is the goal and CRM is how you get there. CRM is how you get people to like you enough to trust you, and try your services or product and then buy something, buy more things, and then tell others about it.
2. Know Who Your Customers Are
By knowing who your customers are, you can better decide on the products and services they need to improve your offerings, as well as how to provide the right kind of customer service. Do your customers use Smartphones and / or social media, do they like email for customer service, what are their preferences? In addition, what sex are they, how old are they, and what are their hopes and dreams. All of this is important, so that your business can provide the very best customer care possible.
3. Organize Departments Around The Customer
Today, it is important to organize all departments around the customer with the customer’s experience in mind. From acquisition to turning them into a cheerleader for your company, a plan must be set in motion from the start. If you find a way to integrate sales, ordering and customer service you’ll go far in making your customer the center of your business. Study best practices within your market to determine the best way to turn every department into a customer centric department.
4. Remember Pareto’s Principle
This is also known as the 80/20 rule. What this rule or principle says is that 20 percent of your customers (or work) is providing for 80 percent of your sales or profit. In other words, just a few of your inputs, usually 20 percent account for 80 percent of the outcome. When you realize that, you understand that it’s essential that you are able to get the most out of the 20 percent of your client base who will support your entire business. These are the people who are going through the entire customer life cycle including the last one, and are usually your biggest cheer leaders.
5. Wash, Rinse & Repeat
Within the customer life cycle listed above, there are three main areas of the customer cycle. They are: Acquisition Opportunity, Retention Opportunity, and New Sales & Cross-sell Opportunity. If you know what stage each of your clients are in, then you can better offer them appropriate assistance. Always know the stage any client is at, in order to offer truly customer centric service. The really awesome thing about a cycle is that it repeats. When you get it down pat, and it’s working, you simply keep repeating it from the very beginning of your funnel.
Another important thing you can do to learn about CRM as a software and as a strategy is to read books such as GetApp’s free EBook: Powerful Customer Relationship Management For Small Business. You can download it free, without giving any identifying information. It’s packed full of important information to help you choose both a strategy and suitable software.
