Importance of good CRM for your business

Business CRM

Treating your customers right is essential. It's just too expensive to lose someone you've already connected with. Rather try to maintain the existing relationship and try to promote follow-up sales. This is why good CRM is so important. It’s an essential part of connecting with your customers, understanding what they want and even anticipating their needs.

Good customer service is about so much more than making sales. How we treat customers won’t stop there. They might tell their friends and colleagues about excellent service they received from you. But we don’t often hear stories of amazing customer care. Why is that? It’s because bad news travels fast. Consider this advice from hugely successful businessman and investor Warren Buffett: "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." It’s great advice and you’ll certainly think about how you treat your customers in future. So, here’s why good CRM is so important.

You’re more likely to sell to existing customers than to new customers

Selling anything to a new customer is far less likely than to an existing customer. The likelihood of successfully selling to a new customer is about 5 to 20 percent. But the likelihood of selling to an existing customer can be as much as 70 percent. So, hang on to your existing customers.

Good customer service means fewer other problems

By treating your customers well, you’re less likely to have other problems associated with your business. Think about it like this, if you go to a restaurant and struggle to be seated, chances are good you’re not going to be happy for the rest of your meal. But have a host show you to a table the minute you walk through the door and it’s a heck of a lot more likely you’ll enjoy your meal. Customer care, no matter your business, works in the same way. Treat your customers well throughout their buying process and you’ll be more likely to see them again.

Communicating with customers

It’s essential that you communicate with customers in the way they want to be reached. This means sending an SMS or email when they prefer that method of communication. The tone and style which you speak to customers in, is also important. As chatbots become more common, it’s important that your communication isn’t stilted or overly formal but calm and factual while being conversational. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, “You want to build momentum as you make your response and finish on a high note. This is called a ‘build up’. Whenever you speak to a customer, you want to confidently peak during the final sentence of your paragraph. You don’t want your voice to trail off, signaling uncertainty or lack of conviction.

“A critical aspect of every sales call is not necessarily what you have planned to say. Rather, it is how you handle the tough questions the customer asks you. Your question-handling ability is what separates you from the pack.”

Good CRM improves employee retention

Your employees will pay attention to how you’re treating your clients. After all, it makes sense that if you treat your customers badly, it's likely you’ll treat your employees badly. On the other hand, if you treat your customers well, they’ll feel proud to work for your company and they’ll want to stick around.

If you’ve been convinced that good customer care is important for your business, read our recent article about how customer analytics can improve marketing and CRM. It details how companies that use data in their marketing efforts can improve ROI by up to 20 percent.