跳至正文

How to Build Customer Relationship During Critical Situations with CRM?

How to Build Customer Relationship During Critical Situations with CRM?

Customers are the best marketers for a business. A happy customer not only comes back for your services over and over again, but they will also bring in a lot of other people through personal recommendations. So, it’s imperative to offer them excellent services and build a good relationship. A good customer relationship can help businesses understand their customers better and earn brand loyalty. 

E-commerce business is a very competitive space.  There are several businesses out there who might be selling the same products as you at cheaper prices, better offers, or offer faster delivery. Even in such cut-throat competition, you can still hold your customers and ensure brand loyalty through effective Customer Relationship Management or CRM.

What is CRM?

What is CRM?

You must have heard the term CRM quite often, but what does it actually mean?

CRM is the process through which businesses interact with their previous,  existing as well as future customers. This process is extremely necessary for a business as it helps them improve customer service, increase sales and profit metrics. 

While off-line businesses require limited effort, e-commerce may involve more extensive tools and processes for CRM. These tools help e-commerce businesses with user data analytics such as user buying behavior, their preferences, best selling products, etc. These data can help businesses know about their customer choices and offer them choices accordingly. 

On larger aspects, CRM can also impact key business areas such as product planning, acquiring new markets,  planning future products, and ways to pitch future customers better.

Components of CRM

CRM components

CRM can broadly be classified into three major components based on its functionality.

1. Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation helps businesses in easing out major marketing processes by making them easy and efficient. CRM as a marketing automation tool can automate repetitive marketing processes. These include e-mail marketing, social media campaigns,  or publishing marketing information on social media. Marketing automation can also help in customer engagement on social media. Effective marketing automation can help convert a sales lead into a customer. 

2. Salesforce Automation

Salesforce Automation helps a business in identifying prospect clients, approaching them, and converting them into customers. Modern salesforce automation tools used in e-commerce also tracks user data analytics, account history, buying patterns, etc. This information helps the business in making future plans. It makes sales planning, repeating a sale, coordinating the marketing sales force, and offering better customer care services simpler.

3. Customer Service Automation

Customer service automation includes providing automated customer services such as knowledge bases, telephonic assistance, email assistance, ticketing portals, FAQs, etc. Customer service automation as a component of CRM. It helps businesses in building a strong relationship with customers during pre and post-sales.

8 Best CRM Practices in Businesses

If you wish to build a strong relationship with your customer’s and earn their loyalty, here are some of the key CRM practices:

1 . Get to know more about your customers. 

2. Tailor your communications.

3. Try to exceed expectations through customer support. 

4. Be consistent and timely in your interactions.

5. Seek feedback and show you genuinely care.

6. Establish trust.

7. Make them feel appreciated.

8. Keep your customers notified about the things they are interested in.

Role of CRM in Crisis

CRM in crisis

Life comes with its uncertainties and every now and then, businesses may be affected by it. Having a strong relationship with customers makes it easy for businesses to survive such crises and come out stronger. 

2020 was one such crisis that put the world to a stop and took us all by surprise. Almost the entire world was under lockdown for most parts of the year, and businesses were struggling to survive the pandemic. It was a  time when most people were going through hardships and depression.  Showing a little empathy towards their customers and helping them get through the situation had earned my businesses a positive brand image and loyal customers.

Here is an example of few such brands.

When the pandemic hit India in March 2020 and a sudden lockdown was declared, e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart came forward to support their customers. They reached out to their customers and made sure that all demands of essential items are fulfilled with the highest priority. Other e-commerce platforms such as Zomato, Swiggy, and Dunzo moved out of their niche areas and offered their platforms to fulfill the demand for all essential commodities.

In doing so, these brands the love and appreciation of many and also earned itself a large mass of loyal customers.

SocialEpoch as Your CRM Tool

SocialEpoch CRM tool

SocialEpoch is a WhatsApp SCRM tool that provides complete marketing solutions and helps businesses with marketing, salesforce, and customer service automation. Social epoch as a CRM tool finds its utility in multiple domains such as e-commerce, retail, real estate, logistics, entertainment healthcare, and more.

It allows businesses to connect with their audience through personal Whatsapp conversations.

When integrated with WhatsApp Business, businesses can use up to 5 accounts simultaneously to reach out to their customers. Features such as group link generator, auto-reply, data synchronization, multi-language support, quick replies, and other marketing tools make it one of the best CRM tools for all kinds of businesses. 

With that, hope you are aware of the importance of CRM and how it can help in business growth even during a crisis.  Make sure you make every effort to connect with your customers at all times. Socialepoch makes this extremely easy for you to always stay connected with your customer base and work effectively with your sale, marketing, and customer care services. So, go ahead, and make your business shine through at all times.