Customer experience is at the heart of every successful business, because after all, a business can’t exist without its customer base. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems enable companies to develop effective strategies for managing their relationships and interactions with clients, which in turn improves customer relations. 

Keep reading to discover the 5 main ways in which a CRM system improves your customer relations. 

1.Consistent and more efficient communication 

To put it simply, the faster your business answers a customer’s question or resolves their issue, the happier the consumer will be. Ensuring speedy and efficient communication is therefore essential for customer satisfaction, which is exactly what a CRM system is there to do. 

A great example of this is automated business responses which lets customers know that they’ve received their message. Within this (personalised) email you can tell them someone will be in contact as soon as possible. Your system can then automatically set you or a member or your team a task to call that person. This ensures that no customer enquiry is missed and impresses your customer with consistency and efficiency.

2. Stronger understanding of your customers

The fact that a CRM system allows you to have all customer information stored in one place makes it a super powerful communication tool. 

Not only does a CRM system hold up-to-date information like the contact’s full name, telephone number, home address and email, but also their relations to other contacts in your database, the language they speak, and even their birthdays, allowing your business to target them with the correct messaging.

Also, with the help of CRM you can save all activities, orders, live chat messages, email exchanges, invoices, orders, or customer service requests that a contact has ever been involved in. This allows you to better understand your customers’ problems, which in turn will improve customer service and satisfaction. For example, If there is a problem you need to solve for your customer, your representatives can retrieve all previous activity relating to that customer, to help you find a quick solution.

3. Better protection of data privacy 

With GDPR, it’s better to be safe than sorry. In order to comply with the data privacy requirements of the new EU regulation, it’s super important to have a CRM software that has inbuilt GDPR-related functionality. 

A CRM system can help you obtain and document your contacts’ consent to store and use their personal details, send automatic notifications informing new contacts that you would like to store their data and even set up rules to update personal details for groups of contacts – all at one time.

Doing this all manually will not only take up a lot of your time, but you also risk making mistakes. Having a CRM system do this for you is a quick, safe and reliable way to make your communications with customers GDPR compliant, which in turn builds trust as you handle your customers’ data with respect.

4. Better segmentation of contacts into target audiences

In sales and marketing, it is important to know exactly who your target audiences are. A CRM allows you to break down data by categories, making it easy to create focused lists, so you can see who is actually interested in your services, who is still not too sure, and who’s not interested at all. 

When you know who you’re addressing, you can consciously tailor your offer and sales pitch and run specific customer marketing campaigns.

5. It allows for more personalised communications

Not only does CRM allow you to automate messages, but it also allows you to personalise your communications. Customers today are favouring brands that feel like they listen to them, understand them, and pay attention to their specific wants and needs. That’s where personalisation comes in. 

Personalised communication is a way for brands to contextualise the messages, offers, and experiences they deliver, according to each unique customer. Using a CRM system, you have the ability to personalise your subject line as well as the email body automatically, which means your customer is more likely to open your email due to this personalisation and it builds an instant connection with them.

Written by Kate, on behalf of Datalyse.