Boost your Marketing Efficiency with Customer Relationship Management

 

Did you know? Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software can boost revenue by up to 29%, productivity by 34%, and sales forecast accuracy by 42%! The phrase CRM may be familiar to readers who are interested in marketing or managing an online store. Yet, what does CRM actually mean? How does it benefit your eCommerce? You will learn about CRM in this article, along with its primary uses and how it benefits eCommerce businesses. Moreover, you will discover various types of CRM platforms and comparisons to find the one that best meets your company’s needs!


Main Functions of Customer Relationship Management

A management system called customer relationship management (CRM) enables businesses to communicate with both current and potential customers. By examining past consumer data, CRM assists businesses in understanding target potential customers and how to meet one another’s demands. This improves customer retention, maximizes corporate sales revenue, and strengthens relationships between concerned parties.


HubSpot, Salesforce, and ActiveCampaign are some of the relatively famous CRM applications. Their main features are as follows.

  • Contact management
  • Interaction management (tracking emails, calls, etc.)
  • Customer analysis
  • Automation 
  • Integration of various platform systems, and so on


Furthermore, here are some common Customer Relationship Management key features.


(1) Data Analysis

Typical Excel Spreadsheets can only store static data, such as a person’s name, email address, phone number, etc. On the other hand, CRM can include other data like conversation history, documents, notes, activities taken,  and so on.


(2) Contact Update

CRM removes the inconvenience of manual updates by automatically updating contact information when actions are made and data is provided.


(3) Information Flow

Data may simply flow to the sales and automation engine of the online store.


(4) Lead Scoring

Ranking leads based on their interaction with your business is a practice known as lead scoring. You can simply distinguish between qualified and unqualified leads by giving scores to each lead based on multiple attributes. Retailers can prioritize high-quality prospects with the aid of a lead scoring tool. Assigning values to significant and insightful data points allows you to figure out who’s really interested in the product and who’s just shopping around. You may perform automatic scoring based on different indicators set for your online store.

hubspot lead scoring system


(5) Task Reminder and Tracking

Automated task reminders


(6) Segmentation and Personalization

Create tags for contact types and actions completed to avoid manually sorting information and making lists.


Helping Your Business Grow Through Customer Relationship Management

How CRM can help online stores grow their businesses is the most crucial question. Here are four advantages of implementing CRM for your eCommerce business. Feel free to review whether these are appropriate for your requirements.


(1) Provides better customer support

Customers of today anticipate quick, personalized assistance at all hours of the day or night. Online retailers can offer the high-quality services that customers want with the use of a CRM system. The eCommerce’s customer support team may easily check what items consumers have ordered and obtain a record of every interaction. With this, they can also swiftly offer consumers the assistance they require. Customer Relationship Management can improve the experience of your consumers in terms of support, service, marketing, and more.


(2) Segmentation and personalization

Customer Relationship Management enables online retailers to provide consumers with the appropriate information at the opportune moment. You can send emails and texts based on recent customer activity by connecting CRM to sales and marketing automation solutions.


Assume a customer simply clicks a promotional link sent to them by an online retailer without taking any further action. A compelling customer success story can be included in a follow-up email after the salesperson marks the prospect as “re-engaged”. After that, the online store can choose sales representatives to call and engage with them further.


All information in the CRM database can also be used to develop lasting relationships with customers through personalized messaging. Online retailers can use marketing automation to personalize emails sent to customers at scale by extracting data from CRM.

Online retailers can easily deliver personalized messages based on consumer status, thanks to tag and contact list functionalities.


(3) Higher visibility

For eCommerce businesses, Customer Relationship Management offers the most significant visibility. Centralizing all prospect and customer data in one location makes it easier for team members to switch account owners. Every piece of information on a person or business is kept and is accessible.


Sales representatives can see exactly what the prospect did and create personalized discussions to persuade them to take the next step. For instance, sales are aware that potential buyers watch the online store’s teaser videos and success stories. The following time they speak with customers, they can suggest that they join up for a webinar or consultation to learn more.


