With the steady increase in online sales, traditional Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is being transformed by the Internet. For those companies who want to survive in this new, highly competitive environment, now is the time to design a comprehensive e-CRM strategy to create an interactive mutually beneficial relationship with their customers.
What is e-CRM?
To quote the magazine CRM Today, “E-CRM is not just customer service, self-service web applications, sales force automation tools or the analysis of customers’ purchasing behaviours on the Internet. E-CRM is all of these initiatives working together to enable an organization to more effectively respond to its customers’ needs and to market to them on a one-to-one basis.”
In other words, e-CRM embraces many aspects and its definition rather depends on who you ask. It can be just traditional CRM with an “e” in front of it, that is, using the Internet to do what all companies have been doing since time immemorial, although with many unarguable advantages. It also covers the analysis and mining of customer data for profiling, marketing and other purposes. Then is it also about customer contact management and community building using digital means. Last but not least, there is the factor of personalisation, be this active, passive, inferred, in real time, etc., or creating that interactive mutually beneficial relationship with your customers to increase conversions and streamline sales.
What are the advantages?
It is time-saving, highly flexible and more accurate than traditional CRM methods, and most importantly it improves customer retention. In a world where your competitors are just one click away, building customer loyalty is of utmost importance, especially when taking into account that satisfaction does not always go hand-in-hand with loyalty. The personalisation factor is also essential: e-newsletters, online promotions, e-mail announcements, reminders and “thank you” notes, polls and questionnaires, the list goes on.
Things to bear in mind when implementing e-CRM strategies
When implementing e-CRM strategies, there are certain factors that should be taken into account. First and foremost, you must know your customer. This, like most e-CRM strategies, is a long term objective, since customers are very sensitive about providing personal data, particularly if there is no fair payoff. Probably the first step that ought to be taken is to channel all data capture channels into one customer database to get that all important “single view”.
Understanding customer needs is also of crucial importance, as these should constitute the keystone of future marketing strategies. It is also important that customers feel that they are being accompanied though each step of the purchase process from planning to post-sales feedback; fluid communication is the key. Then there is the trump card: to build strong customer loyalty, companies must offer a service or product well above customer expectations
The crude reality
Generally speaking, it costs 4-6 times more to attract a new customer than to retain one.
