Every great business starts with a strong relationship; if your goal is to build a sustainable business, then constructing solid relationships is critical. Building a solid relationship begins with you!
The means to establishing, maintaining and cultivating these relationships is your customer relationship management (CRM) strategy. Regardless of what products or services you’re offering the interactions you have with clients are essential to growing your brand. One area that can assist in your strategy is CRM software, which helps you pinpoint, trace and manage your interactions with new, existing and potential clients. It will also provide insight into numerous aspects of your relationships with clients, partners and vendors.
Here, BlackEnterprise.com identifies four ways you can stay in touch with customers using CRM software:
Manage Contacts
Superior contact management means that you can capture and track all of the numerous ways to connect with your clients. In addition to standard contact methods such as direct mail, email and telephone, many CRM solutions integrate with social media, so you can contact your clients through Twitter, Google+, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Interaction History
It’s important to know how many times and what methods were used to communicate with your clientele. CRM software programs include a “History†function that will compile all of this data for you, letting you know who needs to be contacted and the preferred methods of contact.
Research Clients & Competitors
Many CRM solutions integrate directly with social media platforms which means you can gather data to tailor your offerings to their needs, as well as review the methods in which your competitors are marketing.
Account Management
Being able to view all of the activity relating to a client on one platform, including proposals, marketing methods and communication, will allow you to seamlessly plan and customize outreach efforts for an individual client or group of clients. There are hundreds of software companies that provide customer relationship management tools.
Below you’ll find several CRM software provider suggestions:
Infusionsoft
Infusionsoft is a full-scale CRM and marketing tool targeting small and medium size businesses. It provides support for product information, sales transactions, marketing, lead tracking and development.
Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM comes equipped with customer relationship life-cycle management software for managing inventory sales and marketing in a single system. The platform allows for mobile integration and offers a free version exclusive to entrepreneurs and startups.
Salesforce is an online, web-based CRM application that runs in “the cloud,” allowing users to manage and perform nearly every detail of their job.
Batchbook is a great choice for small organizations looking to create relationships with customers. The software enables the creation of a customer relationship history, social conversation tracking and staff tasking, plus it can integrate with multiple third-party applications like MailChimp.
S. Lynn Cooper is a Washington, DC-based digital strategist and communications expert. Cooper is the founder and director of Socially Ahead, a strategic communications agency that specializes in the creation of social and digital strategies and campaign management. Follow her on Twitter at @sociallyahead .