CRM can also enhance sales management visibility. To efficiently manage the whole sales pipeline, sales managers can readily track the actions and results of individual sales representatives.

 we saw crm

All pertinent information about a customer is easily accessible through the note-taking and tagging features of VIMOS CRM. Other team members can then follow up on the next move and learn the customer’s preferences, purchases, and inquiries.


(4) Testing improvement

Testing is the key to improving your marketing. Online stores can test nearly anything with the help of a robust marketing CRM. This covers various promos, SMS messaging, advertisements, the frequency of calls to prospects, and so on. Test data, not merely intuition promoting optimal profitability, shows which choice performs best. In addition, according to Salesforce research, the introduction of a CRM platform has shown to yield truly effective results. Moreover, CRM applications have a proven track record to increase:

  • Conversion Rates, Sales Efficiency, and Customer Satisfaction by more than 35%
  • Sales Increase up to 30%
  • Faster Decision-Making by 38%
  • Revenue growth of above 25%


Further reading: Enhancing Customer Experience By Integrating Technology and Humanized Service


3 Categories of Customer Relationship Management

CRM systems can be broadly divided into three categories: Collaborative, Operational, and Analytic. Each kind is made to handle particular procedures linked to maintaining customer relationships and preserving customer data. This includes automating processes related to sales, marketing, and customer support, recognizing and utilizing consumer trends, etc.


(1) Collaborative CRM 

Collaborative CRM, also known as strategic CRM, centralizes customer information so that marketing, sales, and service professionals can access it. Service representatives can be more ready to assist customers in solving problems! This is possible if they understand all customer communications, purchase histories, service requests, notes, and other details of the eCommerce. Collaborative CRM can even take automatic action based on this information to speed up service.


Interaction and Channel management are the two components of collaborative CRM. The former keeps track of all communications with customers, including what and how they are transmitted. This can be by email, in-person, social media, etc., as well as any customer records. Through the information gleaned from interaction management, the latter chooses the channel of communication with customers.


Since this data is spread throughout the organization, each department can respond to customers as necessary. For instance, a car dealership’s service department may use sales and marketing information, such as when the vehicle was sold. To proactively help customers make appointments for yearly maintenance, this can also include their preferred method of communication.


(2) Operational CRM 

With operational CRM, sales, marketing, and customer service representatives can delegate repetitive, tiresome paperwork to the computer and concentrate on what they do best and enjoy.


Operational CRM streamlines prospect identification procedures for sales and marketing departments. Monitoring customer interactions is another. Others include predicting sales, creating and analyzing marketing initiatives, and more. Sales representatives can therefore devote more time to forging deep connections with customers. Simultaneously, marketing experts can use customized communications to speak to particular audiences.


(3) Analytical CRM 

Customer Relationship Management analytics gathers customer data from several sources to identify trends that are invisible to the human eye. This aids businesses in recognizing, comprehending, and utilizing customer patterns and behaviors. Insights acquired can be utilized to increase lead generation and conversion, create more effective marketing efforts, and improve customer service. Additionally, it can support with tasks like budgeting, reporting, and pipeline and sales forecasting.


Further reading: Enhancing Customer Experience By Integrating Technology and Humanized Service


Comparison of Customer Relationship Management Platforms

You might be wondering what kinds of CRMs are more prevalent on the market after learning about several CRM categories. What are their different functions and how much do they cost to use? To assist you in selecting the CRM that best meets your needs, the table below compares six popular CRMs.

Customer Relationship Management Platform comparison

How to choose the right CRM for you

Online retailers can select a CRM application that meets all their business requirements. They can consider the crucial elements stated below before making that choice.


Usability

Online retailers frequently hesitate to employ new technology because their workforce is not accustomed to or at ease with it. Your staff will be more inclined to use a CRM if it has a clear interface and a great user experience.


Scalability

CRM needs to be able to expand along with the team and the business if you have an aggressive year-over-year growth target. This is done through integrating with any third-party programs you might be utilizing, supporting extra modules and custom processes, and more.


Security

You may stop worrying about the security of your online store by using a cloud-based CRM with a safe data center. Manage your business without being concerned about jeopardizing consumer information!


