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Developing CRM Strategies for a Better Customer Experience
Every business—regardless of size or industry—must prioritize the customer experience if it wants to succeed. “A positive customer experience is crucial to the success of your business because a happy customer is one who is likely to become a loyal customer who can help you boost revenue,” writes Jason Bordeaux in a HubSpot article. Statistics show that 95% of people who have had bad customer experiences share those stories with others, and up to 90% of buyers are willing to pay more for a product or service if the customer experience is top notch.
Clearly, customers care about how they’re treated, which means businesses must care about how well they treat their current and future customers. Companies seeking to improve the customer experience should invest in a customer relationship management (CRM) solution.
A CRM solution collects data from each customer’s touchpoints with a business—such as the company website, social networks, and live chats—and stores that data in a centralized repository. Team members then have a 360° view of all customers’ journeys, from first contact to ongoing support. This places customer contact, buying, and historical information at the fingertips of authorized employees, allowing them to provide informed and personal customer service—something today’s customers expect.
Dissecting Your Current Customer Experience
Of course, implementing a customer management system will not produce a strong customer experience on its own. Companies must align CRM software with existing business practices and educate employees on the benefits of using the new system.
Businesses begin this alignment and education process by analyzing their existing customer service strategies and looking at what is and is not working based on customer feedback. Providing an excellent customer experience is only possible when a company understands customers’ likes and dislikes and caters to these preferences.
Learning More about Your Customers
Meeting and anticipating diverse customer expectations requires gathering and dissecting a lot of information—but not just any information. To find out who their target audiences are and what they want, businesses need data about their customers:
- Demographics.
- Buying tendencies.
- Purchase histories.
- Customer service concerns.
- Product/service inquiries.
Such information—stored, organized, and updated in and by a single, comprehensive CRM system—helps businesses evaluate their current customer service strategies and correct any missteps.
CRM and the Near-Perfect Customer Experience
When data is trustworthy, insights crucial to providing a stellar customer experience are effective and actionable. But the fact is, no matter how stellar, there will never be a “perfect” customer experience. Customers’ interests and needs change, as do their expectations. What worked once may not work again. So, businesses must be able to learn from previous customer interactions while flexing to meet tomorrow’s trends.
The best way to provide a near-perfect customer experience in fluctuating circumstances is to implement a complete CRM system, like Acumatica.
How Acumatica Can Help
According to an article by Doug Johnson, the VP of Product Management at Acumatica, a customer management solution must:
- Be embedded in a cloud-based ERP solution.
- Provide a complete view of customer activity (e.g., written quotes, invoices, support cases, responses to marketing campaigns, etc.).
- Include integrated sales quotes.
- Offer a customer self-service portal.
Acumatica’s CRM solution fulfills these requirements and more. Doug writes, “Built into Acumatica from our cloud ERP solution’s inception, Acumatica Customer Management is not an afterthought. Our integrated CRM software contains the four ‘must haves’ described in this article. It puts all customer data in front of all team members, providing a 360° view of business activities, from financials and marketing to sales and customer service—and beyond.”
Ultimately, Acumatica helps businesses provide their customers with personalized service through real-time, error-free data. Patrick Madison (CFO, Korpack), an Acumatica customer and avid supporter of our CRM solution, says, “We use the Acumatica Customer Management Suite religiously to track opportunities and leads, and what’s going on with a contact, and we love that Acumatica integrates well with the Microsoft Office suite because we are also strong users of Excel, Power BI, and Outlook.”
To learn more about providing the near-perfect customer experience with Acumatica, contact our experts to ask any questions or schedule a demonstration of our award-winning cloud ERP software.