Customization

Every industry has unique requirements and processes. In line with this, the ideal CRM for your eCommerce requirements can be easily customized to meet your goals. To represent the business process of your eCommerce, you can create custom procedures, add new modules, automate repetitive tasks using workflows, etc.


Mobility

Today, many sales teams are more accustomed to accessing customer data on various mobile internet devices including smartphones and tablets. Adopting a mobile CRM is crucial if sales teams want to complete deals quickly and keep everyone involved. One of them is VIMOS, which lets you handle sales interactions on several platforms including WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram whenever and wherever you prefer. Multi-person collaboration boosts productivity and promotes business expansion.


Migration

It’s crucial to ensure that you can import data into your new CRM program and resume operations as soon as feasible. This is especially true if you use another CRM or all of your data is on Excel spreadsheets. Make sure that the migration procedure is quick and simple to execute when thinking about a new CRM.


VIMOS, the preferred e-commerce platform for small and medium-sized enterprises

If you are a startup or SME operator, you might wish to think about a CRM platform that is:

  • cost-effective
  • easy to install and implement
  • has complete after-sales support


The elements mentioned above will help you gradually build your own eCommerce business. #1 Retail Marketing in Hong Kong, VIMOS, is unquestionably the platform of choice. In order to help first-time eCommerce users to stay within budget, we don’t just offer very low prices. We offer specialized services to assist you in creating significant physical and online business prospects. Consider the example of remarketing to learn how VIMOS might benefit your online store.


Customers who view or inquire about a certain product but do not purchase it are a common occurrence for retailers. Perhaps the consumer has questions regarding the product and the customer support is unable to provide enough information. The online store must be able to actively answer to any form of query. Retailers must actively offer promotional deals to entice customers to place purchases right away!


Due to a lack of sales representatives, some online stores might not be able to widely implement the “remarketing” strategy. However, you can actually perform remarketing if you use the “tagging” and ” WhatsApp broadcast” features of VIMOS. With this cost-effective customer relationship management platform, remarketing can be as easy as pie! Take a business that operates a beauty store as an example. After a customer inquires about a specific service, the salesperson can fill in the remarks in the customer information column. Salespeople can use the tags to quickly classify consumers.

whatsapp customer relationship management


Next time there is a pertinent promotion, you can retrieve the customer data using labels. To encourage customers to finish the transaction, you can utilize the WhatsApp Broadcast feature to send them promotional messages.



Further reading: ​​CRM System Manages Customer Relationships


Use VIMOS Customer Relationship Management Service Plan

If you are still seeking for a user-friendly and affordable CRM system, VIMOS is a fantastic option! All types of small and medium businesses and online stores that utilize WhatsApp Business to engage with customers can benefit from the customer care solution of VIMOS. This feature enables 24-hour customer assistance, multi-user log-in, and synchronous customer response that greatly improves work efficiency. Additionally, it can assist businesses in promoting the newest member discounts, activating team functions, and following up with actual individuals whenever and wherever they like!


WhatsApp auto-reply after-sales service without waiting

  • Reduces waiting times, attends to customer issues right away, and dramatically improves customer happiness and loyalty.
  • Chatbot 24/7 to handle after-sales service
  • Automatic messages enable visitors to independently leave relevant information to increase response effectiveness.


Multi-person login to improve work efficiency

  • By designating the most qualified salesperson to handle inquiries whenever they arise, you can get around the bottleneck of customer service. Employees can carry on with business as usual even if they are unavailableMulti-person logins,  let team members take over conversations at any time
  • Real-time tracking of staff workload and conversation quality


WhatsApp broadcast remarketing without manually saving phone numbers

  • Add corresponding tags to guests to personalize messages, improve publicity efficiency and effectiveness, and broadcast in batches with one click
  • Official WhatsApp Business API, reliable and safe from the account being banned
  • Add interactive buttons to broadcast content to improve affiliate promotion
  • Easily gather customer feedback


Interested in applying for a WhatsApp Green Badge or integrating your WhatsApp Business account with a CRM system? Book an appointment for a VIMOS Product Demo and enjoy a free 7-day trial afterward! Make haste and have a 20% discount when you book the annual plan.